WO RD OF MOUTH

Word of Mouth
Fama and Its Personifications in
Art and Literature from Ancient
Rome to the Middle Ages

GIANNI GUASTELLA

1
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 Preface

This book was born from the fascination I have always had with the mysteri-
ous way in which news and also many stories arise and take shape, spreading
across a vast, anonymous web of communicative exchanges by ‘word of
mouth’ before they acquire a kind of stability (which reaches its peak in the
fixed form of written texts). Even when we tell each other what is happening to
us or around us, or discuss an event that is occurring far away, that same
elusive word often carries out an important role, as it is the most practical
and effective way to transfer information in contexts governed by informality
and mutual trust. The magmatic evolution of news and stories through the
exchange of talk passed along by word of mouth is therefore one of the most
common and indispensable communicative experiences in which we are
engaged on a daily basis, yet it also passes by almost unnoticed when not
being outright disparaged. This is unsurprising in a society like ours, which—
in spite of the revolution caused by the technological innovations of the last
fifty years—continues to assign an absolute, paradigmatic value to the written
word. In this way, orality is relegated to one of the minor forms of commu-
nication despite its important and pervasive role in the exchange of all kinds of
information. Moreover, speaking is an act that can only be subjected to precise
and detailed observation with difficulty; because of its ephemeral nature, it has
long been excluded from the group of sources that people can trust when
reconstructing events—especially past events. Speech can generally be treated
as a document only if it has been reduced to a fixed, reproducible form,
through writing or another recording technique: in other words, only if it
has been made to become something other than itself.
For me, studying what the Romans called fama primarily means attempting
to look beyond the stability of written texts—although this is inevitably done
using those texts—to the dynamic universe inhabited by ‘word of mouth’. At
the very least, it can help us understand what kind of value writers in antiquity
assigned to information that is passed along in this way.
Subjecting this topic to a systematic study would have been unrealistic, not
only because of the intangibility of the trail left by ‘talk’ in ancient texts that
have reached us, but also due to the staggering variety of the testimonies
available for consideration. I found a reliable anchor for my research in two
great personifications of fama, which attempt to give ‘body’ to this intricate
tangle of circulating talk: Virgil’s monster, which spreads rumours about the
relationship between Dido and Aeneas, and the ruler of the chaotic palace
where Ovid imagines all the news in the world gathering. In both cases, the
vi Preface

figures are very different from the emblematic Fama that appears in countless
works of art from the fifteenth century on: I am referring to the well-known
winged female figure who soars into the air and uses her golden trumpets to
spread the fame of illustrious men. Explaining how ancient representations of
Fama and this figure of celebrity differ was a later step in my research. The
root of this difference lies within the very meaning of the Latin term fama,
which can indicate the two separate fields of rumour and renown, linked by
the same mechanism that diffuses information (speaking, fari). In this book,
I have concentrated on the foundational schema born from these different
realms and their personifications, which gave way to an enormous number of
variations throughout literary and artistic tradition.
In studying the core figures of Fama, I hope to have at least succeeded in
offering an interpretative key useful for anyone who wishes to tackle the
diverse panorama of its later representations. Despite the many scholarly
contributions that have recently been dedicated to this subject, the theme of
fama remains inexhaustibly complex. To fully observe the unpredictable
pathways along which word of mouth travels, it would be necessary to
successfully break into Fama’s fantastical dwellings. But this is something
only artists can achieve. Just think of Chaucer, who projected an image of
himself onto the character of ‘Geffrey’, brought to the House of Fame in a
dream; or of the composer Beat Furrer, who staged his work FAMA (2005),
transporting the audience to the middle of a kind of sound theatre directly
inspired by Ovid’s House of Fama.
It is a pleasure to extend my gratitude to everyone who has supported me
during this project over the past few years. I would like to begin with
Alessandro Barchiesi and Salvatore Settis, who believed in the value of my
project, encouraged me to work on it, and helped me bring it to completion.
During various stages of this book’s development Stefano Anastasio, Ilaria
Betocchi, Mino Gabriele, Ilaria Marchesi, Simone Marchesi, Paolo Pirillo,
Leonardo Romagnoli, Manuela Rossi, and Vera Silvani generously advised
and helped me to locate documents, edit the chapters, select images, and
obtain reproduction and translation rights. I would also like to thank Sonia
Cavicchioli and Alessandro Pagnini, who discussed parts of my project with
me; and, in particular, Roberto Bartalini and Anna Buia, who read these pages
and provided me with opinions and observations that became indispensable
for better focusing various aspects of my argument. I received some invaluable
comments and useful bibliographical suggestions from Grazia Maria Fachechi,
Laura Gibbs, Nicola Lanzarone, Sonia Maffei, Tiziano Manca, Francesca
Mencacci, Gabriella Moretti, Roberta Mucciarelli, Emanuele Papi, Paolo
Ponzù Donato, and Antonio Stramaglia. My most sincere thanks to all of
them. I also wish to thank the two anonymous readers from Oxford University
Press who gave me advice that helped me rework parts of this book.
 Preface vii

Of all the institutions that enabled me to carry out my research, the

Warburg Institute Library was, without doubt, the most important for me.
Even in an age dominated by the infinite richness of interconnections made
possible by the Internet, Aby Warburg’s classification system remains a
formidable tool of inspiration and support for interdisciplinary research.
This book was originally designed and written for an Italian audience.
I wish to extend special thanks to Erin Brady, who not only translated my
original text, but also regularly discussed it with me, considerably improving
its structure and helping me to make the presentation of my argument clearer
in several ways. I am also sincerely grateful to my sister Manuela, who helped
me edit the text and bibliographical references and to Virginia Catmur for her
precious help proofreading and copy-editing.
A book like this one, which discusses the hidden and inexhaustible vitality
of talk, is also continuously enhanced by countless conversations with friends
and students over the years. It is impossible to account for this dense network
of contributions and ideas, which often inadvertently became mine even as
I lost track of those who suggested them to me. I wish I could properly thank
everyone who discussed the various themes of this book with me, but all I can
do is apologize to them if, after all this time, I was unable to remember exactly
how they contributed to this project.
Finally, I must express my gratitude to Silvia, who helped me give shape to
many of the reflections I propose in these pages using the very same intelli-
gence, generosity, and inexhaustible energy with which she gives meaning to
my life each day. Without her, this book could never have been written. It is
dedicated to her.
G.G.
Florence
31 December 2015
 Contents

Illustrations xi
Abbreviations xv

Introduction 1
0.1. Hendrik Goltzius, Fame and Virtue (1586) 1
0.2. Πρόσωπον/Persona 5
0.3. Forms of Fama 9
1. Flying Information 13
1.1. Movement in Space 13
1.2. Winged Bodies, Divine Messengers 20
1.3. Ἔπεα πτερόεντα: The Flight of the Word 30
1.4. ‘Ce télégraphe est un mystère social’ 35
1.5. An Uncertain Point of Departure, No Destination 43
1.6. Mysterious Testimonies 48
2. Lat. Fama 53
2.1. Fama a fando dicta 53
3. True and False 67
3.1. In Court 67
3.2. A rumoribus, contra rumores 76
3.3. Fama, nomen incerti 83
4. Producers and Performers of Rumour 91
4.1. Modern Theories on Rumour and Gossip 91
4.2. The Multimedia Transmission of Information 100
4.3. The Instability of Rumours 108
4.4. Fama and rumor 115
5. Authority 125
5.1. Auctor 125
5.2. Believing Someone’s Words 134
5.3. A Curious Messenger 147
6. Giving Rumour a Body 153
6.1. Homer, Hesiod 153
6.2. The Cult of Φήμη 159
6.3. Fama Embodied 167
6.4. Fama Disembodied 177
x Contents

7. Beyond Death 185

7.1. Fama and gloria: Cicero, Boethius, Augustine 185
7.2. ‘Vana Gloria’, ‘Gloria Mondana’ 204
7.3. ‘Passan vostri trionfi e vostre pompe’: Petrarch and Glory 220
8. Giving Glory a Body 251
8.1. Figures without Iconographic Models: Glory and Vainglory 251
8.2. The First Images of Modern Fama: The Glory of
Illustrious Men 262
8.3. The Image of Worldly Glory 274
8.4. From the Triumph of Gloria del popol mondano to
the Triumphus Fame 282
8.5. A Composite Triumphal Scenario 303
9. Contaminations 319
9.1. Figurative Contaminations 319
9.2. Integrating Rumour and Glory 331
10. Chaucer, House of Fame 355
10.1. A Pagan Majesty 355
10.2. Fame and Fortune: A Capricious Judgment 365
10.3. Where Tidings Are Born 372
10.4. A Playful Fictional Universe 379
Conclusion 385

Bibliography 391
Index Locorum 425
General Index 433
 Illustrations

0.1. Hendrik Goltzius, Fame and Virtue, 1586. © Trustees of the British
Museum. 2
1.1. Paris, Musée du Louvre. The Berlin Painter, Zeus Sending forth
Hermes and Iris, red-figure stamnos from Vulci (G192, Beazley
201979), 480–470 BCE. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/
Hervé Lewandowski. 24
1.2. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Unknown artist, Nike of Samothrace, late
third–early second century BCE. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 29
5.1. Diagram of Jakobsonian communication functions. 151
8.1. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Barb. Lat. 4076, fol. 85r
(detail). Gloria. © 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by
permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all
rights reserved). 257
8.2. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 2077, fol. 165v
(detail). Inanis gloria and Timor Domini. By permission of the
Bibliothèque nationale de France. 258
8.3. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 8318, fol. 54v
(detail). Vana Gloria. By permission of the Bibliothèque
nationale de France. 259
8.4. Siena, Palazzo Pubblico. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Bad
Government (detail). Vana Gloria. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 261
8.5. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 6069 F, fol. 1r
(detail). Altichiero (?), Glory and the Illustrious Men. By permission
of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. 264
8.6. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 6069 I, fol. 1r
(detail). Altichiero (?), Glory and the Illustrious Men. By permission
of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. 266
8.7. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Clm 10268 fol. 37r (detail).
The Sun and Phaeton. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze/bpk, Bildagentur
für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin. 268
8.8. Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni. Giotto, Last Judgment (detail),
1303–5. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 270
8.9. Assisi, Basilica superiore di San Francesco. Cenni di Pepo
(Cimabue), Scene from the Book of Revelation, end of the thirteenth
century. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 271
8.10. Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie. Anon. Neapolitan, Stories from the Book
of Revelation (detail), c.1340. © Photo Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. 273
xii Illustrations
8.11. Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek. Hs. 101, fol. 2r (detail).
Triumph of Glory. By Permission of the Universitäts- und
Landesbibliothek Darmstadt. 275
8.12. Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana. Ms. 1129, fol. 33r. Apollonio
di Giovanni, Triumph of Fama, post-1461. By permission of the
Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze. 277
8.13. Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale. Zanobi Strozzi, The Triumph of
Fama. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and
Activities (MiBAC)’—Pinacoteca Nazionale—Bologna. 285
8.14. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Strozzi 174, fol. 12r
(detail). Apollonio di Giovanni, Triumph of Glory. By permission of
the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further
reproduction prohibited. 288
8.15. Aureus of the emperor Tacitus. Siscia mint (275–6 CE),
RIC 5 74, p. 333. © Trustees of the British Museum. 290
8.16. Aureus of the emperor Diocletian. Siscia mint (284–305 CE),
RIC 5.2 295. © Trustees of the British Museum. 290
8.17. Solidus of the emperor Valentinian I. Antiochia ad Orontem mint
(364–75 CE), RIC 9 2(a)(ii). © Trustees of the British Museum. 291
8.18. Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni. Giotto, Justice. © 2015. Photo Scala
Firenze. 292
8.19. Florence, Palazzo Davanzati. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called
‘Lo Scheggia’, Triumph of Fama. By permission of the ‘Ministry of
Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further reproduction
prohibited. 293
8.20. Florence, Palazzo Davanzati. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called
‘Lo Scheggia’, Fama Chooses her Heroes. By permission of the
‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further
reproduction prohibited. 295
8.21. Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called
‘Lo Scheggia’, Triumph of Fama. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze—By
permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities
(MiBAC)’. 297
8.22. New York, Metropolitan Museum. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni,
called ‘Lo Scheggia’, Triumph of Fama. © 2015. Image copyright
The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala Firenze. 298
8.23. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Med. Pal. 72 fol. 84r.
Apollonio di Giovanni, Triumph of Fama. By permission of the
‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further
reproduction prohibited. 301
8.24. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 72 fol. 87v.
Apollonio di Giovanni, Triumph of Eternity. By permission of the
‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further
reproduction prohibited. 302
 Illustrations xiii
8.25. Assisi, Basilica inferiore. Maestro delle Vele, Triumph of
Saint Francis. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 307
8.26. Rome, Musei Capitolini. Relief of a monument in honour of
Marcus Aurelius. Inv. MC 808. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 309
2
8.27. Aureus of Octavian, RIC I Augustus 268. © Trustees of the British
Museum. 312
8.28. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Barberini diptych, first half of the sixth
century CE. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze. 314
8.29. Pisa, Camposanto Monumentale. Buonamico di Martino,
called Buffalmacco, The Last Judgment, 1336–41. © 2015. Photo
Scala Firenze. 316
8.30. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Français 594, fol.
178 v., Renown’s Victory over Death. By permission of the
Bibliothèque nationale de France. 317
9.1. Publii Virgilii Maronis opera . . . : expolitissimisque figuris atque
imaginibus nuper per Sebastianum Brant superadditis, Opera &
impensa Iohannis Grieniger: in ciuitate Argentensi, 1502, fol. 215v.
Fama. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, RES/2 A. lat. a. 292.a,
fol. CCXVv <http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00001879/
image_450> (accessed 1 August 2016). 321
9.2. Peder Hegelund’s Susanna og Calumnia, Udgivne af S. Birket
Smith, København, Thieles Bogtrykkeri 1888–90, 149. Calumnia. 322
9.3. Valencia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Biblioteca Històrica Ms. 837
(olim 748), fol. 111v (detail). Aeneas, Dido, and Fama. By permission
of the Biblioteca Històrica de la Universitat de València. 324
9.4. Valencia, Biblioteca Universitaria. Biblioteca Històrica Ms. 837
(olim 748), fol. 80v (detail). Aeneas Arrives at Dido’s Palace. By
permission of the Biblioteca Històrica de la Universitat de València. 325
9.5. Cambridge (Mass.), Ms. Richardson 38, fol. 135v (detail),
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Aeneas, Dido, and Fama.
By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. 326
9.6. Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, Sperandio Savelli from
Mantua, bronze medal for Andrea Barbazza (reverse) (inv. MCA
Num. 9956). Fama. 1479. By permission of the Museo Civico
Archeologico di Bologna. 327
9.7. Tobias Stimmer, Printer’s mark of Sigmund Feyerabend. Fama.
Frontispiece of Simon de Praetis and Petriantonius Lolius, De
Vltimarvm Volvntatvm Interpretatione Tractatvs Amplissimvs:
Divisvs In V. Libros: Hosque Partitos In Plures Interpretationes.
Francoforti Ad Moenvm, 1583. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
München, Shelfmark 13077338 2 J.rom.m. 197 <http://reader.digitale-
sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10146974_00005.html>
(accessed 1 August 2016). 329
xiv Illustrations
9.8. Vincenzo Cartari, Le Imagini Degli Dei degli Antichi, in Padoa
appresso Pietro Paulo Tozzi librario, 1608, p. 364. By permission
of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library,
Duke University. 330
9.9. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia Overo Descrittione Di Diverse Imagini
cauate dall’antichità, & di propria inuentione . . . , Roma, Appresso
Lepido Facij, 1603. Frontispiece. Courtesy of the Rare Book &
Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 332
9.10. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Urb. Lat. 899, fol. 119r.
Triumphus Famae. © 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by
permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights
reserved). 346
9.11. Segovia, Palacio Real de La Granja de San Ildefonso. ‘Los Honores’,
Fama tapestry (detail). © 2015. De Agostini Picture Library/Scala
Firenze. 351
10.1. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Reg. Lat. 1290, fol. 4r (detail).
Aeolus. © 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved). 369
 Abbreviations

DNP Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, ed. Hubert Cancik, Helmuth
Schneider, and others. 16 vols. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler (1996–2003)
KlP Der Kleine Pauly. Lexikon der Antike, ed. Konrat Ziegler and others. 5 vols.
Stuttgart (and Munich): Druckenmüller (1964–75)
LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, ed. Fondation pour le
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 vols. Zurich, Munich, and
Düsseldorf: Artemis (1981–99)
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. Theodor Klauser and others.
Stuttgart: Hiersemann (1950– )
RE Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. A. Pauly,
G. Wissowa, and others. Stuttgart (and Munich): Druckenmüller (1894
[=1958]–1978)
Roscher Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, ed.
Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher. 6 vols. Leipzig: Teubner (1884–1937)
ThLL Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Leipzig: Teubner (1900– )
 Introduction

0.1. HENDRIK GOLTZIUS, FAME AND VIRTUE ( 1 5 8 6 )

Hendrik Goltzius’s engraving Fame and Virtue (most commonly known as

Fame and History, Fig. 0.1) concludes the Roman heroes series, dedicated to
the emperor Rudolf II in 1586, which begins with the image of Roma
Triumphans. Between the opening and closing allegories, eight military
figures, from Publius Horatius to Marcus Calp(h)urnius, form a brief cycle
of Viri illustres. The heroic nature of this series is intended to highlight the
values of courage and abnegation. The exemplary figures included in the
sequence were drawn from the first decade of Livy’s Ab urbe condita and
from Valerius Maximus’s Facta et dicta memorabilia. Roman historical
works established the groundwork for the exaltation, via examples of hero-
ism from antiquity, of virtues that were embodied once more by the emperor
Rudolf several centuries later.1
The meaning of Goltzius’s allegory is revealed in the two brief poetical
compositions by the humanist Franco van Est (Estius): one is found within the
scene depicted and the second appears beneath it. The slab covering the
sarcophagus, which supports the book Virtue is examining, has a couplet
written on its edge:
Omnia morte cadunt, nescit mortem unica Virtus,
Solaque inexhausta Posteritate uiget.
Everything passes with death; Virtue alone ignores death.
She only enjoys an endless future.2

1
A high-definition reproduction of this image can be seen at the URL <http://www.
rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/RP-P-OB-10.333/faam-en-historie> (visited on 3 Nov. 2015). For a
discussion of this engraving, see Melion 1995, 1090–5 and 1103–5 (1127, n. 16 on the correct
identification of the personification of Virtue). Also see Neubauer 2009, 85–7. The series of
heroes includes Publius Horatius, Horatius Cocles, Mucius Scaevola, Marcus Curtius, Titus
Manlius Torquatus, Titus Manlius son of Torquatus, Marcus Valerius Corvus, and Marcus
Calphurnius.
2
Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own.
2 Word of Mouth

Fig. 0.1. Hendrik Goltzius, Fame and Virtue, 1586. © Trustees of the British Museum.
 Introduction 3

A longer poetic passage is found below the scene where the two allegorical
figures are placed:
Vita hominum breuis est, bullæ instar aquatilis exit,
Gloriaque illius ceu leuis umbra fugit.
Inclyta quin uirtus, et fortia facta priorum
Mersa chao æterno, sub tenebrisque forent:
Scæuola tu, Curtique, et Cocles, et alter Horati, 5
Essetis cineres, fumus, et aura, nihil,
Viuida Posteritas, et facti postera Fama
Ni ferat in lucem, et nocte latere uetet.
Te quoque, virtutemque tuam, nomenque tuorum
Et decus, ô Cæsar, Teutonicosque Duces, 10
Enthea Posteritas, et præpete Fama volatu
Per terras omnes, æquora, et astra vehent:
Imperium iam tot quorum virtute per annos
Nullam æui cariem sentit, et vsque viget:
Et stirps Troiugenûm Germanos nacta nepotes 15
Invicto priscos Marte tuetur auos.
The life of men is brief; it ends as a bubble of water does, and its Glory flees like a
light shadow. Even the noble virtue and valiant feats of the heroes of yore would
have remained submerged in eternal chaos and obscurity; you, Scaevola, and
Curtius, and Cocles and the second Horatius, would be ash, smoke, and a puff of
air, would be nothing, if a lively Posterity and Fama, following what happened,
did not bring you to the light, preventing you from remaining hidden in the dark.
A divinely inspired Posterity and Fama, with her rapid flight, will also guide you,
o Caesar, and your virtue, and the name and honour of your family, and Teutonic
generals all over the earth, the sea, and the constellations: thanks to the virtue of
every one of you, the empire does not feel the ravages of time and stays powerful:
the race of the original Trojans, with its Germanic descendants, safeguards its
ancient forefathers with the help of invincible Mars.
Everything revolves around the contrast between the fragility and brevity of
human existence and the ability of Fama to keep alive the memory of Virtue
and the great feats she inspired in the past.
Let us look in detail at the actual image. In a desolate landscape of
ruins there is a tomb, on which is etched the motto: ‘Pure (is) Virtue’
(ΑΚΗΡΑΤΟΣ Η ΑΛΚΗ). Near this, a process of rebirth bursts forth from
a book: the word ‘HISTORIA’ written on the latter’s edge reveals it to be a
historical work. The figure of Virtue remains firmly in contact with the
ground: her left foot has even sunk into a pit. She is surrounded by explicit
symbols of renewal. A stag is laying down its horns behind her, and ears of
corn are falling from her lap. A winged hourglass is suspended in the air
above her head, while a phoenix begins its new life, emerging from the
blazing pyre that Virtue holds in her left hand. A vital impulse originating
from the book that Virtue is reading seems to project Fama towards the sky.
4 Word of Mouth

Her feet have just left the lid of the tomb, not far from two symbols of death
(the skull and the bundle of hay). She has now spread her wings and is
blowing into one of the two trumpets she is holding.
The meaning of the whole scene is very clear. The great feats of the past are
called to life by Virtue, who looks through the history books for examples to
be emulated, in this way rescuing the names and glory of long-ago heroes
from death and oblivion. It is thanks to Fama that these feats are revealed.
Only Virtue knows nothing of physical deterioration, and through know-
ledge and imitation of the past she continues to recommend the exemplary
model set by the ancient deeds carried out by her disciples: Fama is her
messenger.
Goltzius’s winged figure represents a useful synthesis of the main themes
discussed in this book, which attempts to illustrate both the phenomenon that
the Romans implied with the term fama and the aspect that the personifica-
tion of this concept assumed, in literature and figurative art, from antiquity to
the end of the medieval period.
The engraving highlights the idea of the glory that accompanies every
gallery of illustrious men. It is clear that the link between the depiction of
Fama and the sequence of exemplary uiri illustres constitutes a crucial point of
the series presented to the emperor Rudolf. Renown, proclaimed by the blare
of a trumpet, survives beyond the confines of an individual’s life and renders
his name illustrious everywhere.
The conception of this figure (the winged woman using her trumpets to
honour someone’s name) can be traced back, at least in part, to a model
originally given form in the illustration cycles that accompany Petrarch’s
Trionfi in fifteenth-century manuscripts: in these illustrations, Fama regu-
larly appears as a sovereign (often winged) that greets (to the sound
of winged trumpets) the heroes and wise men around her who are famed
for their actions and deeds. However, Goltzius’s figure also introduces
elements—less obvious but no less significant—that recall another thread
of tradition. The eyes and ears that can be glimpsed among the feathers
of Fama’s wings are actually present in the description that Virgil gives us of
this character in the fourth book of the Aeneid. This Virgilian passage is the
first fully realized example of Fama’s literary personification to appear in
ancient texts: however, the figure mentioned is not one of glory, as in the
case of the Petrarchan sovereign, but a winged monster covered in eyes,
tongues, and ears, intent on spreading gossip about Dido’s new love to every
region of Libya.
We might say that, with its mixture of heterogeneous elements, Goltzius’s
Fama constitutes the unitary representation of a concept that, in both antiquity
and the medieval period, always kept two different semantic branches distinct.
In brief, we could define these as the branch of rumour and that of renown,
according to the subtitle that Philip Hardie recently gave his magnum opus on
 Introduction 5

the representations of Fama in western literature. In fact, the Latin term—

which recalls diverse forms of human communication, all associated with the
transmission of information achieved by ‘speaking’ ( fando)—may indicate
both the propagation of different types of news that pass by word of mouth
and the reputation guaranteed by the wide circulation of someone’s name. The
element common to all these forms of communication may be indicated by the
unmistakeable feature that characterizes the figure soaring into the air in
Goltzius’s engraving: wings. This ability to fly conjures the idea of ‘winged
words’ (thus described in a well-known Homeric formula), which spread
hearsay and rumours, but also the names and glory of honoured individuals,
everywhere.
Why is fama personified and represented in this way? In order to
respond to such a question, we must first attempt to understand the nature
of the social phenomenon from which the allegorical figure draws its
distinctive traits. In ancient texts, incredible speed and total pervasiveness
are perhaps the main characteristics attributed to the transmission of
information that the Romans designated with the term fama: a speed and
pervasiveness generally presented as so prodigious and inexplicable that
they seemed to have an undeniably supernatural basis. Consequently,
classical authors demonstrated a widespread tendency to think of fama as
a kind of vaguely divine agent whose rapid flight allowed it to overcome all
obstacles to the path of normal human communication and to transmit
knowledge of events and people far and wide. However, this extraordinary
efficiency of transmission was accompanied by the fundamental untrust-
worthiness of the information communicated in such a way: as the origin
and route of the complex chain of steps that achieved its dissemination
were almost never clear, it was reasonable to suspect that there may have
been malicious and all-too-human sources at the base of its circulation.
Consequently, there was a certain inclination to endow this phenomenon
with the ambiguous and worrying nature that characterized Virgil’s mon-
strous figure.

0. 2 . ΠΡΌΣΩΠ ΟΝ /PERSONA

The allegorical figures we are discussing personify, in various ways, a single

concept subject to different interpretations. But what exactly do we mean
when we use the term ‘personification’? Some clarification on this subject is
necessary before we begin to concentrate on the main forms given to an
abstract idea like fama between antiquity and the medieval period. When we
speak of ‘personification’, we are actually using a modern term and concept
6 Word of Mouth

that only partially correspond to the way in which the ancients classified this
kind of operation.3
In the ancient rhetorical tradition, from the fourth century BCE, the creation
of fictitious characters like the one that interests us was part of the rhetorical
device indicated by the term προσωποποιία, that is to say, the practice of
creating a mask—a ‘character’ (πρόσωπον)—to whom a voice is given. This
tactic allowed the orator to momentarily assume the role of another person
during his speech: for example, by pretending to split his personality and ‘talk
to himself ’, or by ‘playing the part’ of his adversary so as to present the latter’s
opinions in a powerfully communicative way. The most radical staging of this
tactic consisted in giving voice to imaginary and wholly unrealistic characters,
such as a figure from the past (an ancestor or a deceased person), the
protagonist of a renowned literary work (a comic or tragic character, for
example), a deity or a demonic being, or even an abstract entity (the home-
land, a moral quality). In this regard, Quintilian spoke of personarum fictio,
highlighting the fictional nature typical of this rhetorical instrument, which
introduced imaginary characters—to whom credible statements (appropriate
to their role and image) could be attributed—into oratory speech.4
In ancient terminology, persona and πρόσωπον were understood in the
specifically technical sense that theatrical or forensic language assigned
them: as ‘masks’, linked to precise dramatic and communicative roles, which
an actor or lawyer had to put on to play the part of someone else. In fact, the
rhetorical operation that we are discussing played a valuable role in theatre,
which had already been introducing entities of all kinds on stage, in the
form of actual characters, for some time. For example, in the comedies of
Aristophanes and Menander, as well as in the tragedies of Euripides, we
find characters like Polemos and Kydoimos (War and Din of Battle), Agnoia
(Ignorance), and Lyssa (Madness).
The creation of similar fictitious characters was also a very old literary
device outside of theatrical and legal practice. It had been used regularly in
poetry since the Homeric poems. Suffice it to think of the trio Deimos (Fear),

3
On the history of the term and concept of personification, see in particular Haworth 1980,
42–9, Whitman 1987, 4–6 and 269–72, Paxson 1994, 8–34, and Messerschmidt 2003, 1–4 (also
see Reinhardt 1989, 8–9).
4
See Quint. Inst. 11.1.39: ‘Verum etiam in iis causis quibus aduocamur eadem differentia
diligenter est custodienda. Vtimur enim fictione personarum et uelut ore alieno loquimur,
dandique sunt iis quibus uocem accommodamus sui mores’ (the reference is to the various
personae used by Cicero in the Pro Caelio): also cf. 9.2.29 and 9.3.89. Others, like the anonymous
author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, used the term conformatio to refer to the act of personam
(con)fingere (4.66): ‘Conformatio est, cum aliqua, quae non adest, persona confingitur quasi
adsit, aut cum res muta aut informis fit eloquens, et forma ei et oratio adtribuitur ad dignitatem
accommodata, aut actio quaedam . . . Haec conformatio licet in plures res, in mutas atque
inanimas transferatur.’
 Introduction 7

Phobos (Panic), and Eris (Strife), who, together with Ares and Athena, provoke
the battle between the Greeks and Trojans in the fourth book of the Iliad
(4.439–45). Figures like these regularly appear in the ancient epic and form
part of its traditional narrative heritage, but this is certainly not the only
context in which they can be found: they are actually present in all kinds
of narration.5 In fact, to illustrate the technique of προσωποποιία, Quintilian
cited (among other paradigmatic cases) none other than the Virgilian Fama,
Xenophon’s version of the archetypal tale told by Prodicus (where Hercules
must choose between Pleasure and Virtue), and the Ennian contrast between
Death and Life.6
Quintilian was referring to the invention of figures ( formas fingimus) that
‘dress’ a word in an animate body, transforming the concept expressed by that
term into an actual character. Visual arts as well as literature have frequently
resorted to this device: pictorial representation and narrative fiction possess
the ability to attribute form as well as an imaginary life and behaviour to
anything (animals, plants, objects, and ideas, just to name a few).7
The terminology that we use today to refer to some of the operations I have
just described was consolidated beginning in the eighteenth century, when a
rather specialized use of terms like ‘personify’ and ‘personification’ emerged.
These words indicate the creation of diverse human characters invented using
both rhetorical devices and pictorial images. The term ‘personification’ in
particular tends mainly to indicate the operation that Pierre Fontanier defined
in the following way, in the fourth edition of his Manuel classique pour l’étude
des tropes (1830):
La Personnification consiste à faire d’un être inanimé, insensible, ou d’un être
abstrait et purement idéal, une espèce d’être réel et physique, doué de sentiment et
de vie, enfin ce qu’on appelle une personne; et cela, par simple façon de parler, ou
par une fiction toute verbale, s’il faut le dire. Elle a lieu par métonymie, par
synecdoque, ou par métaphore.8
Personification consists in creating, from an inanimate, insentient being, or an
abstract and purely ideal being, a sort of real and physical being endowed with
feeling and life—that is to say, what we call a person; and this by way of a simple

5
The technique of personification in epics underwent a peculiar development in Rome,
thanks to the inventions of Virgil, Ovid, and Statius: see Feeney 1991, 241–9 and 364–91 (see
also Lewis 1958, 50–5), Hardie 1999, 95–7, and Lowe 2008.
6
Inst. 9.2.36: see Ch. 6, sec. 6.3.1.
7
An articulated presentation of the debate about personifications in Greek art can be found in
Borg 2002, 13–35 and 49–58 (also see Smith 2012, 443–4 in particular). Extensive galleries of the
personifications present in the Greek and Roman tradition can be found in the classic contri-
butions of Deubner 1903 and Webster 1954.
8
Fontanier 1968, 111. The introduction of the verb personnifier is commonly credited to
Boileau, who, in the eleventh of his Réflexions critiques sur quelques passages du rhéteur Longin
(1694), was the first to use it in the sense of ‘donner du sentiment, de la vie et des passions’ to
something inanimate (Boileau 1858, 491). See Paxson 1994, 171.
8 Word of Mouth
manner of speaking or an entirely verbal fiction, if it must be said. It is achieved
through metonymy, synecdoche, or metaphor.
By emphasizing the attribution of both life (vie) and the faculty of feeling
(sentiment) to these fictitious characters, Fontanier’s definition focused atten-
tion exclusively on the opposition between the animate and inanimate, and on
an idea of ‘person’ very far from what the ancient rhetoricians had been
indicating with πρόσωπον and persona.
The modern concept of personification is thus primarily designed to refer to
the transformation of inanimate beings or abstract entities into anthropo-
morphic characters. It is a very practical concept and term, especially when
used to refer to the construction of figures meant to represent abstract entities
in pictorial art (like the well-known Kairos of Lysippus), a practice also
widespread in Greek art since at least the sixth century BCE—although ancient
authors seemed strangely disinclined to give precise descriptions and defin-
itions of the creative process by which personified representations were shaped
outside the strictly literary field.9 Nonetheless, applying modern categories to
ancient culture is always a problematic operation, especially as Greek and
Roman art historians lack explicit definitions from the ancients. Consequently,
we must resort to complex and controversial classificatory procedures in
order to establish when we are dealing with a personification and when with
a deity.10
For the purposes of our discussion, it is unnecessary to insist upon the
difficulties that can cause the discrepancy between modern terminology and
ancient categories. Nor would it be useful, while speaking of personification, to
renounce the way Greek and Roman rhetoricians viewed the technique of
προσωποποιία or personarum fictio. In cases like the one we will study in this
book, the literary, dramatic, and figurative construction of a character has
produced a figure (forma, to return to the terminology used by Quintilian)
that ‘gives a body’ to a common noun, transforming it into a proper noun.11
The external aspect of this figure can be very effectively considered in the
same way as a persona, in the sense that the ancient authors gave the term: a
mask, linked to a precise role that it should play in the context it was intended
for.12 For example, a tragic playwright who wished to present the mask of the
mythological character Heracles to the public would have had to provide it

9
See Shapiro 1993, 12, Messerschmidt 2003, 1–2 and n. 5.
10
See Shapiro 1993, 12–29. I will not discuss theories about the remoter origins of person-
ifications or their organic relationship with the divine realm: on these subjects see Stößl 1937,
1042–8 and Pötscher 1972, and especially the classic contribution by Reinhardt 1989, and
Sauzeau 2004.
11
In cases like the ones we will study, we are not clearly dealing with a divine or demonic
figure, but with an allegorical construction designed to obtain a particular rhetorical and literary
effect, as both Quint. Inst. 9.2.36 and Macr. Sat. 5.13.31–3 assure us.
12
Fuhrmann 1979.
 Introduction 9

with distinctive features drawn from the stories of his feats (like the skin of the
Nemean lion), so as to facilitate identification. In addition, the mask would
have needed to be inserted into a narrative context compatible with all that
was already known about the hero. The writer or artist who wanted to give life
to a fictitious character like Fama had to do something not all that different: he
had to give her a form consistent with the concept that she was representing
‘concretely’ and from which she took her name, and then attribute a series of
verbs and animate predicates to her.13
For these reasons, throughout this book, when I use the modern term
‘personification’ I will primarily be referencing the creation of fictitious char-
acters that the ancients described in terms of personarum fictio. This will allow
me to stress the distinctive features of the external aspect (the persona, the
mask) that were attributed to such figures, as well as the actantial role assigned
to them in the narrative contexts where they appeared.14
In order to study the personifications of a concept like the one we will be
examining, we must first determine which characteristics of the phenomenon
were considered most important. Then we must attempt to explain what form
writers and artists wished to give these when they decided to make them the
typical features of their imaginary figures. In the case of fama, identifying the
functions that such characteristics carried out in narrative and pictorial
contexts will then help us understand the complex and versatile nature of
the impalpable communicative processes to which the Romans were referring.

0. 3 . F ORMS OF FAMA

Personifications of Fama attempt to give a fantastical form to the inexplicable

process that succeeds in rapidly disseminating all kinds of information every-
where, by following mysterious paths that allow it to overcome the barriers of
space and time. Most times, we come across the persona of a messenger with
vaguely divine features whose nature is sometimes dark and sometimes light,
depending on the information she bears. These fictional representations have

13
Gombrich 1971, 252 defined ‘the normal way of constructing an allegorical personification’
as the way ‘in which the nature of a concept is made visible by the attribute the figure displays’,
and hypothesized that this use may result from the fact that: ‘The images of Gods both in East
and West are nearly always marked by distinctive features which permit easy identification.’ See
Bloomfield 1963 (165–9 in particular) and Sauzeau 2004, 98–105 on the linguistic means that are
the basis for the construction of stories where personifications appear.
14
On the different actantial roles traditionally attributed to personifications, see Paxson 1994,
37–8. I will not delve into the distinctions of modern criticism, which proposed complex
taxonomies of the various allegorical forms present in classical and medieval tradition: see esp.
Frank 1953, 242–50, the seminal monograph of Whitman 1987, and Paxson 1994 (35–62 and
160–71 in particular).
10 Word of Mouth

made it possible to speak succinctly about something that is not visible, but
whose extraordinary power can be easily perceived. This supernatural medi-
ator’s rapid and far-reaching movement encompasses the intricate ensemble
of communicative exchanges behind the propagation of hearsay and the
temporal preservation of someone’s memory.
To illustrate the vast complex of cultural models at the base of such a
character’s invention, I will follow a process divided into ten chapters.
Chapter 1 will address—from a very general perspective—the theme of the
word’s ‘flight’ and the lability that characterizes the way hearsay and rumours
spread; I will show how the circulation of news and rumours is described, in
antiquity as well as modern and contemporary times, in relation to the
technologies available for the transfer of information.
In the following chapters I will try to illustrate the meaning of the Latin
term fama from a linguistic and theoretical perspective. I will discuss the two
semantic branches of fama—rumour and renown—which share a common
mechanism of diffusion, as well as the operation of this same mechanism.
After a rapid description of the semantic field encompassed by the Latin term
fama (Chapter 2), I will concentrate on the way in which ancient authors
(Chapter 3) and modern scholars (Chapter 4) described the spread of
rumours.
By offering a comprehensive portrait of the theories that, over the last
century, were used to attempt an explanation of how a series of communicative
phenomena (founded on the diffusion of hearsay) function, I hope to show how
the communicative mechanism discussed by contemporary scholars is effect-
ively the same as the one behind the circulation of what ancient authors called
fama. This will allow us not only to distinguish the main characteristics of the
phenomenon, but also to understand the reasons why this unique form of
communication seemed so paradoxical and elusive in the eyes of the ancients
(Chapter 5). This analysis will be a starting-point for the interpretation of the
distinctive traits that Virgil chose to assign to the first literary personification
of Fama known to us; it will also help us to understand the logic of the
sophisticated and ambiguous description of that same character in the twelfth
book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Chapter 6). In both cases we are dealing with
depictions of the way in which rumours travel rapidly around the world.
Chapters 7 and 8 will be dedicated to the slow process that led to the birth of
Fama’s modern iconography. Some explanation is required to show why the
figure of Fama was used to portray worldly glory. Initially viewed as two
distinct concepts, over time fama and gloria became terms that were often
used as synonyms; this synonymity played an important role in the develop-
ment of the long and complex debate about human ambition that began in late
antiquity. The reconstruction of that discussion will start with a rapid account
of how Christian ideology reinterpreted the opposition between true and
false glory already elaborated upon by ancient thinkers; we will then see how
 Introduction 11

Boccaccio and Petrarch reworked this cultural model in order to give life to
their personifications of Worldly Glory and Fama, respectively (Chapter 7).
The following chapter will focus on the birth of Fama’s iconography and the
cultural significance of the triumphal setting where this figure was originally
placed (Chapter 8).
The final chapters will be devoted to the ways in which artists and writers
contaminated the figures of Fama-Rumour and Fama-Renown with elements
of each other (Chapter 9). In particular, the study of Chaucer’s poem The
House of Fame, with its highly original way of reworking prior tradition
and giving new life to how ancient and medieval authors had imagined
Fama-Glory and Fama-Rumour, will allow us to review all the main themes
of this book (Chapter 10). In fact, Chaucer not only reallocated ideas passed
down to him from earlier allegorical descriptions (starting with those by
Virgil and Ovid) into new narrative combinations, but also found a way to
articulate his inventions that offered a profound reflection of the intricate and
unforeseeable paths stories must follow to become literature and persist
over time.
 1

Flying Information

1.1. MOVEMENT IN SPACE

1.1.1. The Flight of the Word and

the Pathways of Communication

Homer said that ‘words fly’, and we still say this today. However, the
anthropological distance between the culture of classical antiquity and our own
is something that must be evaluated and kept in mind. The ancients imagined
words ‘flying’ in very different ways and contexts from those we are used to in
today’s communication society, especially now that new transportation and
information technologies have altered the way we establish and maintain
contact with others, and physical distances and time are no longer obstacles
that must be slowly and laboriously overcome. With respect to the ancients,
our perception of spatio-temporal coordinates has experienced a long series
of changes that have occurred at ever-increasing speed over the past two
centuries.1
Today it is easy to establish immediate contact through both oral and
written communication. For at least the last two decades, communicative
exchanges have seemed significantly less impeded by the problem of physical
distances, and some even refer to a ‘de-territorialization’ of these exchanges.
An enormous mass of informational transactions metaphorically ‘moves’
within an electronic ‘territory’ whose materiality usually becomes apparent
only when the system stops working for some reason.
The possibility of easily coming into contact with remote locations and
seeing ‘live’ events taking place elsewhere (and even influencing them) has
altered our conception of distance. The real distance experienced when we go
on a long journey to reach a place or person has been replaced by the virtual
distance of communication, which we barely perceive. Within this virtual

1
For a general overview of these changes, it suffices to recall two essays (now ‘classic’) on the
influence technological change has had on various aspects of everyday culture: Kern 2003 and
Meyrowitz 1985 (in particular pp. 35–67 and 131–59).
14 Word of Mouth

space, words seem to cross only the very short stretch that separates us from a
loudspeaker or screen, no matter how great the actual distance between us and
their sender. In the mid-1990s, Marie-Claude Cassé described this phenom-
enon using an effective play on words: ‘l’ancienne notion géometrique de
surface, de superficie est remplacée par la notion nouvelle d’interface’ (‘the
ancient geometric concept of surface, of surface area, has been replaced by
the new concept of interface’).2 The distances we read on maps seem far less
daunting than they were just a few decades ago. Now we can imagine all places
in the world as linked to each other by an extensive and almost immediate
network of interconnections, whose efficiency can easily be tested.
This phenomenon is part of that progressive elimination of distance that
Marshall McLuhan discussed in the 1960s. Among other things, he empha-
sized the epochal change in the relationship between individuals and space in
travel. McLuhan observed, for example, that the contrast between city and
country experienced in contemporary society had grown weaker as journeys
were reduced to a kind of rapid transfer of a person from one inhabited centre
to another, thanks to an intricate network of communication pathways. He
also noted that intercontinental travel was being reduced to simple transfers
between airports. All contexts of physical and cultural diversity, to which those
who moved along a travel itinerary used to be increasingly exposed, seemed to
have been eliminated or to have faded until they almost disappeared.3
The anthropological changes generated by the evolution of transportation
and communication have always been greeted with similar attitudes. To give
just one example, in 1849, only a few years after the first railway was built and
Railway Mania exploded, Ruskin was perplexed by the sudden metamorphosis
of travellers. He commented on this from an aesthetic perspective:
The whole system of railroad travelling is addressed to people who, being in a
hurry, are therefore, for the time being, miserable. No one would travel in that
manner who could help it—who had time to go leisurely over hills and between
hedges, instead of through tunnels and between banks . . . The railroad is in all its
relations a matter of earnest business, to be got through as soon as possible. It
transmutes a man from a traveller into a living parcel. For the time he has parted
with the nobler characteristics of his humanity for the sake of a planetary power
of locomotion. . . . Carry him safely, dismiss him soon: he will thank you for
nothing else.4

2 3
Cassé 1995, 65. McLuhan 1964, 97–114 and 1962 passim.
4
Ruskin 1849, 111. I have intentionally chosen this example because the railway was the first
means of transport that—albeit only partially—could compete with the uncontested dominance
of navigation, which had persisted since antiquity. See Casson 1994, 65: ‘Until the coming of the
railroad the water was the only feasible medium for heavy transport and the most convenient for
long distance travel.’ When flight was introduced as a means of transport just a few decades later,
travel would acquire a new and revolutionary redefinition in the collective imagination, con-
cretely introducing a possibility that had until then remained purely theoretical.
 Flying Information 15

According to Ruskin, the altered conditions of travel, caused by the search

for greater speed and efficiency, had altered not only the perception of space
but also the very role of the travellers. Formerly the protagonists of the
relocation, they were now the passive objects of an exchange. By moving
along new routes, railways significantly changed the relationship of individ-
uals with space.
This has always been the case, for better or for worse. From this standpoint,
instruments of transport and communication seem to be one of the factors
that have most contributed to redefining mankind’s position in the natural
and cultural environment it creates and manipulates. In the face of changes
that have such powerful influence on habits and ways of thinking, human
culture is forced to substantially reformulate its paradigms and coordinates.
The field of contemporary communication is thus characterized by that
paradoxical articulation between contact and spatial distance that McLuhan
had already expressed with his famous term ‘global village’. Naturally, the
impression of ‘globality’ and proximity aroused in us by contemporary media
depends largely on efficient use of rhetoric. For example, the metaphors we
use to describe our movements around the World Wide Web (navigating,
surfing) mimic real movements, giving figurative form to the virtual space
where we picture information circulating. The extent to which these dimen-
sions have become central to our very conception of real space is a major
cultural problem.
Giving these metaphorical journeys a conceptual form has not always
required the invention of new categories. Most often, it simply entailed
readapting the cultural coordinates that people used to orient themselves
while thinking about (or imagining) the movement of individuals and of
communication in physical space. This is precisely the fate that also befell
the image of the flight of words. After having been used to indicate the brief
path of word of mouth between two interlocutors (‘the winged words’ of
ancient Greek epics), the elusiveness and unreliability of spoken language
(the uerba uolant of a famous medieval proverb), the rapid diffusion of
rumours and fama over great distances, and many other things, today this
metaphor has lost most of its appeal. In ancient metaphors words flew
through the air like arrows, the light of distant fires, or mysterious birds;
our way of understanding the same image preserves nothing more than the
blurry shadow of a cliché that has now been amply eclipsed by the power of
digital technology.
To measure the anthropological distance that separates us from the com-
municative universe of antiquity, we must first understand which aerial paths
the people of the time imagined opening up in the face of words. Specifically,
which channels of communication were workable and how was their articula-
tion in space envisioned? This is an essential starting-point for understanding
how the ancients represented Fama’s ability to traverse great distances.
16 Word of Mouth

1.1.2. A Unitary Conception of the World

In antiquity, it would have been hard to conceive of the world as we do

today—as a territory crossed by a dense network of interconnections. It was
only with the consolidation of the Roman Empire that the first traces of such a
unitary vision emerged. For example, we might consider the famous carto-
graphic model of the οἰκουμένη created and displayed by Agrippa, a visible
sign of the grandiose ideological project that underpinned the very idea of
Rome’s imperial domination over the world.5
The central position of the Vrbs, the reference point for an extensive
network of communication routes, was the linchpin of this way of thinking
about geographical space. The unity of the new organism was secured by the
mass of increasingly intense commercial exchanges with the countries con-
quered by the Romans. A page from Aelius Aristides’s oration To Rome gives
us a solid picture of this state of affairs (XXVI.11–13):
Here [to Rome] is brought from every land and sea all the crops of the seasons
and the produce of each land, river, lake, as well as of the arts of the Greeks and
barbarians, so that if someone should wish to view all these things, he must either
see them by traveling over the whole world or be in this city. It cannot be
otherwise than that there always be here an abundance of all that grows and is
manufactured among each people. So many merchant ships arrive here, convey-
ing every kind of goods from every people every hour and every day, that the city
is like a factory common to the whole earth. . . . The arrivals and departures of
the ships never stop, so that one would express admiration not only for the
harbor, but even for the sea. Hesiod said about the limits of the Ocean that it is a
place where everything has been channeled into one beginning and end. So
everything comes together here—trade, seafaring, farming, the scourings of the
mines, all the crafts that exist or have existed, all that is produced and grown.
Whatever one does not see here is not a thing which has existed or exists.6 (trans.
Charles A. Behr)
Such a representation of the world is founded on the idea of Rome as the
centre of a network that covers the entire expanse of territories inhabited by
humans: according to Aelius Aristides, it is as if nothing exists outside this
network, in either space or time. Aside from the rhetorical exaggeration of this
topos, these words clearly present an organic vision of the world conquered by
the Romans, whose trade routes made it possible to channel what came from
the most distant places to a single point. This distinctive way of conceiving
what we might call ‘globality’ was closely connected—just as it is today—to the
construction of a political, military, and commercial power of extraordinary
scope. In a way, trade can be seen as the network that held the great multiplicity

5
See Nicolet 1991, 95–122, and Dilke 1985, 41–53: see also Zanker 1988, 143.
6
See Schiavone 2000, 7–8 (the source of the quotation).
 Flying Information 17

of the world together in a single organism; and in the image used by Aelius
Aristides, the flow of goods towards Rome is almost a sign of the city’s status as
the hub of power and communication. These words describe a world that was
strongly oriented towards its centre.
The literary texts from the period when the Roman Empire reached its
height describe a unitary conception of the world with particularly great
awareness. The interconnection of this immense organism was guaranteed
by a system of roads more efficient than any other such infrastructure of
antiquity, save perhaps those of the Achaemenid rulers and the Chinese
Empire.7 Nevertheless, while the Imperial period gives us what is an essentially
unitary vision of the geographical space dominated by the Romans, we also
know that the ancient world usually had a much more fragmented and, as
we will see, powerfully linear vision of space compared to the overview that
Aelius Aristides could offer of what he had an interest in portraying as ‘the
whole world’.

1.1.3. Ancient Journeys: Reality, Abstraction, Fiction

There was obviously a very close relationship between the perception of space
and the quality of the means of communication ancient cultures had at their
disposal. Geographical knowledge could not help but be connected to experi-
ence gained through travel. In a setting as ethnically and politically disjointed
as that of ancient Greece, for example, it would have been difficult for these
journeys to inspire a unitary vision of the world. The way of conceiving space
that characterizes some ancient descriptions of travel seems radically different
from our way of conceiving geography.
In his discussion of ancient cartography, Pietro Janni began with an obser-
vation that remains very useful for contemplating different representations of
space. We tend to perceive the territory in which we move in two different
ways. The first drives us to imagine it based on our experience crossing it,
while the other leads us to represent it according to the maps that lay its shape
down in a fixed, two-dimensional illustration. Janni calls these two kinds of
space ‘hodological’ and ‘cartographic’, respectively, and offers convincing
evidence that while today we tend to attribute a modelling character to the
latter (which largely determines our ‘abstract’ perception of space), the former
overwhelmingly determined the geographical experience of the ancients.8
The conception of geographical space in Greek and Roman texts often
seems to be the result of the combination of an abstract and harmonious
interpretation of the cosmos, and the direct and uneven experience of

7
See Casson 1994, 54–6 and 174.
8
Janni 1984, 79–158 (for the definition, see pp. 79–88).
18 Word of Mouth

distances. Even ancient cartography, whose defects often immediately reflect

the perspective suggested by the ‘hodological’ experience, appears an excep-
tionally sophisticated cultural product. Nevertheless, it seems to have had little
impact on the actual knowledge of whoever was moving through geographical
space, travelling to exchange goods or information. Moreover, the predomin-
ance of ‘cartographic’ over ‘hodological’ space seems inextricably linked to the
forms of the culture of writing that, as is well known, were limited to small and
elite circles in the ancient world.9
A vision of geographical space ‘by itineraries’ seems to have been of
particular importance in antiquity. With respect to long journeys, maritime
routes in particular constituted the most natural reference model, even after
the Roman Empire cast its terrestrial net of communication routes over the
οἰκουμένη. The main ways of measuring geographical space were also tied to
travel: maritime paths were calculated based on hypothetical ‘ideal days’ of
sailing, just as overland routes were often divided into the distance that could
be covered in a day. Time was often considered the best instrument for
measuring distances.10
In other words, it was the very form of travel that had a decisive influence
on how the relative layout of places was represented. Even when attempts were
made to depict geographical space in writing, the ‘hodological’ vision had a
significant impact on representation. For example, in archaic Greece, the route
considered when crossing long distances was not the shortest one as the crow
flies, but the path that was traditionally the best way to reach a given location,
or one that could be travelled using whatever kind of transport was available at
the time. For example, one would not consider crossing the Aegean to go
directly from Troy to Corinth, but would imagine skirting the coast, passing
through Chalcidice and then Euboea. In these conditions, the sequential
linearity of the actual journey was favoured over the unitary vision of geo-
graphical space that could only be arranged in written form on a plane.
Of the two types of travel used by the ancients—by land or by sea—the former
was considered more natural and better suited to human needs and possibilities.
In contrast, ancient literature tended to portray navigation as a risk or even a
cultural habit that, while necessary, disrespected natural law, as it used the
element (water) with which the gods had divided lands as a ‘connector’.11

9
Whittaker 1994, 13–14, provides an excellent example of how the ancients reconstructed
geographical space; see also pp. 31–2 on the use of maps, generally associated with aims of
conquest.
10
Space was calculated similarly for agricultural measurements: see Dilke 1985, 32. On the
measurement of geographical space in general, see Cordano 1992, 9 and 114–15 (it was not until
Timosthenes, in the third century BCE, that maritime routes started to be calculated in stades),
and Dilke 1985, 130–1.
11
For example, this is why navigation was considered one of the cultural aspects that marked
the progressive degeneration of humanity from its original perfection during the ‘metal’ ages. For
 Flying Information 19

Flight remained nothing more than an abstract possibility for humans:

travelling through the air was merely the projection of a desire that was
impossible to fulfil, the imaginary mimesis of a movement that nature had
reserved for birds (and, obviously, for gods). It is no accident that the only
flying men of antiquity appear in myth (e.g. Daedalus, Phaethon), fantastical
literature (Lucian’s True History and Icaromenippus), and alleged shamanic
experiences.12
To imagine a journey that they could not physically accomplish, the
ancients were obliged to invent an unknown motion, using observations
supplied by their own experience. Essentially, all they could do was watch
the flight of birds and then project the swiftest type of movement with which
they had concrete experience into aerial space. Naturally, travel by water was
the fastest means of covering long distances available to the ancients. Conse-
quently, when they had to imagine a divine being moving through the air at
great speed, they did so based on their experience with maritime travel.13
To demonstrate this, we need only cite Aurelio Peretti’s observations about
a famous episode of the Iliad:
When Hera goes from Olympus to Troas, her journey across the sea, described in
the Iliad XIV 225 ff., is not immediately turned towards the east, taking the
shortest route across the northern Aegean. The goddess descends from Olympus
to Pieria, which is north of the lofty home of the gods, and then crosses Emathia,
in turn located north of Pieria. From here the journey proceeds east, with ‘the
snowy mountains of Thrace . . . [and] their topmost peaks’ as the point of refer-
ence (227–8), especially conspicuous to those sailing in sight of the Macedonian
coast. After rounding Mount Athos, the goddess finally flies towards the open sea,
arrives at the island of Lemnos and passes over that of Imbros, from here taking
her last leap over the sea and reaching Mount Ida. Why did the poet imagine this
long route through the north, almost doubling the actual distance from Olympus
to Troas? He simply followed the sailors’ path, not deviating from the normal
itinerary of Greek navigation in its earliest stages.14
To represent the flight-path of an anthropomorphic being, the ancient Greeks
could do little more than take the fastest route a human crew was capable of
and project it into the sky. This journey through fragmented space would have
been outlined and almost stitched together as the sum of many shorter legs of

an idea of the presence of this topos in ancient literature, see the ‘Conspectus locorum’ by Gatz
1967, under the entry ‘absentia navium’. As amply demonstrated in Riepl 1913, for many
centuries the ancients typically imagined a journey on foot, not one with vehicles.
12
See Jacob 1983, 62–7. An individual section is devoted to each of these aspects of flight in
the monograph by Luck-Huyse 1997.
13
The proximity between the image of flight and that of rapid navigation across the sea
emerges in a series of expressions like Virgil’s uelorum pandimus alas (Aen. 3.520) and remigium
alarum (Aen. 6.19); on these see Luck-Huyse 1997, 205–9.
14
Peretti, in Prontera 1990, 73. See Peretti 1979, 13–18, and Janni 1984, 121–2.
20 Word of Mouth

the journey. We must picture a linear process of construction of a decidedly

‘hodological’ space, where the ‘cartographic’ dimension was probably replaced
by a series of extremely vague abstractions. While today we are accustomed to
placing a travel itinerary on a predefined map of geographical space, it is very
likely that the ancients assigned the journey itself the task of sketching out a
space that could connect distant territories.

1.2. WINGED BODIES, DIVINE M ESSENGERS

1.2.1. Journeys and Messengers

The ancients were always forced to deal with slow means of communication
and arduous itineraries, which slowed down the transmission of information.
The routes and paths of these itineraries were monitored by Hermes, a deity
the ancients associated with diverse forms of communication. Protector of
journeys and boundaries, and lord of mediation and languages, he oversaw
interpretation and translation. His figure was that of a wayfarer and messen-
ger, and his simulacra were often found on roadsides or near crossroads.15
For the ancients, long-distance communication was, of course, very closely
tied to the movement of people in space. In a work written over a century ago
that has long been the main reference for studies of ancient communication,
Wolfgang Riepl clearly illustrated how the system for transmitting informa-
tion hinged on the need to transfer one or more human agents (messengers),
entrusted with delivering the message in a written and/or oral form, from
place to place.16
In the earliest phases of Greek history, ‘sending someone a message’
essentially meant ‘sending one person to another to inform him or her of
something’. Not only a journey separated the sender and recipient; there was
also an intermediary who guaranteed the information’s accuracy by correctly
relaying the contents of the message, which he had learned from the sender,
directly to the receiver.17

15
On these aspects of the Hermes figure, see Vernant 1963, 14–16, and Bettini 2011 (see also
sec. 1.2.3). On the slow routes of ancient communication, see Longo 1983, 23–4, and Achard
1991, 134–6 and 178–81.
16
See Riepl 1913, 123: ‘so bleibt für die mündliche und schriftliche Nachrichtenbeförderung
des Altertums, namentlich bei den Römern, ebenso im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit bis an
die Schwelle des 19. Jahrhunderts, als Universalorgan der Bote in seinen verschiedenen
Gestalten übrig.’
17
A good definition of the ancient messenger can be found in Greene 1989, 232: ‘The purpose
of the messenger was to extend temporally and geographically the existing power of another’s
either spoken word(s) (in the same tone of voice), deeds, or both as well as deliver the written
 Flying Information 21

In earlier times, the messenger did not generally deliver a written text, but a
memorized message (in one of the flexible forms typical of orality), which he
then ‘presented’ aloud. To paraphrase McLuhan’s famous words, the message
was truly in the medium, ready to be transmitted in forms that were supposed
to replicate the substance of what the sender wanted to communicate. The
medium here was not a machine or object, but a living creature, and the
reception, conservation, and reproduction of the message depended respectively
on his ears, memory, and voice. In many cases, the message’s transmission
did not consist of a chain of transfers in which, in a sort of relay, an array of
mediators took turns sending the message onward. Instead, it involved a single
messenger who went to a nearby or distant place, after memorizing what he
had been ordered to report. In such circumstances, to eliminate the message,
the messenger also had to be eliminated.18
In the various phases of this type of transmission, the message never left the
oral/aural dimension. As such, it did not have the appearance typical of
written statements: a defined linear sequence that always remained the same
and traversed the communication space after being translated from the phonic
‘signs’ of spoken language into the graphic signs of a form of writing (be it
ideographic, alphabetic, or cryptographic), and possibly back into the sounds
of an oral statement. It was instead a message memorized in the presence of
the sender and orally reformulated before the recipient.19
With respect to our way of conceiving communication, what seems
particularly foreign to us is perhaps the fluid, volatile, and impalpable nature
of the information entrusted to this type of messenger. From our perspective,
which is powerfully anchored to the stability of the written text, the forms
of such a message would likely be transformed during the transmission
process, as they had to adapt to the matrix imposed on them by memory
and the wording of the mediator to whom they had been entrusted. How-
ever, as studies on orality have taught us, in oral cultures the modifications
of the original forms of a message in such contexts are hardly believed to
alter the identity of the transmitted information. What a literate culture like
ours views as a manipulation of the fixed original ‘text’ is instead considered
a natural and not at all problematic dimension of communication in
oral cultures.20

form of such word(s).’ On the various types of messengers in ancient Greece and how they
transmitted information, see Longo 1981, 27–58, Russell 1999, 63–76 and 143–5.
18
In Greece, messages were usually communicated verbally (see Russell 1999, 69–70, 75, and
passim): on the use of writing for communication, in general see Lewis 1996, 125–53. For the
famous phrase ‘the medium is the message’, see McLuhan 1964, 7–21.
19
It is not unlikely, however, that messages tended to be memorized and repeated in forms
that were as close as possible to those established by the sender: see Longo 1981, 43–8.
20
This topic is thoroughly examined by Finnegan 1988.
22 Word of Mouth

1.2.2. Winged Bodies

To transmit a message to a recipient, whether nearby or distant, the messenger

had to overcome daunting physical barriers each time. The pathways of
communication—even those of navigation, which were the fastest—rarely
allowed anyone to skirt around or bypass difficult natural obstacles. In myth-
ical tales, obligatory paths such as the one between Scylla and Charybdis or the
route through the Symplegades symbolized the grim challenge that travel
presented to those who bravely took on the sea.
These kinds of impediments significantly affected the transmission speed of
messages, which in antiquity was linked to the transfer of the human and/or
material supports that had to physically cross the distance between sender and
recipient. From this perspective, the turning-point in the history of long-
distance communication did not come about until hundreds of years later,
around the mid-nineteenth century, when the activation of telegraph networks
made it possible to separate the text of the message from the messenger or the
material support of writing. Until then, the message–messenger–route rela-
tionship remained the basis of ancient communication, no matter the form in
which the words and/or texts were transferred from one place to another.21
Since the speed of transmission depended on the nature of the channel of
communication, the only way the ancients could increase it was to make the
messenger’s movement faster, using solutions that streamlined his journey
and avoided downtime (sleeping, meals, and so on). Essentially, the most
effective mechanism the ancients were able to devise for this was the relay,
which had been used to great effect in the Persian Empire, and which the
Romans greatly improved. Nevertheless, this type of system had relatively
limited applications, given that the need for secrecy often required entrusting
just one messenger with the task of transmitting the message. Consequently,
the bearer of information needed adequate assistance for his journey to be
faster and more efficient.22

21
The first telegraph line was created in the USA in 1844. In antiquity, simple ways of
detaching the message from the support of writing were attempted through rudimentary forms
of ‘telegraphy’ (see Diels 1924; Longo 1981, 87–98; Hershbell 1978). Setting apart considerations
on the efficacy of these techniques, the extremely reduced dimensions of the messages that could
be transferred in this way effectively made them irrelevant forms of ancient communication.
22
The efficiency of the Persian system impressed Herodotus, who described its general
structure (8.98: see Riepl 1913, 194–5, and Longo 1981, 99–112). The Persians had a complex
of communication routes, the centre of which was the capital. For example, by splitting up the
route between the capital and the army on a war expedition into a series of day-long journeys,
they had a chain of transmission that allowed each messenger on horseback to cover just one
day’s route at maximum speed, without stopping for any natural obstacle, leaving the next day’s
journey to another person, to whom the message was passed on. On this entire subject, see the
material collected by Riepl 1913, 123–240. The cursus publicus, originally devised by Augustus,
was organized around similar principles (see Suet., Aug. 49.3): see Riepl 1913, 180–209 (as part of
a broader discussion on relay systems of communication), and Kolb 2000, 49–226. According to
 Flying Information 23

While in the ancient world the speed of the messenger essentially depended
on the quality of the routes of communication, on his strengths, and on the
means at his disposal, the realities of the journey significantly hindered how
fast he could travel. To picture efficient and rapid ways of transmitting
messages, the ancients had to resort to using the pathways of the imagination:
and these led skyward, where one could easily overcome all obstacles to which
terrestrial and maritime itineraries subjected the practice of human communica-
tion. It was in this ideal realm that the ancients conceived of the flight of winged
beings with traits superior to those granted to humans. To imagine these bodies,
the Greeks (and then the Romans) drew from a rich tradition solidly established
in both Egypt and the East: a tradition that had populated its mythology and
iconography with various winged human and animal figures. Their contribution
to this fantastical genre lent great impetus to the iconography of winged beings,
which eventually included the personification of Fama.23

1.2.3. Divine Messengers

Among the various flying deities of the Greeks, we find the messengers Hermes
(Mercury to the Romans) and Iris. The former was usually depicted with
winged sandals, while the latter is generally given a pair of broad wings. We
can see these two figures about to perform their task on the orders of Zeus on a
famous red-figure stamnos attributed to the Berlin Painter (Fig. 1.1). Both hold
the symbol of their function: the κηρύκειον or caduceus, the staff with snakes
entwined on it that distinguished the κῆρυξ (herald, messenger).24
Divine messengers like these could achieve the fastest form of transmission
imaginable, as they possessed the same ‘aerial’ speed associated with speech
spreading through the air and also with winged creatures like birds. Ever since

the calculations in Kolb 2000, 308–16 and 321–32, the speed of Roman messengers at best
reached a maximum of 200 miles a day (around 290 km).
23
For a general idea of winged figures in the Near East, see Le Maillot 2009, 51–93 (and the
bibliography cited there). It was believed possible to equip the human body with mechanical
wings until at least 1680, when Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, in his De motu animalium, demon-
strated that human musculature was not designed for the mechanics of winged flight (see Hart
1972, 29, and 1985, 69–73).
24
For a gallery of the various types of winged figures in the representations of ancient Greece,
see Hart 1988, 87–103 and especially the extensive monograph by Thomsen 2011 (pp. 161–276
in particular). The ancient Greeks gave such figures the speed of birds, but this did not generally
lead to a theriomorphic representation of these figures (see Dirlmeier 1967, 5–35). For a
description of the flight of Hermes/Mercury in ancient poetic texts, see Luck-Huyse 1997,
6–20. Drawing on Varro, Augustine continued to base the association between Mercury and
the sermo that circulated, flying per aera among men, on the element of flight (Ciu. 7.14). On
Hermes as an archetypal figure of divine flight, see Boitani 2007, 53–75. On Iris’s flight in ancient
poetic texts, see Luck-Huyse 1997, 20–5, and Bonadeo 2004, 4–76.
24 Word of Mouth

Fig. 1.1. Paris, Musée du Louvre. The Berlin Painter, Zeus Sending forth Hermes and
Iris, red-figure stamnos from Vulci (G192, Beazley 201979), 480–470 BCE. © RMN-
Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Hervé Lewandowski.

the Homeric poems, epic tradition regularly attributed such characteristics to

Hermes and Iris: in addition to the epithets accompanying their names, it
suffices to consider the most famous descriptions of their flight.25

25
The epithets that characterize Iris’s appearance in epic poetry are always tied to speed
(ταχεῖα, ὦκα, ὠκέα, πόδας ὠκέα, ποδήνεμος, ἀελλόπος) and are fully part ‘of the topic of the
 Flying Information 25

In a very well-known passage from book 5 of the Odyssey, for example, the
movement of Hermes, sent by Zeus to Calypso as his messenger, is likened to
that of a seabird (43–54):
ὣς ἔφατ’, οὐδ’ ἀπίθησε διάκτορος Ἀργεϊφόντης.
αὐτίκ’ ἔπειθ’ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα,
ἀμβρόσια χρύσεια, τά μιν φέρον ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴν 45
ἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν ἅμα πνοιῇσ’ ἀνέμοιο.
εἵλετο δὲ ῥάβδον, τῇ τ’ ἀνδρῶν ὄμματα θέλγει,
ὧν ἐθέλει, τοὺς δ’ αὖτε καὶ ὑπνώοντας ἐγείρει·
τὴν μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχων πέτετο κρατὺς Ἀργεϊφόντης.
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ· 50
σεύατ’ ἔπειτ’ ἐπὶ κῦμα λάρῳ ὄρνιθι ἐοικώς,
ὅς τε κατὰ δεινοὺς κόλπους ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο
ἰχθῦς ἀγρώσσων πυκινὰ πτερὰ δεύεται ἅλμῃ.
τῷ ἴκελος πολέεσσιν ὀχήσατο κύμασιν Ἑρμῆς.
So he spoke, and the messenger, Argeiphontes, failed not to hearken.
Straightway he bound beneath his feet his beautiful sandals, immortal,
golden, which were wont to bear him over the waters of the sea and over
the boundless land swift as the blasts of the wind. And he took the wand
wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of whom he will, while others again he
awakens even out of slumber. With this in his hand the strong Argeiphontes
flew. On to Pieria he stepped from the upper air, and swooped down upon
the sea, and then sped over the wave like a bird, the cormorant, which in
quest of fish over the dread gulfs of the unresting sea wets its thick plumage
in the brine. In such wise did Hermes ride upon the multitudinous waves.26
(trans. A. T. Murray)
Virgil surely bore this passage in mind while recounting a similar mission
undertaken by Mercury, who hastened to deter Aeneas from his love for Dido,
reminding the hero of the task fate had given him (Aen. 4.238–61):
Dixerat. Ille patris magni parere parabat
imperio; et primum pedibus talaria nectit
aurea, quae sublimem alis siue aequora supra 240
seu terram rapido pariter cum flamine portant.
Tum uirgam capit: hac animas ille euocat Orco
pallentis, alias sub Tartara tristia mittit,
dat somnos adimitque, et lumina morte resignat.
Illa fretus agit uentos et turbida tranat 245

messenger, swift by definition’ (Bonadeo 2004, 24–5). For a hypothesis about the derivation of
these epithets, see Bader 1991a, 32–6 (see also Bader 1991, 63–75).
26
On this passage, see also Bonadeo 2004, 48.
26 Word of Mouth

nubila. Iamque uolans apicem et latera ardua cernit

Atlantis duri caelum qui uertice fulcit,
...
Hic primum paribus nitens Cyllenius alis
constitit; hinc toto praeceps se corpore ad undas
misit aui similis, quae circum litora, circum
piscosos scopulos humilis uolat aequora iuxta. 255
Haud aliter terras inter caelumque uolabat
litus harenosum ad Libyae, uentosque secabat
materno ueniens ab auo Cyllenia proles.
Vt primum alatis tetigit magalia plantis,
Aenean fundantem arces ac tecta nouantem 260
conspicit.
He [scil. Jupiter] ceased [scil. speaking]. The god made ready to obey his mighty
father’s bidding, and first binds on his feet the golden shoes which carry him
upborne in wings over seas or land, swift as the gale. Then he takes his wand; with
this he calls pale ghosts from Orcus and sends others down to gloomy Tartarus,
gives or takes away sleep and unseals eyes in death; on this relying, he drives the
winds and skims the stormy clouds. And now in flight he descries the peak and
steep sides of toiling Atlas, who props heaven on his peak . . . Here, poised on even
wings, the Cyllenian first halted; hence with his whole frame he sped sheer down
to the waves like a bird, which round the shores, round the fish-haunted cliffs,
flies low near to the waters. Even thus between earth and sky flew Cyllene’s
nursling to Libya’s sandy shore, and cut the winds, coming from his mother’s sire.
So soon as with winged feet he reached the huts, he sees Aeneas founding towers
and building new houses. (trans. H. Rushton Fairclough)
Some analogous descriptions of Iris are found in Greek and Roman epic poetry.
The Romans linked the image of the goddess clearly to the rainbow: she is
portrayed following it as she crosses the boundary between earth and sky. With
regard to her function as a messenger, however, the emphasis is on her speed,
likened to that of the wind, and her ability to raise herself into the air.27
The similes used in Homeric and Virgilian texts to describe her movement
are very significant in this regard. Book 15 of the Iliad contains a typical
description of Iris’s flight. When Zeus sends her to Poseidon, she descends
towards Troy like snow or hail, pushed by a powerful gust of wind (168–72):
Ὣς ἔφατ’, οὐδ’ ἀπίθησε ποδήνεμος ὠκέα Ἶρις,
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Ἰδαίων ὀρέων εἰς Ἴλιον ἱρήν.
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἐκ νεφέων πτῆται νιφὰς ἠὲ χάλαζα

27
On the ‘literary and artistic iconography’ of Iris, see Bonadeo 2004, 67–76. After an initial
description ambiguously poised between racing and flying (in Greek texts from the archaic
period), from the fifth century BCE on Iris was always described as a winged figure. Her messenger
role was also reinforced by the popular etymology that the Greeks had already established
between her name and the verb εἴρειν (see Bonadeo 2004, 80–3 and passim).
 Flying Information 27

ψυχρὴ ὑπὸ ῥιπῆς αἰθρηγενέος Βορέαο,

ὣς κραιπνῶς μεμαυῖα διέπτατο ὠκέα Ἶρις . . .
So spake he, and wind-footed, swift Iris failed not to hearken, but went down
from the hills of Ida to sacred Ilios. And as when from the clouds there flieth snow
or chill hail, driven by the blast of the North Wind that is born in the bright
heaven, even so fleetly sped in her eagerness swift Iris . . . (trans. A. T. Murray)
The description of Juno’s divine message to Turnus, in book 9 of the Aeneid, is
similar (1–22):
Atque ea diuersa penitus dum parte geruntur,
Irim de caelo misit Saturnia Iuno
audacem ad Turnum. Luco tum forte parentis
Pilumni Turnus sacrata ualle sedebat.
Ad quem sic roseo Thaumantias ore locuta est: 5
...
Dixit, et in caelum paribus se sustulit alis
ingentemque fuga secuit sub nubibus arcum. 15
Agnouit iuuenis duplicisque ad sidera palmas
sustulit ac tali fugientem est uoce secutus:
‘Iri, decus caeli, quis te mihi nubibus actam
detulit in terras? unde haec tam clara repente
tempestas? medium uideo discedere caelum 20
palantisque polo stellas. Sequor omina tanta,
quisquis in arma uocas.’
And while in the far distance such deeds befell, Saturnian Juno sent Iris from
heaven to gallant Turnus, who as it chanced was then seated within a hallowed
vale, in the grove of his sire Pilumnus. To him, with roseate lips, thus spake the
child of Thaumas . . . She spake, and on posed wings rose into the sky, cleaving in
flight her mighty bow beneath the clouds. The youth knew her, and, raising his
two upturned hands to heaven, with such words pursued her flight: ‘Iris, glory of
the sky, who has brought thee down to me, wafted upon the clouds to earth?
Whence this sudden brightness of the air? I see the heavens part asunder, and the
stars that roam in the firmament. I follow the mighty omen, whoso thou art that
callest to arms!’28 (trans. H. Rushton Fairclough)
These kinds of ‘winged messenger’ figures thus moved on the fantastical
horizon of ancient communication. This horizon might almost have seemed
real in cases where the prodigious circulation of certain messages was unex-
plainable and remained cloaked in mystery.29

28
With regard to the patronymic used by Virgil, it may be useful to recall that, according to
Hesiod (Th. 265–9), Iris and the Harpies were generated by Thaumas—in turn born of the union
between the Earth (Gaia) and her son the Sea (Pontos)—and could rival the wind and birds,
thanks to their ‘swift wings’.
29
Marks similar to those of these divine figures—such as feathers, which alluded to flight—
might also appear in the repertoire of human messengers. This is the idea found in Riepl 1913,
28 Word of Mouth

Such was the case when news spread so fast that it could only be explained
by divine intervention. Herodotus gives the famous example of the victory at
Plataea (479 BCE), instantly communicated to the Greeks who were about to go
into battle at Mykale. The information supposedly arrived through the work of
φήμη, but the historian’s own words suggest that such great speed could have
resulted from a divine messenger’s intervention. The discovery of an aban-
doned caduceus on a nearby beach would have contributed to this suspicion.30
Central to this way of envisioning the work of φήμη are the elements of a
fantastical conception of the power attributed to these pieces of information,
which seem capable of instantly reaching very distant places. How could such
a miracle be possible unless it were the work of a heavenly messenger such
as Hermes?
I intentionally chose the case of the battle of Plataea because it was a
victory, and the goddess of Victory (Νίκη to the Greeks) is one of the
fantastical figures imagined by the ancients as having both wings and
the role of bringing good tidings of success in battle (Fig. 1.2). Later on,
we will look more closely at the importance of the morphology of these
winged figures—and the functions they have in common—in the genesis of
personifications like those of Fama.31

22: ‘Im übrigen trugen die Kuriere allgemein als Sinnbild der Schnelligkeit eine Feder auf der
Kopfbedeckung (daher “πτεροφόροι” genannt).’ However, this term is only documented in
classical literature in Plut. Oth. 4.2 (see also Hsch. s.v. πτεροφόροι· τέλος τι στρατιωτικόν, ἢ ὡς
διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς λόφοις πτέρωσιν. καλοῦνται δὲ οὕτως καὶ τῶν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ ἱερέων τινές. See also
Phot., Lex. s.v. Πτεροφόρους· πτερὰ εἰώθασιν ἔχειν ἐν ταῖς περικεφαλαίαις οἱ στρατιῶται παρὰ
τοὺς λόφους). It may be useful to juxtapose these passages with a curious comment by Servius
Danielis on Aen. 9.471, which mentions pinnatae litterae: ‘quidam uolunt ideo hic Famam
pinnatam a poeta inductam, quia tumultum et res aduersas nuntiet, ut illud tangere uideretur,
quod qui bellum nuntiaret pinnatas litteras diceretur adferre.’
30
Hdt. 9.100 (on this episode, see Longo 1981, 133–5, Gotteland 1997, 102–4, Larran 2011,
32–3): Ἰοῦσι δέ σφι φήμη τε ἐσέπτατο ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον πᾶν καὶ κηρυκήιον ἐφάνη ἐπὶ τῆς
κυματωγῆς κείμενον· ἡ δὲ φήμη διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε, ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες τὴν Μαρδονίου στρατιὴν νικῷεν
ἐν Βοιωτοῖσι μαχόμενοι. Δῆλα δὴ πολλοῖσι τεκμηρίοισί ἐστι τὰ θεῖα τῶν πρηγμάτων, εἰ καὶ τότε
τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρης συμπιπτούσης τοῦ τε ἐν Πλαταιῇσι καὶ τοῦ ἐν Μυκάλῃ μέλλοντος ἔσεσθαι
τρώματος φήμη τοῖσι Ἕλλησι τοῖσι ταύτῃ ἐσαπίκετο, ὥστε θαρσῆσαί τε τὴν στρατιὴν πολλῷ
μᾶλλον καὶ ἐθέλειν προθυμότερον κινδυνεύειν (‘As they went, a rumor spread through the army,
and a herald’s wand was seen lying by the water-line. The rumor that ran was to the effect that
the Greeks were victors over Mardonius’ army at a battle in Boeotia. Now there are many clear
indications of the divine ordering of things, seeing that a message, which greatly heartened the
army and made it ready to face danger, arrived amongst the Greeks the very day on which the
Persians’ disaster at Plataea and that other which was to befall them at Mykale took place’; trans.
A. D. Godley).
31
On the resemblance between the figures of Iris and Victoria, at times distinguishable only
by their garb, see Bonadeo 2004, 72–3 (see also Luck-Huyse 1997, 38).
 Flying Information 29

Fig. 1.2. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Unknown artist, Nike of Samothrace, late third–early
second century BCE. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
30 Word of Mouth

1.3. ἜΠΕ Α ΠΤ ΕΡ OΕΝ Τ Α : THE FLIGHT OF TH E WORD

1.3.1. Arrows and Birds

The ancients did not necessarily attribute the mysteriously swift circulation of
rumours and news to divine intervention. At times, it appears they imagined
the words themselves as endowed with a sort of magic power, travelling
unaided distances that a human messenger could never have covered so
quickly. It is important to try to understand just how the ancients attributed
verbal messages with the ability to fly. Obviously, we are still moving within
the realm of the metaphors that the Greeks and Romans used to represent the
movement of words through space.
For the ancient Greeks, the notion of flight was an essential component of
their discourse on poetry and communication. One could list many passages
that celebrate the art of poetry through the image of a flight able to attain
heights accessible only to divine animals like the eagle.32 Here, however, the
focus will be on how words were imagined as having the ability to fly in the
celebrated Homeric formula ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα (‘he spoke winged
words’), which often accompanied the moment when a character addressed
the person s/he was facing.33
The reconstruction of the movement that these messages were thought to
have traced in the air has been the subject of much discussion.34 While some
critics took it for granted that the expression referred to the flight of birds,35
since at least the beginning of the twentieth century the prevailing opinion has
been that the image Homer used to describe the ‘flight of the word’ was
drawing on another metaphorical context.36
The starting-point for this discussion may be found on two pages of an
essay by Jacob Wackernagel, published in 1860.37 While Wackernagel con-
ceded that the image referred to the flight of birds, he suggested that the most
appropriate translation for the expression was not ‘winged words’ (‘geflügelte
Worte’), because in Homer the adjective πτερόεις should be translated as

32
See the material collected by Wackernagel 1874, 196, Durante 1968, Nünlist 1998, 56–65
and 277–83, Luck-Huyse 1997, 177–88, and from the wider perspective of literary comparison,
Boitani 2007, 91–148.
33
The total recurrence of the expression ἔπεα πτερόεντα in various formulas amounts to a
little more than 120 cases. A detailed analysis of the various occurrences can be found in
Létoublon 1999, 327–33 and Reece 2009, 315–16.
34
See Létoublon 1999, 321–7, Guastella 2004, Reece 2009, 317–19.
35
See Kirk 1985, 74 on Il. 1.201 (and before him, Wackernagel 1874, 244–5). See also
Combellack 1950, 21, and D’Avino 1980–1, 109–13.
36
As is now the widely accepted usage, I will also use the term ‘word/words’ to refer to the
Greek ἔπος/ἔπεα, which does not indicate approximately identified lexical units, but instead
refers to utterances in general.
37
Wackernagel 1874, 178–81.
 Flying Information 31

‘feathered’ (‘befiedert’).38 Moreover, this adjective never describes birds in

Homer (πετεηνός is used instead), but recurs at least four times in reference
to arrows. In addition, Homer generally conveys the idea of ‘pronouncing’
words (ἔπεα) through verbs like ἐκβάλλειν, ἱέναι, or expressions that suggest
the sending forth or ‘launching’ of utterances.39 Starting from these consider-
ations, later critics showed an increasing tendency to think that the image of
the ‘winged word’ (or, rather, ‘winged messages’)40 was based on a simile with
the flight of arrows directed towards a precise target.41
There are also several passages in Greek literature after Homer that associ-
ate this expression with the ability to move rapidly through air possessed by
birds or by Hermes, the messenger of the gods.42 But what is more important
to observe than the different uses of this expression is the fact that words were
imagined as having the ability to fly: perhaps it is not necessary to have a
precise notion of their launch and trajectory to understand the metaphor’s
meaning, particularly because the formulaic context, where the expression has
a fixed meaning, does not require it.43 We would probably do better to reflect
on the fact that this image of the word in flight is part of a whole system of
representations that organically connect various forms of verbal production
with the idea of their moving through air. In addition to those we have already
considered, a good example is the symbolic function of the eagle in literature.
Its ability to soar to the highest reaches was used more than once to describe
the sublime position of the poet.44 More generally, we might consider all the
metaphors poets used when they sought to describe the flight of their own
inspiration.45
In Homeric scholia and in lexicographical works, the formula we are
considering46 is sometimes explained as a way to convey the exceptional
swiftness of the word. For example, we might consider the Scholia vetera in

38
The observation was taken up again, with various nuances, by Thomson 1936, West 1990,
92, Durante 1968, 245–50, and above all Latacz 1968, 27–32 (followed also by Nünlist 1998, 143),
Létoublon 1999, 332–3, and Laspia 2002 (see also Laspia 1996, 67–71).
39
See Durante 1968, 245–50. The main arguments are summarized by Latacz 1968, 27,
Pulleyn 2000, 180–1, and Laspia 2002 (a different assessment of these Homeric usages can be
found in D’Avino 1980–1, 94–5).
40
On this point D’Avino 1980–1, 96–109 made some apt observations about the need to
highlight the communicative, rather than the vocal, aspect of the term ἔπεα.
41
See esp. Durante 1968, 247–8, and Laspia 2002, 474–9. An interesting gallery of metaphors
of this type with regard to poetry can be found in Nünlist 1998, 142–54.
42
See Guastella 2004.
43
See Parry 1971, 414–15. Only Calhoun 1935, 226–7, maintained—but without offering
proof—that this formula had a particular connotation: words that were pronounced ‘quickly or
with animation or some symptom of emotion’.
44 45
See again Nünlist 1998, 277–83. See Durante 1968, 244–5.
46
We also find λόγοι πτερόεντες mentioned in a number of cases: see e.g. Philostr. Vitae
sophistarum 2.577 (and Sud. E 3046 Adler, s.v. ῾Ερμογένης), Eust., Commentarii ad Homeri
Iliadem 1.135 van der Valk, and Sud. A 1501 Adler.
32 Word of Mouth

Odysseam 1.122, which interpret the adjective ‘winged’ as ‘swift’,47 or the

analogous paraphrase (‘swift discourse’) that can be found in an even more
explicit formulation in the Scholia D in Iliadem 1.201.48 The same kind of
explanation also appears in Hesychius’s Lexicon (II, 140 Latte):
ἔπεα πτερόεντα· τὰ ἔπη πτηνὰ εἶπε, διὰ τὸ ταχέως προφέρεσθαι τοὺς λόγους.
He defined words as winged because of the speed with which discourses move.49
It would appear that commentators and lexicographers believed it was enough
to define something as ‘winged’ in order to say that it was ‘rapid’.
Plutarch also dealt with the Homeric formula in a very interesting passage
of his De garrulitate (507A–B) that discussed the impossibility of calling back
confidential news, which spreads through a never-ending chain of gossip. Talk
(λόγος), says Plutarch, remains secret only if it is not shared with others:
simply imparting the information to another person allows it to become φήμη,
or a fully fledged rumour. Plutarch structures his commentary on the Homeric
expression around the impossibility of calling back an uttered word:
‘ἔπεα’ γὰρ ‘πτερόεντα’ φησὶν ὁ ποιητής· οὔτε γὰρ πτηνὸν ἐκ τῶν χειρῶν ἀφέντα
ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν αὖθις κατασχεῖν,50 οὔτε λόγον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος προέμενον συλλαβεῖν
καὶ κρατῆσαι δυνατόν, ἀλλὰ φέρεται ‘λαιψηρὰ κυκλώσας πτερά’,51 δι’ ἄλλων ἐπ’
ἄλλους σκιδνάμενος.
This is the reason that Homer gives to words the epithet of winged; for he that lets
a bird go out of his hand does not easily catch her again; neither is it possible for a
man to recall and cage again in his breast a word let slip from his mouth; for with
light wings it fetches many a compass, and flutters about from one quarter to
another in a moment. (trans. W. C. Helmbold)
Plutarch goes on to draw an equally interesting comparison between the
forward trajectory of a word and the movement of a ship torn from its
moorings:
Νεὼς μὲν γὰρ ἁρπαγείσης ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἐπιλαμβάνονται σπείραις καὶ ἀγκύραις τὸ
τάχος ἀμβλύνοντες· λόγου δ’ ὥσπερ ἐκ λιμένων ἐκδραμόντος οὐκ ἔστιν ὅρμος οὐδ’
ἀγκυροβόλιον, ἀλλὰ ψόφῳ πολλῷ καὶ ἤχῳ φερόμενος προσέρρηξε καὶ κατέδυσεν εἰς
μέγαν τινὰ καὶ δεινὸν τὸν φθεγξάμενον κίνδυνον.

47
ἔπεα· λόγους. πτερόεντα· ταχεῖς. προσηύδα· προσεφθέγγετο. I quote from Ludwich 1888–90.
Cf. also the scholium ad 1.31.
48
Ἔπεα πτερόεντα. Λόγους ταχεῖς. Λόγου γὰρ οὐδὲν ταχύτερον. See also the scholion ad 2.7,
which contains a text with only a slightly different word order: Λόγους ταχεῖς. Oὐδὲν γὰρ λόγου
ταχύτερον (Van Thiel 2000, 30 and 66).
49
See also Zonar. col. 808 Tittmann (see also col. 1592).
50
See Eur. fr. 1044 Nauck: οὔτ’ ἐκ χερὸς μεθέντα καρτερὸν λίθον ⁄ ῥᾷον κατασχεῖν οὔτ’ ἀπὸ
γλώσσης λόγον.
51
This is probably a line by Archilochus (fr. 181.11 West).
 Flying Information 33
The course of a ship may well be stayed by cables and anchors, which else would
spoon away before a fresh gale of wind; but there is no fast riding or anchor-hold
for speech, when once let loose as from a harbor; but being whirled away with a
sonorous noise and loud echo, it carries off and plunges the unwary babbler into
some fatal danger. (trans. W. C. Helmbold)

1.3.2. Irreuocabile uerbum

As we can see from the general thrust of Plutarch’s argument, the word is
envisaged as a caged creature that, once freed from the space enclosing it,
rushes out at great speed. In this way of conceiving logos, the image of the
arrow cannot be considered the basis for the simile. In fact, while someone
must shoot an arrow for it to cover the distance separating it from the target,
here the ‘winged’ flight and the speed of words are quite clearly associated with
their capacity to move autonomously through space.52
We can find some instructive wordplay on this motif of words ‘that fly’ in
Plautus’s Amphitryon. Amphitryon’s slave Sosia approaches his master’s
house but finds his path barred by Mercury, who has assumed his appearance.
Before they start speaking to each other, Mercury, who has seen the slave
arrive, loudly threatens anyone who dares draw near. Sosia fearfully murmurs
his comments, thus making himself heard (325–6):
ME. Vox mihi ad auris aduolauit. SO. Ne ego homo infelix fui,
Qui non alas interuelli: uolucrem uocem gestito.
ME. A voice hath flown unto my ear. SO. (aside) There you are! I swear I am an
unlucky devil not to have clipped its wings, and me with such a bird-like voice.
(trans. P. Nixon)
Similar ways of conceiving the word have enjoyed great success in literature up
to the modern age. This can be seen in various poetic expressions that have
become famous: from the Homeric formula that describes words the moment
they get past one’s teeth (ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων)53 to Pietro
Metastasio’s ‘Voce dal sen fuggita / poi richiamar non vale’.54 The irrevoc-
ability of words is topical in the condemnation of loquacity, as easily seen from
Horace’s well-known lines (Epist. 1.18.69–71):

52
Examples regarding speed include the proverbial expressions such as dicto citius recorded
by Otto 1890, 112 (n. 528), and Tosi 1991, 4 (n. 4).
53
It may also be interesting to recall how the formula ἔπεα πτερόεντα was associated with the
very same expression by Eustathius (Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam 1.20 Stallbaum).
54
‘The word that once escapes the tongue cannot be recalled’. These lines conclude Act 2,
Scene 1 of Metastasio’s Ipermestra. Here the image is clearly associated with the path of an arrow,
as the lines immediately following demonstrate: ‘non si trattien lo strale / quando dall’arco uscì.’
34 Word of Mouth

Percontatorem fugito: nam garrulus idem est,

nec retinent patulae commissa fideliter aures,
et semel emissum uolat irreuocabile uerbum.55
Avoid a questioner, for he is also a tattler. Open ears will not keep secrets loyally,
and the word once let slip flies beyond recall. (trans. H. R. Fairclough)
Images of both birds and arrows are fully justified when talking about the
flight of the word. Sometimes we even find them used side by side to indicate
the various ways words travel through the air. A very telling example is a
passage from Achilles Tatius’s romance Leucippe and Clitophon (6.10.4–5),
which proposes a singular genealogy of Φήμη, presented as the daughter of
Διαβολή:
Φήμη δὲ καὶ Διαβολὴ δύο συγγενῆ κακά· θυγάτηρ ἡ Φήμη τῆς Διαβολῆς. καὶ ἔστι
μὲν ἡ Διαβολὴ μαχαίρας ὀξυτέρα, πυρὸς σφοδροτέρα, Σειρήνων πιθανωτέρα, ἡ δὲ
Φήμη ὕδατος ὑγροτέρα, πνεύματος δρομικωτέρα, πτερῶν ταχυτέρα. ὅταν οὖν ἡ
Διαβολὴ τοξεύσῃ τὸν λόγον, ὁ μὲν δίκην βέλους ἐξίπταται καὶ τιτρώσκει μὴ
παρόντα καθ’ οὗ πέμπεται· ὁ δὲ ἀκούων ταχὺ πείθεται, καὶ ὀργῆς αὐτῷ πῦρ
ἐξάπτεται, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν βληθέντα μαίνεται. τεχθεῖσα δὲ ἡ Φήμη τῷ τοξεύματι ῥεῖ
μὲν εὐθὺς πολλὴ καὶ ἐπικλύζει τὰ ὦτα τῶν ἐντυχόντων, διαπνεῖ δὲ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον
καταιγίζουσα τῷ τοῦ λόγου πνεύματι καὶ ἐξίπταται κουφιζομένη τῷ τῆς γλώττης
πτερῷ.
Rumour (Pheme) and Slander (Diabole) are two kindred Furies: Rumour is
Slander’s daughter. Slander is sharper than any sword, stronger than fire, more
persuasive than a Siren; Rumour is more slippery than water, runs faster than the
wind, flies quicker than any winged bird. When Slander shoots forth a lying
report, it flies like an arrow and wounds him at whom it is aimed even though he
is not present where the word is spoken: the hearer quickly believes it, the fire of
his anger is kindled, and he is soon furious and mad against the object of the shot.
Rumour, brought into being by the act of shooting, at once flows onward gaining
in volume, and overwhelms the ears of all whom she meets; she travels far, like a
wind, carried storm-wise on the gale of words; she flies, borne aloft by the wings
of the human tongue. (trans. S. Gaselee)
Calumny shoots her discourse ‘like an arrow’ because her intent is to ‘wound’ a
distant person. Only then is Φήμη generated, and in turn transmitted by word
of mouth, flying lightly ‘over the wings of the tongue’.
The tertium comparationis common to both similes appears to be precisely
their way of travelling through the air: the two different ways of inflecting this
metaphor may be explained according to the context in which the communi-
cative process is imagined. When we are dealing with a word directly aimed at
an interlocutor, the image of the arrow clearly emerges; in all other cases, the
image of birds and their swift, unstoppable flight is preferred.

55
See also Ars poetica 390: nescit uox missa reuerti.
 Flying Information 35

The second kind of comparison serves to underscore the autonomy acquired

by talk when it wanders and spreads through the air. Birds are creatures that
are difficult to capture and their movements can only be controlled when
they are enclosed in a cage. The simile that highlights such elusiveness recurs
in various descriptions of impalpable entities like thoughts, memories, the
images of dreams, voices, and in fact, words themselves.56
Here, we are obviously discussing the ‘spoken word’. To some extent,
writing actually makes it possible to ‘stop’ what would otherwise be destined
to fly freely through the air. As John Colin Carothers observed, once they have
been rendered visible through writing, ‘words . . . join a world of a relative
indifference to the viewer—a world from which the magic “power” of the word
has been abstracted’.57

1 . 4 . ‘ CE TÉLÉGRAPHE EST UN M YSTÈRE SOCIAL’

1.4.1. Routes and the Transmission of Messages

The figure of the messenger, entrusted with information to be transmitted

orally and/or in writing, was at the centre of Greek and Roman communica-
tion. We have seen that, in antiquity, the journey could be sped up either by
increasing the efficiency of transportation (as was the case for the cursus
publicus), or through forms of ‘relay’ transmission that permitted the separ-
ation of the message from the individual bearer, allowing it to move more
quickly than if it had been borne by just one messenger. In any case, no
message could move faster than the swiftest imaginable human conveyance.
Thus, the conditions of communication routes over sea, river, and land
dictated how fast information (and indeed, goods) could be exchanged.
Moreover, even though a relay system might separate the message from the
individual messenger, it never saved a considerable amount of time, nor did it
justify forgoing the efficiency that a single messenger could guarantee. Indeed,
it was possible to ask a single messenger for useful details about the sender of
the message, which could enrich the value of the transmitted information.

56
Just as an example, Socrates uses the same analogy of captured birds kept in an aviary when
speaking to Theaetetus about how ἐπιστῆμαι are acquired, tamed, and used (Pl. Tht. 197d ff.). It
would be particularly interesting to develop these observations in the light of metaphors
dedicated to voices (φωνή, αὐδή) or the songs that ‘flow’ or ‘pour’ from the mouth that issues
them (see Nünlist 1998, 178–85): in other words, dedicated to the sonorous flows that contain
utterances.
57
Carothers 1959, 310, quoted by McLuhan 1962, 20. The topic has been discussed exten-
sively in literature on oral transmission (for just one example, see the overview by Ong 1982,
11–12, 31, 115–29).
36 Word of Mouth

This is what Suetonius observed when he explained how the cursus publicus set
up by Augustus consisted of an extensive array of different means of transport,
rather than relays of couriers (Aug. 49.3):
Commodius id visum est, ut qui a loco idem perferunt litteras, interrogari quoque,
si quid res exigant, possint.
The latter has seemed the more convenient arrangement, since the same men
who bring the dispatches from any place can, if occasion demands, be questioned
as well. (trans. J. C. Rolfe)
For this reason, the ancients generally preferred to entrust their messages to a
single messenger.58
A message could be transmitted either in writing (like the letter Proetus gives
Bellerophon in Il. 6.168–9)59 or orally. In some cases, the written and oral
statements complemented each other, as in an episode related by Thucydides
(7.8.2–7.10) in which, in order to guarantee authenticity, messengers were
called on to recite aloud the message they had also been given in writing.60
Things changed very little until almost the mid-nineteenth century. The
speed of communications improved dramatically only after the link between
messenger and message was severed: that is, when the text (first an elaborately
encoded written text) could travel ‘alone’, without the need for its material
medium to be transported physically through space:
It was not until the advent of the telegraph that messages could travel faster than a
messenger. Before this, roads and the written word were closely interrelated. It is
only since the telegraph that information has detached itself from such solid
commodities as stone and papyrus . . . 61

58
This is the conclusion of the extensive treatment of the question of ‘Mittel und Schnelligkeit
der Nachrichtenbeföderung’ by Riepl 1913, 123–240.
59
This is the only passage in which Homer refers to writing, but it is impossible to ascertain
what type of text it was and what kind of ciphering is alluded to (see Kirk 1990, 181–2 ad loc.).
60
Thucydides 7.8.2–3 (the episode is from 414 BCE). Nicias sends a request for aid to Athens:
φοβούμενος δὲ μὴ οἱ πεμπόμενοι ἢ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ λέγειν ἀδυνασίαν ἢ καὶ μνήμης ἐλλιπεῖς γιγνόμενοι
ἢ τῷ ὄχλῳ πρὸς χάριν τι λέγοντες οὐ τὰ ὄντα ἀπαγγέλλωσιν, ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολήν, νομίζων οὕτως
ἂν μάλιστα τὴν αὑτοῦ γνώμην μηδὲν ἐν τῷ ἀγγέλῳ ἀφανισθεῖσαν μαθόντας τοὺς Ἀθηναίους
βουλεύσασθαι περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας. καὶ οἱ μὲν ᾤχοντο φέροντες, οὓς ἀπέστειλε, τὰ γράμματα καὶ
ὅσα ἔδει αὐτοὺς εἰπεῖν (‘But fearing that his messengers might not report the actual facts, either
through inability to speak or from lapse of memory, or because they wanted to please the crowd,
[he] wrote a letter, thinking that in this way the Athenians would best learn his own view,
obscured in no way by any fault on the part of the messenger, and could thus deliberate about the
true situation. So the messengers whom he sent departed, bearing the letter and the verbal
reports which they were to deliver’; trans. Charles Forster Smith). On the variations of spoken/
written language in long-distance communication in antiquity, again see Riepl 1913, 322–49.
61
McLuhan 1964, 89 (on the effects of interconnection generated by the telegraph and the
consequences these had on information, see also pp. 246–57). See also Riepl 1913, 8–9 and
Meyrowitz 1985, 116–22.
 Flying Information 37

The encoding of messages permitted their movement in ‘dematerialized’

forms that were not dependent on human travel. Overcoming geographical
impediments to the circulation of information meant that words could finally
be conveyed by air or wire across great distances, thanks first to visual and
later electrical signals. Thus, messages began to be transmitted at great speed
along routes that were very different from the generally rather short ones
evoked by the ancient metaphors of ‘flight’.

1.4.2. The Light of Fire

The ancients had also experimented with transmission techniques based on

the encoding of messages using rather primitive methods of telegraphy, but
the results they obtained in this area were disappointing.
The instrument the Greeks exploited most for this purpose was what
Hesiod (Th. 566) called πυρὸς τηλέσκοπον αὐγήν, the ‘light of fire, visible
from afar’. In Homer’s poems we already find several references to the practice
of transmitting light signals over distances. Most often, these were relay signals
sent out over a series of stations placed at intervals that were not too far apart,
although the routes themselves could be very long.62
This type of signalling made it possible to transmit a univocal message
whose terms were agreed upon in advance by those using the system. Despite
being semantically limited, this kind of communication was so different from
the typical approaches to long-distance communication that it often became a
source of wonder and incredulity. A famous example of this can be found in
Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, where Clytemnestra describes the journey of the
message of fire that brought news of Troy’s fall to the palace of the Atreides.
The queen has to contend with the incredulity of the chorus over a piece of
news that has travelled so quickly.63
What makes Clytemnestra’s announcement hard to believe is that no
messenger could have reached Argos so quickly (280):
καὶ τίς τόδ’ ἐξίκοιτ’ ἄν ἀγγέλων τάχος;
And what messenger could reach here with speed like that? (trans. Herbert Weir
Smyth)

62
Invention of the technique is sometimes attributed to a minor hero of ancient mythical
technology, Palamedes (see above all Gorgias, fr. 82 B11a, 30 Diels-Kranz, in his Defense of
Palamedes).
63
The announcement of the fall of Troy is met with disbelief (268: πέφευγε τοὖπος ἐξ
ἀπιστίας, ‘so incredible is this word it flees from us;’ and again at line 272, τί γὰρ τὸ πιστόν;
ἔστι τῶνδέ σοι τέκμαρ; ‘[c]an it be believed? Do you have proof?’), which leads the chorus to ask
the queen a series of irreverent questions (274).
38 Word of Mouth

Clytemnestra answers this objection by naming the ‘god of fire’ himself,

namely Hephaestus, who had played the go-between. In doing so, she indi-
cates the supernatural nature of the intermediary that served as messenger on
this occasion (281–3):
Ἥφαιστος, Ἴδης λαμπρὸν ἐκπέμπων σέλας·
φρυκτὸς δὲ φρυκτὸν δεῦρ’ ἀπ’ ἀγγάρου πυρὸς
ἔπεμπεν.
Hephaestus, from Ida speeding forth his brilliant blaze. Beacon passed beacon on
to us by courier-flame. (trans. Herbert Weir Smyth)
Here it is worth noting the use of the adjective ἄγγαρος, a technical term that
refers to the Persian relay couriers who had made such a deep impression on
Herodotus.64
Clytemnestra describes fire as a messenger who proceeds along an itinerary
of relays. Once again, we are dealing with a summary of the most important
stopping-points along a maritime route: Aeschylus had done no more than
represent the route from Troy to Argos in the only way he was capable of
imagining it, that is, as a route a traveller would take by sea. The stations of this
route are the same (but in the opposite direction) as those that Hera ‘flew’ past
on her way from Olympus to Troy in book 14 of the Iliad.65
The metaphors in Clytemnestra’s description portray the path of fiery
signals as the journey of a winged messenger.66 As to how such an astonishing
trip was to be imagined, much remains shrouded in mystery. There is only one
messenger, and yet at the same time he is renewed in successive stages. Thanks
to the relay mechanism, the extraordinary power of fire transfers the message
over inconceivable distances in a single night, shattering the conventional
notions of distance and time held by the people of Argos. The exceptional
nature of this messenger, a divine being capable of flight, threatens the
perceived relationship between space and time as derived from experience.
Can Troy really be reached in a single night? Yes, but only with wings, a divine
nature, and a chain of relay stations like those organized by Agamemnon. The
perception of space is thus split into a human dimension (involving typical
travel) and a divine one (that of flight), which nonetheless remains inconceiv-
able, as it is so far from the experience of humans who travel through space.

64
Reference to the system of relay messengers occurs later on in Clytemnestra’s final words
(312–14): see Fraenkel’s notes 1962, II, 165–9 and, in general, Riepl 1913, 50–2.
65
See sec. 1.1.3. On the route, see also Diels 1924, 80, and Fraenkel 1962, II, 156.
66
Consider the terms used to describe the journey of the fire: πορευτοῦ λαμπάδος (287) and πομποῦ
πυρός (299), φάος τηλέπομπον (300). For references to flight, see ὑπερτελής (286), ἔσκηψεν (302, 308),
σκήπτει (310). For crossing space and forward motion, see πόντον νωτίσαι (286), μολόν (293),
ὑπερθοροῦσα πεδίον ᾿Ασωποῦ (297), λίμνην δ' ὑπὲρ γοργῶπιν (302), ἐξικνούμενον (303), ὑπερβάλλειν
πρόσω (307), ἀφίκετο (308). For references to the transmission of news, see παραγγείλασα
(289), ἀγγέλου μέρος (291), οἱ δ’ ἀντέλαμψαν καὶ παρήγγειλαν πρόσω (294), πέμπουσι (305),
and ll. 312–14.
 Flying Information 39

1.4.3. Flying vs. Walking: The Ancient Telegraph

The ‘relay of fires’ offered a feasible solution (within a limited range of

situations) for rapid long-distance communication. However, this system
was a very complex and costly form of optic telegraphy that was considerably
hampered by its inability to encode complex texts and information. Agamemnon’s
message could travel swiftly because it was direct and unequivocal. The signal
could have only one possible meaning: ‘Troy has fallen.’ To make the com-
municative process versatile, it would instead have been necessary to enhance
the symbolic capacity of the means of transmission: obtaining this result
entailed working on the encoding of messages.
The ancients also made timid attempts at experimentation in this field.
It was largely the needs of warfare that inspired the main methods of
‘telegraphic’ transmission, which consisted mostly of sending brief fire signals
that had been encoded specifically for this purpose.67 For example, short
strings of text were transmitted in such a way that the letters of the alphabet
comprising the message corresponded to specific movements of the torches
brandished at each post.
Due to their complexity, high cost, and inefficiency, these methods were
never used on a large scale. This kind of transmission system called for the
cooperation of too many people over an extremely long series of stations, in
addition to requiring optimum visibility. Not only that: longer texts could not
be transmitted and, as Polybius observed, this made the system ineffective.68
In short, the ancients were never able to achieve their fantastic aspiration of
making words ‘fly’ during long-distance communication. The ‘winged words’
of the Homeric formula never found a counterpart in the actual practice of
exchanging messages: a practice that never managed to sever the ties binding
words to either a messenger or a written medium and, in any case, to a long,
slow journey by land and/or sea. ‘Winged words’ remained nothing more than
a metaphor that awaited realization and still remained unable to enter the
realm of experience.69

67
See Riepl 1913, 46–122, from whose collection of material all later contributions derive (see
Diels 1924, 76–90, Hershbell 1978, Longo 1981, 87–98, Russell 1999, 145–9). The main sources
are Polyb. 10.43–7, Polyaenus Strat. 6.16.2, and the Anonymous Byzantine Περὶ πυρσῶν (ch. 8),
which may have been indirectly based on Julius Africanus’s Κεστοί.
68
Polyb. 10.46.1–6. Polybius himself had perfected the method invented by two otherwise
obscure figures (Cleoxenos and Democlitus). It is unsurprising that the Romans made no
attempt to improve on this technique: see Riepl 1913, 46–90 (esp. 86–7).
69
The ancients did not even make consistent use of forms of flight found in nature.
References to the use of birds (such as homing pigeons) to transmit messages are quite rare.
For example, Claudius Aelianus (V.H. 9.2) says that Taurosthenes, in 444 BCE, sent news of his
victory in the Olympic games to his native Aegina with a dove wearing a red band. Similar
anecdotes are reported by Pliny the Elder (H.N. 10.71 and 110, see also Frontin. Str. 3.13.8).
40 Word of Mouth

1.4.4. The Relay of Hearsay

The relay of visual signals proved to be of little use, even if the seed of the idea
was a fertile one, as the invention of the optic telegraph would show centuries
later. The ancients were actually quite familiar with another relay mechanism
for transmitting information. They were amazed at its capacity to carry all
kinds of news over vast distances in a very short time, but they also had every
reason not to trust it. I am referring to the circulation of rumours, as
prodigious in their ability to cover distances almost instantaneously as they
were dangerous, since they were never verifiable and often false.
To a certain extent, all the descriptions the ancients have provided of this
phenomenon—which I shall examine in the following chapters—view the spread
of rumours as a disorderly process of relays. The words transmitted from the
mouth of the speaker to the ear of the listener are then passed on to others in
similar fashion, along a potentially never-ending chain. This operation, which is
repeated over and over, certainly does allow rumours to ‘fly’ great distances, but
their path is unpredictable and the source of all kinds of distortion. As Plutarch
said in the excerpt I discussed above, once words have entered the communica-
tion circuit they acquire a sort of autonomy that makes them irrevocable: they flit
about or are launched like an unstoppable ship. To represent such words, it was
necessary to release them from the material limitations that hampered their
circulation: they had to be given a special vitality, an almost divine character.70
Obviously, however, such circuits lacked any guarantee that the original
message would be transmitted faithfully. While any single messenger was
responsible for the information with which he had been entrusted (in whatever
form he received it), when rumours spread, the many stages of the transmission
followed no precise itinerary and ended up separating the message from its
bearer, especially because at each junction of this long and disorderly route the
information tended to be reformulated. Under these conditions, no one could
ever control the various metamorphoses that information underwent as it
travelled by word of mouth. In addition, rumours did not direct themselves
towards a specific recipient, but entered a network of exchanges that was, by
definition, unpredictable. This mechanism of transmission was extraordinary
but unmanageable: a source of both wonder and confusion.

1.4.5. Fama, ‘Social Telegraph’

A solution to the ancient problem of detaching the message from its written
form and its human messenger was only found in the second half of the

70
See sec. 1.3.1.
 Flying Information 41

nineteenth century. The diffusion of the telegraph enabled the instant trans-
mission of increasingly complex messages over hundreds of kilometres.71
A story by Balzac contains one of the first hints of the shift in perspective
brought about by this revolutionary new technology. Les Marana (also known
as Juana) is the tale of a forced marriage between Juana, a girl who risks being
ruined by an unscrupulous seducer, and Pierre-François Diard, a non-
commissioned officer of the ‘sixth of the line’. The contrast between the
modest qualities of the man and the beautiful, wealthy girl unleashes an
unstoppable wave of gossip among the Parisians and, at this crucial point in
the story, Balzac launches into a lengthy tirade on the mechanisms that
regulate the spread of rumours:
Or, à Paris, de la dernière maison du faubourg Saint-Germain au dernier hôtel de la
rue Saint-Lazare, entre la butte du Luxembourg et celle de Montmartre, tout ce qui
s’habille et babille, s’habille pour sortir et sort pour babiller, tout ce monde de petits
et de grands airs . . . toutes ces oreilles entendent, toutes ces langues disent et toutes
ces intelligences savent, en une seule soirée, où est né, où a grandi, ce qu’a fait ou n’a
pas fait le nouveau venu qui prétend à des honneurs dans ce monde. S’il n’existe pas
de Cour d’assises pour la haute société, elle rencontre le plus cruel de tous les
procureurs généraux, un être moral, insaisissable, à la fois juge et bourreau: il
accuse et il marque. N’espérez lui rien cacher, dites-lui tout vous-même, il veut tout
savoir et sait tout. Ne demandez pas où est le télégraphe inconnu qui lui transmet à
la même heure, en un clin d’œil, en tous lieux, une histoire, un scandale, une
nouvelle; ne demandez pas qui le remue. Ce télégraphe est un mystère social, un
observateur ne peut qu’en constater les effets. Il y en a d’incroyables exemples, un
seul suffit. L’assassinat du duc de Berry, frappé à l’Opéra, fut conté, dans la dixième
minute qui suivit le crime, au fond de l’île Saint-Louis. L’opinion émanée du 6e de
ligne sur Diard filtra dans le monde le soir même où il donna son premier bal.72
Now in Paris, from the last house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain to the last in the
rue Saint-Lazare, between the heights of the Luxembourg and the heights of
Montmartre, all that clothes itself and gabbles, clothes itself to go out and goes out
to gabble. All that world of great and small pretensions . . . all those ears hear, all those
tongues say, all those minds know, in a single evening, where the new-comer who
aspires to honor among them was born and brought up, and what that interloper has
done, or has not done, in the course of his life. There may be no court of assizes for
the upper classes of society; but at any rate they have the most cruel of public
prosecutors, an intangible moral being, both judge and executioner, who accuses
and brands. Do not hope to hide anything from him; tell him all yourself; he wants to

71
It is difficult to overstate the impact of this new technology on the society of the time. One
need only consider the fact that the existence of the telegraph laid the foundations for global
synchronization, which had its origins in the organizational requirements of the railways. In
other words, it made a fundamental contribution to altering collective perception of space-time
(see Kern 2003, 10–16).
72
I quote from Honoré de Balzac, La Comédie humaine, vol. 15, partie II, Études philosophi-
ques, Paris, A. Houssiaux, 1853, 253–4. (Emphases mine.)
42 Word of Mouth
know all and he will know all. Do not ask what mysterious telegraph it was which
conveyed to him in the twinkling of an eye, at any hour, in any place, that story,
that bit of news, that scandal; do not ask what prompts him. That telegraph is a
social mystery; no observer can report its effects. Of many extraordinary instances
thereof, one may suffice: The assassination of the Duc de Berry, which occurred at
the Opera-house, was related within ten minutes in the Ile-Saint-Louis. Thus the
opinion of the sixth of the line as to its quartermaster filtered through society the
night on which he gave his first ball. (trans. K. Prescott Wormeley)
The extraordinary and inexplicable rapidity with which rumour is spread far
and wide is likened to what is made possible by a means of communication that
finally detaches the message from its traditional supporting medium and sends
it flying over great distances, via a chainlike mechanism. Balzac, who was
writing in 1833, was obviously not referring to Morse’s telegraph, which was
patented five years later, but to the optic telegraph (a much more complicated
and inefficient device) perfected by the Chappe brothers and used in France
(mostly for military or commercial purposes) starting in 1794.73
In this passage, thanks to his exceptional ability to break down psychological
and social phenomena into their primary components, Balzac clearly identifies
the most important characteristic of rumour: its swift, invisible, and unstoppable
transmission of information along a chain of ‘tongues’ and ‘ears’ arranged like
the stations of a telegraph line. The image certainly owes a good deal to a long
tradition of representations that had begun with book 4 of the Aeneid, which
contains Virgil’s description of the tongues, eyes, and ears covering the mon-
strous body of Fama. But what is most striking is the relationship Balzac
establishes between traditional imagery and technological innovation. The an-
cient metaphor of the ‘flight of the word’ has finally been ‘embodied’ in an
instrument that can transmit many messages swiftly over a great distance.74
Balzac describes words and rumours as autonomous entities capable of
moving with lightning speed in all directions, essentially ascribing them the
same characteristics that the ancients did. But rather than comparing them to
birds and arrows, he says that words travel as if they were transmitted by a
colossal and anonymous ‘social telegraph’. The analogy of a technical instru-
ment serves to suggest a new image of the extraordinary rapidity with which
news of an event can travel. Still, the astonishment at the miraculous propa-
gation of rumour has not changed at all, nor has the mechanism at the heart of
such transmission: rumour continues to remain a ‘social mystery’. The fan-
tastic image of the word ‘in flight’ has been merely replaced with a new simile,
which mentions an instrument of human communication able to achieve
something that for centuries was no more than a pipe-dream.

73
See Riepl, 1913, 113–15. The first telegraph line did not open in the USA until 1844.
74
On the fabulous speed ancient authors always attributed to news borne ‘in flight’ by Fama
see Riepl 1913, 235–40.
 Flying Information 43

1.5. AN UNCERTAIN POINT O F DEPARTURE,

NO DESTINATION

1.5.1. No Sure Source

Let us now return to the ancients to more closely examine how they imagined
and described the realm of rumours. To do this, I will refer to some pages that
Plutarch devoted to the phenomenon, in particular to his insightful descrip-
tion in De garrulitate.
A representative episode of the fate of gossips can be found in a brief
overview of anecdotes involving a notoriously ‘talkative’ group: barbers.75
News of the defeat in Sicily was said to have been spread through Athens by
a barber who had heard it from a stranger at his shop in the Piraeus (509B):
γενομένης δὲ ταραχῆς οἷον εἰκὸς εἰς ἐκκλησίαν ἀθροισθεὶς ὁ δῆμος ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν
ἐβάδιζε τῆς φήμης. ἤγετ’ οὖν ὁ κουρεὺς καὶ ἀνεκρίνετο, μηδὲ τοὔνομα τοῦ
φράσαντος εἰδὼς ἀλλ’ εἰς ἀνώνυμον καὶ ἄγνωστον ἀναφέρων τὴν ἀρχὴν πρόσωπον.
ὀργὴ δὴ καὶ βοὴ τοῦ θεάτρου· ‘βασάνιζε καὶ στρέβλου τὸν ἀλάστορα· πέπλασται
ταῦτα καὶ συντέθεικε· τίς δ’ ἄλλος ἤκουσε; τίς δ’ ἐπίστευσεν;’
A panic naturally arose and the people gathered in assembly and tried to come at
the origin of the rumour. So the barber was brought forward and questioned;
yet he did not even know the name of his informant, but referred the origin to
a nameless and unknown person. The assembly was enraged and cried out,
‘Torture the cursed fellow! Put him on the rack! He has fabricated and concocted
this tale! Who else heard it? Who believed it?’ (trans. W. C. Helmbold)
The poor man was even tortured, until survivors arrived and announced the
news of the defeat (ἐν τούτῳ παρῆσαν οἱ τὴν συμφορὰν ἀπαγγέλλοντες, ἐξ αὐτοῦ
τοῦ ἔργου διαπεφευγότες). Naturally, the Athenians immediately believed this
news. Plutarch places particular emphasis on the barber’s inability to identify
his sources. As we will see further on, the trustworthiness of an informant
is never one of the key concerns in informational circuits of this sort.
Consequently, those who report φήμη’s news are not credible, even when—as
in this case—the information they are sharing is not false.76
Plutarch uses similar terms to describe the analogous spread of information
in the Life of Aemilius Paulus. Here, too, he stresses the unreliability of
information spread through rumours. But this time we also find evocative
descriptions of the mysterious path they follow as they weave their way

75
On the typical placement of gossip scenes in the shops of barbers and perfumers, see
Nicolson 1891, 42–3, Hunter 1990, 302, Larran 2011, 196–8, Leigh 2013, 13, n. 58, and 47, and
above all Lewis 1995 (taken up again in Lewis 1996, 14–19).
76
See Gotteland 1997, 89–90 and 95–6. While recounting the same event in the Life of Nicias
30, Plutarch says that the Athenians labelled the barber a gossip (δόξας λογοποιὸς εἶναι) as he was
unable to cite his sources: see Lewis 1996, 78–80.
44 Word of Mouth

through the crowd. The subject is examined rather extensively because it

helps demonstrate that the extraordinary fame that accompanied the feats of
Aemilius Paulus was a sign of the favour the gods and fortune had granted him.77
Plutarch tells us that news of the victory at Pydna reached Rome in only
three days, descending suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) on the circus and spreading
quickly (ταχύ . . . ἀναχεομένης) through the crowd. The city was overjoyed
but, once again, the news lacked sufficient credibility, and for this reason
was quickly rejected. It was only with the arrival of reliable news that the
astonished Romans were obliged to change their minds about φήμη’s ability to
report both true and false things at the same time (24.6):
εἶθ’ ὡς ὁ λόγος οὐκ εἶχεν εἰς ἀρχὴν ἀνελθεῖν βέβαιον, ἀλλ’ ἐν πᾶσιν ὁμοίως ἐφαίνετο
πλανώμενος, τότε μὲν ἐσκεδάσθη καὶ διερρύη τὰ τῆς φήμης· ὀλίγαις δ’ ὕστερον
ἡμέραις πυθόμενοι σαφῶς ἐθαύμαζον τὴν προδραμοῦσαν ἀγγελίαν, ὡς ἐν τῷ ψεύδει
τὸ ἀληθὲς εἶχε.
Then, since the story could not be traced to any sure source, but seemed to be
current everywhere alike, for the time being the rumour vanished into thin air;
but when, a few days afterwards, they were clearly informed of the matter, they
were astonished at the tidings which had reached them first, seeing that in the
fiction there was truth. (trans. Bernadotte Perrin)
In short, φήμη had spread easily until its primary informational limitation was
exposed again: it could not be traced back to a sure source (εἰς ἀρχὴν ἀνελθεῖν
βέβαιον). This factor alone invalidated the informative power of a rumour that—
once again—would prove to be true. At this point, the news reached the
end of its confused and disorderly path (πλανώμενος): a path that had made
it impossible to identify the original source of the information. Without this
credential, φήμη could produce nothing more than an ineffective announce-
ment (ἀγγελία).78

1.5.2. A Chain that Vanishes into Thin Air

Starting with this episode, Plutarch examines an entire series of occurrences in

which news of important historical events spread with unusual speed (25.1–2).
Then he tells a story from his own time, the failed revolt of Lucius Antonius

77
Plut. Aem. 24.4: ὑπερβάλλει δὲ θειότητι πάντα καὶ τύχῃ τὰ τῆς φήμης (‘But an altogether
more signal instance of divine favour and good fortune is seen in the way the rumour of his
victory spread’; trans. Bernadotte Perrin).
78
It is noteworthy that, according to what Livy reported (44.22), before leaving for Macedonia,
Aemilius Paulus gave a speech counselling his fellow citizens to trust only the written messages
he would send home (‘uos quae scripsero senatui ac uobis, <iis modo credite et cauete ru>mores
credulitate uestra alatis, quorum auctor nemo extabit. nam nunc quidem, quod uulgo fieri, hoc
praecipue bello, animaduerti, nemo tam famae contemptor est, cuius non debilitari animus
possit’). On this passage, see O’Neill 2003, 139–40.
 Flying Information 45

Saturninus (imperial legate of Germania Superior) against Domitian, focusing

on the mechanism that produces rumours. Here we have the most complete
illustration of the phenomenon we are examining (25.5–7):
[ . . . ] τῆς Ῥώμης ταραττομένης, ἄφνω καὶ αὐτομάτως ὁ δῆμος ἐξ αὑτοῦ φήμην
ἀνέδωκε νίκης, καὶ τὴν Ῥώμην ἐπέδραμε λόγος αὐτόν τε τὸν Ἀντώνιον ἀνῃρῆσθαι,
καὶ τοῦ σὺν αὐτῷ στρατεύματος ἡττημένου μηδὲν μέρος λελεῖφθαι· τοσαύτην δὲ
λαμπρότητα καὶ ῥύμην ἡ πίστις ἔσχεν ὥστε καὶ θῦσαι τῶν ἐν τέλει πολλούς.
Ζητουμένου δὲ τοῦ πρώτου φράσαντος, ὡς οὐδεὶς ἦν, ἀλλ’ ὁ λόγος <εἰς> ἄλλον ἐξ
ἄλλου διωκόμενος ἀνέφευγε καὶ τέλος καταδὺς ὥσπερ εἰς πέλαγος ἀχανὲς τὸν
ἄπειρον ὄχλον ἐφάνη μηδεμίαν ἀρχὴν ἔχων βέβαιον, αὕτη μὲν ἡ φήμη ταχὺ τῆς
πόλεως ἐξερρύη, πορευομένῳ δὲ τῷ Δομετιανῷ μετὰ δυνάμεως ἐπὶ τὸν πόλεμον ἤδη
καθ’ ὁδὸν ἀγγελία καὶ γράμματα φράζοντα τὴν νίκην ἀπήντησεν. ῾Η δ’ αὐτὴ
τοῦ <τε> κατορθώματος ἡμέρα καὶ τῆς φήμης ἐγίγνετο, ἐπὶ πλέον ἢ δισμυρίους
σταδίους τῶν τόπων διεστώτων. Ταῦτα μὲν οὐδεὶς ἀγνοεῖ τῶν καθ’ ἡμᾶς.
[While] Rome was in commotion, suddenly and spontaneously the people of
their own accord spread abroad a report of a victory, and a story coursed through
Rome that Antonius himself had been slain, and that of his defeated army not a
portion was left alive. Belief in the story became so strong and distinct that many
of the magistrates actually offered sacrifices. When, however, the author of the
story was sought, none could be found, but it eluded all pursuit from one man to
another, and finally disappeared in the limitless throng, as in a yawning sea, and
was seen to have no sure source. This rumour, then, quickly melted away in the
city; but when Domitian was setting out with an army for the war and was already
on the march, messages and letters announcing the victory came to meet him.
And the success itself was gained on the day when the rumour of it came to Rome,
although the distance between the places was more than twenty thousand fur-
longs. These facts are known to every one of our time. (trans. Bernadotte Perrin)
This report is noteworthy for several reasons, firstly for the striking attribution
of the birth of the news to an impulse that, in addition to being sudden and
spontaneous (ἄφνω καὶ αὐτομάτως), was also self-generated by the crowd (ἐξ
αὑτοῦ). At the very beginning of the episode, Plutarch insinuates that instead
of reaching Rome from Germany, the news had arisen locally as the simple
projection of Roman desires.79

79
It is interesting to compare the way other authors describe the same event. In Silu.
5.1.105–7, Statius attributes the announcement of the news to a generic personification of
Fama: ‘quaeque tuas laurus uolucri, Germanice, cursu / Fama uehit praegressa diem tardumque
sub astris / Arcada et in medio linquit Thaumantida caelo.’ Suetonius (Dom. 6.2) instead
describes not only augural events, but also the rumours that would have preceded the docu-
mented information of the messengers (nuntii), as omens (praesagia): ‘de qua uictoria praesagiis
prius quam nuntiis comperit [scil. Domitianus], siquidem ipso quo dimicatum erat die statuam
eius Romae insignis aquila circumplexa pinnis clangores laetissimos edidit; pauloque post
occisum Antonium adeo uulgatum est, ut caput quoque adportatum eius uidisse se plerique
contenderent.’
46 Word of Mouth

The attribution of credibility to this news was immediately shown to be

unwarranted, given that the search for a sure source once again proved
fruitless (μηδεμίαν ἀρχὴν ἔχων βέβαιον). Plutarch uses a precise definition of
the source to which responsibility for the information should have been
attributed: only the identification of its ‘first enunciator’ (ὁ πρῶτος φράσας)
could have validated the trust (πίστις) that was recklessly placed in the news
when it arrived. However, this figure did not exist (οὐδεὶς ἦν).
Another very interesting element of Plutarch’s narrative is the description
of the ‘chain reaction’ of the rumour as it passed from mouth to mouth
(ὁ λόγος εἰς ἄλλον ἐξ ἄλλου διωκόμενος). Lastly, Plutarch uses an extremely
effective image to describe how the news faded away, disappearing into the
void formed by the great sea of a limitless crowd (ἄπειρον). Φήμη, born from
nothing, vanished after crossing an undefined space in no specific direction.80
This series of vague elements is countered by the precision of the route (the
military path) on which Domitian happened upon the certified news, the type
verified by the reliable forms used for messengers’ reports (ἀγγελία), with the
additional guarantee of writing (γράμματα). Whereas establishing which
source was the first to relay a rumour (ὁ πρῶτος φράσας) is impossible, the
written text of an official letter reports the victory (φράζοντα τὴν νίκην),
proceeding along a marked path that starts with a sender and leads to his
most obvious recipient. Here we can also find a more general opposition: on
the one hand, we have the authority of the official document, set down and
committed to writing, which can proceed along the routes taken by messen-
gers; on the other, there is the unreliability of oral communication, a linguistic
and cultural practice that cannot easily be subjected to the same verification
process as a written text.81
Plutarch concludes this passage with a calculation of the distance between
the battle site and Rome, with an exact indication of the time that elapsed
between the key battle and the birth of the rumour.82 However, he does not
make any specific comments about the ability of words to travel such great
distance in so little time. Φήμη thus remains cloaked in her mysterious aura,
poised between the self-production of popular talk and the mystery of super-
natural speed along a path that is difficult to mark clearly and, moreover, is

80
It should be noted that Plutarch seems to have been particularly fond of the expression εἰς
(πρὸς) πέλαγος ἀχανὲς: see comp. Cat. et Arist. 1.3 (coming from a small town, Cato plunges into
the ‘great sea of Rome’), Mar. 26.3 (the infantry advances like a great sea in motion), Cic. 6.4
(news about Cicero’s position as quaestor in Sicily falls on deaf ears in the large city, without
giving him the renown he had hoped for), Non posse suau. uiu. sec. Epic. 1107A, De lat.
uiu. 1130E.
81
A written text with all the characteristics of what Bourdieu called ‘langage autorisé’
(Bourdieu 2001, 159–73).
82
In reality, as commentators have observed, Plutarch indicated a number nearly three times
the real distance between Mainz and Rome (just under 1,300 km).
 Flying Information 47

destined to vanish into thin air. It is rather clear that, when referring to both
the news of the battle of Pydna and the revolt of Lucius Antonius Saturninus,
Plutarch was thinking of false rumours; however, the elegance of his descrip-
tion expertly communicates the impalpable and uncertain nature of the path
that diffuses fleeting, unreliable information among a crowd hungry for news.
Another passage in De garrulitate more clearly reveals Plutarch’s ideas
about the criteria that ought to be used to evaluate the reliability of rumours.
Aiming to criticize loquacity, he stigmatizes the garrulous who, by spewing so
much chatter, lose credibility (503D):
Ὅθεν οὐδὲ πίστιν ἔχουσιν ἧς πᾶς λόγος ἐφίεται· τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον αὐτοῦ τέλος τοῦτ’
ἐστί, πίστιν ἐνεργάσασθαι τοῖς ἀκούουσιν· ἀπιστοῦνται δ’ οἱ λάλοι, κἂν ἀληθεύωσιν.
ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ πυρὸς εἰς ἀγγεῖον κατακλεισθεὶς τῷ μὲν μέτρῳ πλείων εὑρίσκεται τῇ
δὲ χρείᾳ μοχθηρότερος, οὕτω λόγος εἰς ἀδόλεσχον ἐμπεσὼν ἄνθρωπον πολὺ ποιεῖ
τοῦ ψεύδους ἐπίμετρον, ᾧ διαφθείρει τὴν πίστιν.
They do not, therefore, meet with belief, which is the object of all speech. For this
is the proper end and aim of speech, to engender belief in the hearer; but
chatterers are disbelieved even if they are telling the truth. For as wheat shut up
in a jar is found to have increased in quantity, but to have deteriorated in quality,
so when a story finds its way to a chatterer, it generates a large addition of
falsehood and thereby destroys its credit. (trans. W. C. Helmbold)
As in the case of rumour, we are looking at a process that even takes away
credibility from true information. This loss of reliability derives from an excess
of linguistic production and a lack of control exercised over it. This suggests
that, for communication to be reliable, we must keep the words being circu-
lated at bay. From the standpoint of Plutarch’s discussions, talking too much
inevitably generates falsifications. In this way, the kernel of truth contained in
both well-founded rumours and the words of those who are too fond of gossip
becomes completely unusable.83
The sum of these observations by Plutarch on the ‘autonomous’ circulation
of rumours—which appear aerial and capable of ‘flying’, but also prove
uncontrollable and unreliable—constitutes one of the most interesting and
articulate ancient reflections on this subject that have been handed down to us.
We might list the main characteristics attributed to the rumours in these
passages as follows:
1. Their sudden, essentially spontaneous origin;
2. Their rapid circulation in a ‘chain’ of relays;
3. The impossibility of identifying their source (ἀρχή);
4. Their erratic, disorderly movement;

83
In his Characters, Theophrastus made similar observations about the figures of chatterers,
logopoioi and periergoi, particularly in the chapters on ἀδολεσχία (3) and λαλιά (7): see Larran
2011, 191–2, and Leigh 2013, 50–2.
48 Word of Mouth

5. Their disappearance into thin air;

6. Their mingling of true and false.
This combination of traits creates the impression of a phenomenon exhausted
by its own erratic movement, which does not go from a sender to a recipient,
but exists as long as a series of informational transfers by ‘word of mouth’
continues to keep it in circulation.

1.6. MYSTERIOUS TESTIMONIES

1.6.1. Premonitions

Plutarch described the circulation of the news about Pydna without even
attempting to explain exactly how it originated, but other versions of the
same episode—some more explicitly than others—ascribe this phenomenon
to the direct intervention of the gods. For example, Livy and Cicero offer a
reading of the event that leaves open the door to its possible interpretation as
something that hailed from a supernatural realm.
Livy’s version (Ab urbe condita 45.1.1–10) narrates the scene from the
perspective of the messengers who reach Rome with the official news, only
to find that the city has already foretold victory. The account contains the
same elements as those we found in Plutarch, but is structured in a slightly
different way. In this transcription of the passage, I have emphasized the terms
that refer to the spread of rumours and announcements about the victory:
Victoriae nuntii, Q. Fabius et L. Lentulus et Q. Metellus, quanta potuit adhiberi
festinatio, celeriter Romam cum uenissent, praeceptam tamen eius rei laetitiam
inuenerunt. Quarto post die, quam cum rege est pugnatum, cum in circo ludi
fierent, murmur repente populi tota spectacula peruasit pugnatum in Macedonia
et deuictum regem esse; dein fremitus increuit; postremo clamor plausus<que>
uelut certo nuntio uictoriae allato est exortus. Mirari magistratus et quaerere
auctorem repentinae laetitiae; qui postquam nullus erat, euanuit quidem tam-
quam certae rei gaudium, omen tamen laetum insidebat animis. Quod postquam
ueris nuntiis Fabi Lentulique et Metelli aduentu firmatum est, cum uictoria ipsa,
tum augurio animorum suorum laetabantur. Et altera traditur circensis turbae
non minus similis ueri laetitia. Ante diem quintum decimum kalendas Octobres,
ludorum Romanorum secundo die, C. Licinio consuli ad quadrigas mittendas
escendenti tabellarius, qui se ex Macedonia uenire diceret, laureatas litteras
<reddidisse> dicitur. Quadrigis missis consul currum conscendit et, cum per
circum reueheretur ad foros publicos, laureatas tabellas populo ostendit. Quibus
conspectis repente inmemor spectaculi populus in medium decurrit. Eo senatum
consul uocauit recitatisque tabellis ex auctoritate patrum pro foris publicis
denuntiauit populo L. Aemilium collegam signis conlatis cum rege Perseo pugnasse;
 Flying Information 49
Macedonum exercitum caesum fusumque; regem cum paucis fugisse; ciuitates
omnes Macedoniae in dicionem populi Romani uenisse. His auditis clamor cum
ingenti plausu ortus; ludis relictis domos magna pars hominum ad coniuges
liberos<que> laetum nuntium portabant. Tertius decimus dies erat ab eo, quo in
Macedonia pugnatum est.
The messengers of victory, Quintus Fabius, Lucius Lentulus, and Quintus Me-
tellus, summoned up the utmost possible speed and quickly arrived in Rome. Yet
they found that the joy of their announcement had been anticipated. On the third
day after the battle with the king, while games were being celebrated in the circus,
a rumour in the audience suddenly swept over the whole auditorium that a battle
had been fought in Macedonia and the king beaten; then the buzz increased;
finally there arose shouting and clapping, as if a definite report of victory had
arrived. The magistrates were astonished and sought after the originator of this
sudden rejoicing. When no such person was found, the rejoicing as if for an
established fact died away, but the happy omen lurked nevertheless in men’s
minds. After confirmation came through the genuine report on the arrival of
Fabius, Lentulus, and Metellus, men rejoiced both in the actual victory and in the
prophetic power of their spirits. The story is told of a second rejoicing by the mob
at the circus, which seemed no less genuine. On the sixteenth of September, on
the second day of the Roman Games, it is said that a messenger who said he came
from Macedonia handed despatches wreathed with laurel to the consul Gaius
Licinius as he was going up to start the chariot-race. When the race was over, the
consul mounted his chariot and as he was being driven back to the reserved seats,
showed the despatches to the people. At the sight of them the people at once
forgot the show and rushed down into the arena. On the spot, the consul
summoned the senate, had the despatches read, and on motion of the Fathers,
announced to the people before the magistrates’ seats that his colleague Lucius
Aemilius had fought a pitched battle with King Perseus, that the Macedonian
army had been slaughtered and routed, that the king had fled with but few
followers, and that all the cities of Macedonia had come under the sway of the
Roman people. On hearing this, shouting with great clapping of hands began; the
games were deserted and most of the people took home the glad news to their
wives and children. This was the twelfth day after the battle had taken place in
Macedonia. (trans. Alfred C. Schlesinger)
The messengers in charge of bringing the official news of the victory to Rome
reached a city that had already generated the news on its own, only a few days
after the battle of Pydna. The excitement had been elicited by a simple
murmur that had unleashed collective joy ‘as if a sure report of victory had
arrived’ (‘uelut certo nuntio uictoriae allato’). However, the usual search for
the source (‘quaerere auctorem’)—in this case performed by the magistrates—
turned up nothing (‘nullus erat’), so the news itself and the resulting joy
vanished (‘euanuit’). In contrast to Plutarch, who spoke of φήμη simply fading
away, Livy observes that the sort of premonition that sped through the crowd
had nevertheless left its mark. Once it was revealed to be groundless, the
information still hovered over those who had heard it, like a good omen
50 Word of Mouth

(‘omen laetum’) that simply needed to be confirmed (‘firmatum’) by real news

(‘ueris nuntiis’): and this is precisely what happened.

1.6.2. Divine Intervention

A passage like this shows how information generated in what was basically a
random and mysterious manner needed precise verification to be considered an
omen, a sort of premonition that could provide information about reality.
Verification of this kind was only possible if a connection was established a
posteriori between the verifiable documentation of the events and the spontan-
eous hope generated by talk (murmur). The detailed account of the arrival in
Rome of the laureatae litterae notifying the Senate of the specifics of the victory
once again highlights the contrast between the elusiveness of uncontrollable
rumours and the formal stamps accompanying authorized information. This
contrast shares many similarities with the one that, in Plutarch’s text, separated
the talk in the amphitheatre from the trustworthy information about the defeat of
Saturninus, which reached Domitian with official approval. In Livy’s text we find
a dual guarantee of authority: that of official writing (the litterae laureatae
reporting the victory) and that of the auctoritas patrum, which offers official
communication of the announcement to the crowd. Only at the end of this
complex path can the happy prediction finally be considered confirmed.
While Livy did not hint at a possible ‘supernatural’ contribution to the
miraculous diffusion of the news about the victory at Pydna, another version
of the same episode that appears in Cicero’s De natura deorum unambigu-
ously attributes the unexpectedly rapid message to the action of the gods. In
the second book of the treatise, the Stoic philosopher Quintus Lucilius Balbus
introduces his school’s opinion, according to which the universe is governed
by a divine will of superior intelligence. As time passes, all false beliefs about
the extraordinary beings from myth and legend are destined to fall into
oblivion; instead, the cult devoted to deities is upheld and the gods reveal
themselves to mankind in order to demonstrate their power. Something of the
kind occurred in Rome with the apparitions of the Dioscuri on the occasion of
the battle of Lake Regillus and the battle of Pydna (2.6):
[ . . . ] et recentiore memoria idem Tyndaridae Persem uictum nuntiauerunt.
P. enim Vatinius auus huius adulescentis, cum e praefectura Reatina Romam
uenienti noctu duo iuuenes cum equis albis dixissent regem Persem illo die captum,
<cum> senatui nuntiauisset, primo quasi temere de re publica locutus in carcerem
coniectus est, post a Paulo litteris allatis cum idem dies constitisset, et agro a senatu
et uacatione donatus est.84

84
See also Cic. Tusc. 1.28, where it is said that the Dioscuri not only aided the Romans in
battle, but also served as messengers of their victories (‘non modo adiutores in proeliis uictoriae
 Flying Information 51
And in more modern history likewise these sons of Tyndareus brought the news
of the defeat of Perses. What happened was that Publius Vatinius, the grandfather
of our young contemporary, was returning to Rome by night from Reate, of
which he was governor, when he was informed by two young warriors on white
horses that King Perses had that very day been taken prisoner. When Vatinius
carried the news to the Senate, at first he was flung into gaol on the charge of
spreading an unfounded report on a matter of national concern; but afterwards a
dispatch arrived from Paulus, and the date was found to tally, so the Senate
bestowed upon Vatinius both a grant of land and exemption from military
service. (trans. H. Rackham)
The terms of this story are the same as those found in the passages from
Plutarch and Livy: a piece of information that seems unbelievable due to the
unusual circumstances of its transmission is finally verified through standard
procedures of documentary communication. Here, however, we are not deal-
ing with the spontaneous generation of an unexplainable popular rumour, but
with a specific source of supernatural nature: the Dioscuri, who are said to
have personally informed (nuntiauerunt) Publius Vatinius of the victory over
Perseus.85 Despite this, not even poor Vatinius is believed, and the informa-
tion must be verified in the usual way. The customary delivery of the official
letter (litteris allatis) is what confirms the correspondence of the ‘divine’ and
human information.
In short, Cicero’s Balbus employs a different narrative strategy with respect
to those of Plutarch and Livy, who are quite reticent about the true nature of the
incredible communicative phenomenon. In the passage we have just examined,
the actual task of announcing the events is directly ascribed to divine agents,
addressing the root of the problem posed by the exceptional nature of this
transmission process. Nevertheless, the mechanism that verifies the reliability
of information is once again supported by established procedures that confirm
testimonies, and backed by an official source. The presence of a divine agent is
only accepted in retrospect. Essentially, in such circumstances even the gods

populi Romani, sed etiam nuntii fuisse perhibentur’). Balbus’s speech continues with similar
examples. The victory of the Locrians at the River Sagra was supposedly announced that same
day at the Olympic games (an event that even inspired a proverb: ‘truer than the result at Sagra’,
also mentioned in ND 3.13). On this episode, of which Pease 1958, 559–60 records various
versions (including Plut. Aem. 25), Strabo 6.1.10 says that ‘the speed with which the news had
come was found to be true’ (εὑρεθείη τὸ ταχος τῆς ἀγγελίας ἀληθές). In other words, it could be
confirmed that the prodigious speed of the news (Just. Epit. 20.3.4 mentions ‘incredibilis famae
uelocitas’) contained an element of truth, but evidently only after it had been cross-checked with
normal, ‘human’ testimony. It is interesting to compare the words used by Valerius Maximus
(1.8.1)—who undoubtedly drew on Cicero’s passage to describe the same episode—to explain the
accusation against Vatinius: ‘as if he had shown contempt towards the authority and greatness of
the senate with an ungrounded discourse’ (‘tamquam maiestatis eius et amplitudinis uano
sermone contemptor’).
85
The same version is also found elsewhere (see e.g. Plin. H.N. 7.86 and Lact. Inst. 2.8.10).
52 Word of Mouth

can be believed only after routine verification of the facts. Needless to say, in the
third book of De natura deorum Cotta insists mercilessly on that point in order
to ridicule the arguments of Balbus (3.11–13), who is accused of telling ‘tales’
(fabellas aniles) and sharing ‘gossip’ (rumores), rather than discussing subjects
he could actually substantiate (rationes).86
This rapid review of texts has highlighted two different approaches to the
subject of the unexplainable origin and transmission of information that is
able to cross immense spaces in a very short time. Either the crowd’s auspi-
cious and spontaneous generation of the news is emphasized, or the focus is
placed on divine intervention. One could also list other narrative solutions
devised for such accounts, but for the purposes of this discussion it is import-
ant to concentrate on just one point. Ultimately, what triggers the need for
these kinds of ‘awkward’ explanations is the anomaly of the communication
process activated by rumours. The main characteristic of the rumours dis-
cussed in these texts is the fact that they were not generated by a specific
sender. To use the terms of Plutarch and Cicero, there is no starting point
(ἀρχή) or source (auctor) of the message: at a certain point it simply begins to
circulate, its origin never becoming clear. In Plutarch’s description, the final
destination of such messages is equally hazy: in the end, they sink into a
bottomless sea.
Instead, what is needed to ascertain the reliability of the mysterious infor-
mation is a specific source of proven authority. With this in mind, we have
seen that the verification of information’s authenticity is generally delegated to
written texts: reading them activates the practices of public communication by
state authorities. Basically, these episodes are founded on an opposition. On
the one hand we have the opaque, disorderly oral circulation of an informal
message among ordinary people (the barber, the crowd, a wayfarer like
Vatinius); and on the other, the documented communication (sometimes in
writing) of official news, with precise identification of both senders and
recipients (messengers with identifying marks and public officials, respectively).
While it is difficult to apply verification systems to the first transmission
mechanism, the latter is furnished with guarantees that confirm the reliability
of the information being delivered.

86
Other literary sources are understandably very cursory in accounting for how these beliefs
became part of popular tradition. See e.g. Flor. 1.28.14–5, who lists the naive assumptions that
led to the identification of the two young men on white horses as Castor and Pollux, messengers
of the victory: ‘Quippe eodem die quo uictus est Perses in Macedonia, Romae cognitum est: duo
iuuenes candidis equis apud Iuturnae lacum puluerem et cruorem abluebant. Hi nuntiauere.
Castorem et Pollucem fuisse creditum uolgo, quod gemini fuissent; interfuisse bello, quod
sanguine maderent; a Macedonia uenire, quod adhuc anhelarent.’
 2

Lat. Fama

2. 1 . FAMA A F ANDO DICTA

2.1.1. Fama—fari

It is difficult to know who, exactly, generates these words that fly, these
messages that rapidly cross immense spaces and entire eras. Much less is it
possible to identify the various links in the chain of steps along which they are
transmitted. We must delve deeper into the impalpable universe of these
forms of communication to attempt to understand the communicative phe-
nomenon that the Romans indicated with the term fama, and to which poets
and artists of antiquity and the Middle Ages later tried to ascribe a fantastic
form, thus creating the character of Fama.1
We would first do well to clarify the meaning of the term around
which the figure of the personifications under discussion is built. Since
antiquity, both the etymology of the Latin word fama and that of its
Greek counterpart φήμη have been firmly connected to the root of the
verbs that mean ‘to say, to speak’: fari and φάναι.2 In the Excerpta that
Paul the Deacon drew from Festus’s De significatione verborum, we read
(76.26 Lindsay):
fama a fando dicta, sic apud Graecos φήμη ἀπὸ τῆς φάσεως.
Fama comes from fari, and in Greek φήμη from φάσις.

1
The fantastic representation of this phenomenon did not change until much later, when the
visual and ‘multimedial’ aspects of communication were becoming increasingly more important,
as demonstrated convincingly by Braudy 1997, 548–55.
2
For the form of the root and deverbative suffixation of the Latin word, see Leumann 1977,
34, 319, and Meiser 2010, 32, 56. No matter how poor the outcomes of this suffixation process,
and unclear the value of the suffix (‘doch ohne eindeutige Funktion des -mo’, according to
Leumann), it seems safe to assume the following kind of equivalence: glubere (‘peel, remove
skin’): gluma (‘chaff ’) = fari (‘speak articulately’): fama. Within such a framework, the noun
fama might indicate the act of talking, but mostly in the form of ‘what is being said (about
someone/something)’.
54 Word of Mouth

Varro had already pointed out the link between words like fama and these
verbs. He explained in De lingua latina 6.55 that:
Ab eodem verbo fari fabulae . . . dictae: . . . hinc fama et famosi.
From the same verb fari derives fabulae and hence also fama and famosi.
Varro’s proposed etymological link is part of a larger discussion of the verb
fari itself: a verb explained as the act of speaking while using words endowed
with meaning (6.52–4). It is useful to quote a large part of this important
passage:

Fatur is qui primum homo significabilem ore mittit uocem. Ab eo, ante quam ita
faciant, pueri dicuntur infantes; cum id faciunt, iam fari; . . . Ab hoc tempora quod
tum pueris constituant Parcae fando, dictum fatum et res fatales. Ab hac eadem
uoce qui facile fantur facundi dicti, et qui futura praediuinando soleant fari
fatidici; dicti idem uaticinari, quod uesana mente faciunt . . . Hinc fasti dies, quibus
uerba certa legitima sine piaculo praetoribus licet fari; ab hoc nefasti, quibus diebus
ea fari ius non est et, si fati sunt, piaculum faciunt. Hinc effata dicuntur, qui
augures finem auspiciorum caelestum extra urbem agris sunt effati ut esset; hinc
effari templa dicuntur: ab auguribus effantur qui in his fines sunt. Hinc fana
nominata, quod pontifices in sacrando fati sint finem; hinc profanum, quod est
ante fanum coniunctum fano.
That man fatur ‘speaks’ who first emits from his mouth an utterance which
may convey a meaning. From this, before they can do so, children are called
infantes ‘non-speakers, infants’: when they do this, they are said now fari ‘to
speak’ . . . From the fact that the Birth-Goddesses by fando ‘speaking’ then set
the life-periods for the children, fatum ‘fate’ is named, and the things that are
fatales ‘fateful’. From this same word, those who fantur ‘speak’ easily are called
facundi ‘eloquent’, and those who are accustomed fari ‘to speak’ the future
through presentiment, are called fatidici ‘sayers of the fates’; they likewise are
said uaticinari ‘to prophesy’, because they do this with frenzied mind . . . From
this the dies fasti ‘righteous days, court days’, on which the praetors are
permitted fari ‘to speak’ without sin certain words of legal force; from this
the nefasti ‘unrighteous days,’ on which it is not right for them to speak them,
and if they have spoken these words, they must make atonement. From this those
words are called effata ‘pronounced’, by which the augurs have effati ‘pronounced’
the limit that the fields outside the city are to have, for the observance of signs in
the sky; from this, the areas of observation are said effari ‘to be pronounced’ which
are attached to them. From this the fana ‘sanctuaries’ are named, because the
pontiffs in consecrating them have fati ‘spoken’ their boundary; from this, profa-
num ‘being before the sanctuary’, which applies to something that is in front of the
sanctuary and joined to it. (trans. Roland G. Kent)

Varro ventures into questionable etymology in the final lines. But the etymo-
logical relationship he establishes between the verb fari and the word fama
appears reasonable, and is immediately undeniable to anyone reviewing a
 Lat. Fama 55

considerable number of passages where our term appears.3 It can also be easily
verified thanks to several expressions that replace the usual ablative forms
of famā with the gerund of the verb fari. We might, for example, compare
Caesar’s formula (BGall. 6.20.1):
si quis quid de re publica a finitimis rumore aut fama acceperit
anyone who has learnt anything of public concern from his neighbours by
rumour or report. (trans. H. J. Edwards)
with a similar expression found in Plautus (Amphitruo 587–8):
quae neque fieri
possunt neque fando umquam accepit quisquam profers, carnifex.
you’re dishing up what cannot happen and what no one’s ever heard tell of.
(trans. Wolfgang De Melo)
‘Through speech’ (fando) and ‘through fama’ seem to be equivalent expres-
sions, and fama’s action seems to consist of speaking.4
Varro’s line of thought does not offer hints useful for developing a more
detailed profile of the communicative phenomenon indicated by the term
fama. Nonetheless, modern scholars have tried to elaborate ideas drawn
from the basic etymological datum proposed by the Roman scholar while
proposing their own general theories about the ancient conception of ‘speech’.
The most ambitious of such attempts may well be that of Émile Benveniste,
who dealt with the theme under discussion in his reconstruction of a ‘voca-
bulaire des institutions indo-européennes’.5
Benveniste reviewed the entire semantic area to which terms like fama and
fabula can be reconnected, beginning with the link the ancients established
between the verb fari and fas (divine law), and obviously dedicating substan-
tial attention to the passage of Varro cited above. In the course of his
interpretation he also explained that the word fama has a more specialized
meaning than its root fari, with which ‘we mean articulated speech, the act of

3
Later on (7.36), Varro proposes two further etymological connections between Faunus and
fari, and between uates and uersus uiere. Modern scholars consider both unfounded. For an idea
of how the reconstructions proposed by the quoted text have been received, we might simply
refer to Ernout and Meillet 1967, 245–6 (s.v. for), who only consider those discussing fabula,
infantes, fatum, and effata reliable, dismissing those related to fasti and fanum. The same
dictionary contains a specific entry on fama (Ernout and Meillet 1967, 214–15), based on the
testimonies of Paulus–Festus and Varro. One of the most balanced assessments of Varro’s
etymology can be found in Dangel 2002, 102–3 (see also Néraudau 1993, 27). In addition to
Varro’s etymological theories, see also other ancient testimonies reported by Maltby 1991, 223–4,
s.v. fanum, fas, fastus, -a, -um.
4
See also other similar expressions like ‘fando aliquod si forte tuas pervenit ad auris’ (Verg.
Aen. 2.81: cf. Ov. Met. 9.8 and 15.497) and ‘quod fando numquam ante auditum erat’
(Liv. 28.40.10: cf. Plaut. Epid. 496, Cic. Quinct. 71, Nat. D. 1.82, Apul. Apol. 9).
5
Benveniste 1973, 409–15, further developed by Bettini 2008.
56 Word of Mouth

speech as a manifestation of language, as an emanation of the human

personality’:
In fama ‘reputation, rumour’ we observe a new feature: the act of speech
which is impersonal and not individualized. Even when a child ‘speaks,’ iam
fatur, the point of the remark is not what it says but that it manifests an
impersonal faculty, common to all human beings, the fact that they are
capable of speech. Similarly fama is speech as a human phenomenon, imper-
sonal, collective, fame, renown: in the French expression le bruit court que ‘a
rumour is current’, bruit ‘noise’ is a vocal phenomenon, speech considered
purely in its acoustic aspect, because it is depersonalized. This is also the
meaning of the Greek phátis ‘fame, rumour’, not connected speech or
discourse.6
The impersonal value attributed to the ‘act of speech’ indicated by the Latin
fama and the Greek φήμη led Benveniste to take a bold interpretive leap. In
fact, he hypothesizes that the root of both the Greek φάναι and the Latin fari
would also indicate: ‘the manifestation of a divine saying: this is because it
is always impersonal, because there is always something confused about
it, always something mysterious just as the first beginnings of speech on
the lips of a child are mysterious’. To support this last hypothesis, Benveniste
somewhat daringly combined two formulas quite far removed in time from
each other: Hesiod’s famous lines (Op. 763–4), where φήμη is defined as
‘somehow divine’, and the medieval proverb, ‘Vox populi, uox dei’, which
apparently also affords a divine character to the ‘voice of the people’.7
According to Benveniste, this would also explain why ‘fatum is an enunci-
ation which has no personal source, which is not connected with a man,
which derives from this supra-human origin its mysterious, fatal, and
decisive character’. Consequently, ‘this power of speech, cut off from its
human source, and often of divine origin, can easily become a magic power’.
It is from here that a word like fas would derive its religious value, and
in legal language it would also exhibit ‘this value of a solemn enunciation, of
a positive prescription: fas or nefas’.
This fascinating theory attempts to reconstruct not only what is presumed
to be the original meaning of the terms belonging to this semantic area, but
also a rather broad cultural model. Benveniste posits that terms like fama and
fas would refer to linguistic acts infused with an extremely unique mystery
and power: the same that could be found in all the words formed on the root of
the verb fari. However, this reconstruction is also abstract and essentially

6
Benveniste 1973, 411–12. The same would go for φῆμις (‘things which ‘are said impersonally’).
7
However, the meaning of the proverb is far more complex and cannot easily be reduced to
this simple equivalence (see Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.3 and n. 33).
 Lat. Fama 57

indemonstrable: it consists of broad generalizations based on the discussion of

a terribly limited number of passages, as well as on a mixture of data origin-
ating from cultural contexts that are also very far from each other. Consider,
for example, the systematic attribution to Roman terminology of characteris-
tics typical of Greek vocabulary—and vice versa—in the name of a radical
unity of Graeco-Roman language and culture that is simply taken for granted.
In any case, this kind of reconstruction is not very useful for our discussion.
If we browse the lexicographic repertoires at our disposal for the thousands
of attestations of the term fama,8 the relationship Varro established between
the root of fari and the word fama is more than sufficient to understand
what we are dealing with: roughly, the circulation process of news, hearsay,
and opinions. If fari and the terms derived from it ever indicated a sacred and
powerful form of speech, as Benveniste suggested, there are no significant
traces of this in the linguistic act indicated by the word fama as it appears in
the passages of the ancient texts at our disposal. It is true, though, that the
movement of such talk is not generally described as a result of the initiative of
clearly identified agents, but as something realized in an autonomous and
undefined way, among vast and rather varied groups of speakers. Thus, all we
need glean from studies like Benveniste’s is one precise, clear linguistic datum:
when it comes to fama, the communicative process being referred to tends to
be impersonal. It is, in any case, a datum easily obtained from a direct reading
of the texts.

2.1.2. Fama in Latin

If we wish to avoid straying too far from the meaning of its underlying verb
root, we should say that in Latin the term fama basically means ‘speaking, the
act of speaking, what is said’ (of something, of someone). The meanings of the
term have already been identified satisfactorily in modern lexicons, any of
which could provide an initial idea of the various shades of meaning that can
be attributed to fama. The Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary explains its
general meaning as follows:
I. the talk of the multitude, like rumour, either as relating or as judging
(v. rumour; cf. also: nomen, gloria, laudatio; clamor, plausus; honos,
dignitas, honestas, laus, etc.).

8
For an idea of the number of attestations, in addition to the twenty-two columns in the
ThLL entry for fama (Vetter 1913), the ‘Classical Latin Texts’ database of the Packard Human-
ities Institute alone includes around 2,300 attestations and the Patrologia Latina database
includes about 11,000 attestations.
58 Word of Mouth

It then appropriately separates the main uses of the term into two camps:
I. That which people say or tell, the common talk, a report, rumour, saying,
tradition
II. The voice or judgement of the many, public opinion; more freq. object-
ively, the fame, character, reputation which a man has, either in general
or in particular, as a good or bad reputation, etc.9
This schematic classification highlights how the sum of the Latin term’s meanings
covers a wider area than the one attributable to the phenomenon that I have
discussed thus far. Indeed, alongside the context of the news, stories, hearsay, and
gossip (whose ‘flying’ transmission mechanisms I examined earlier), we see another,
equally important semantic branch of fama: renown and reputation, or fame and
the opinions formed based on what ‘is said’ about something or someone.10
In general, the term fama per se does not appear to have either positive or
negative connotations. This is true if it refers to a rumour or to reputation:
whether the first is benevolent or malevolent, or the latter good or bad, is
discovered mainly from the context. It is also worth noting that the Latin word
fama is not usually used in the plural:11 even when we are dealing with a
variety of spreading rumours, the phenomenon of their diffusion is encom-
passed by the singular fama.12

9
Lewis and Short 1879, 722–3. I do not include the classifications of the personifications of
Fama present in this work and in other dictionaries. The approach applied by Vetter 1913 is less
clear and balanced, identifying three main meanings: ‘I i. q. rumor, sermones, . . . A strictiore sensu,
fama per sermones tradita . . . ; B latiore sensu i. q. notitia minus certa . . . ; II de eis magis, qui
sermones ferunt, cogitari videtur, i. q. opinio vulgi, existimatio hominum . . . ), A sensu strictiore,
[ . . . ]; B latiore sensu ita ponitur, ut etiam historicorum poetarumque litterae comprehendi videan-
tur . . . ; III fama quasi in fortunis unius cuiusque ponitur; saepe iuxta posita res, patrimonium, caput,
salus, sim. . . . ; A fama ad vitam moresque hominum pertinet, . . . ; B fama ad nomen et facta
pertinet, magna et tenuis fama, dignatio.’ The fama entry in the Oxford Latin Dictionary (Glare
2012, 739) is arranged differently, and instead of a summary of the main meanings of the term, there
is an analytical list of a series of meanings that differ for quite subtle nuances. ‘1. News, tidings. b a
malicious report, slander’; ‘2. Rumour, hearsay (as a source of information) . . . ’; ‘3. Tradition, story’;
‘4. Public opinion, talk . . . ’; ‘5. The report which a person has, one’s reputation . . . ’; ‘6. a One’s good
name, reputation (spec. of a woman, w. reference to chastity)’; ‘b ill repute, notoriety’; ‘7. Fame,
glory, renown . . . ’. The isolation of point 3 (‘Tradition, story’) is particularly worth noting as it
might arouse objections. Aside from the fact that it is difficult to isolate many ancient passages in
which it is really necessary to assign fama the abstract meaning of ‘tradition’, an expression like ‘ut
fama est’ from Lucr. 5.412 is unlikely to mean ‘as tradition is’, and is in all likelihood a generic
phrase similar to ‘as they say’, ‘as is said’. However, this interpretation of the term has recently
become very popular. Scholars such as Hardie and Clément-Tarantino, in particular, have proposed
a substantial rewriting of the entire lexicon of fama, ascribing ‘fama-as-tradition’ (not only oral but
also written tradition in particular) a role that they suggest is encoded in literary memory.
10
See e.g. Cic. Fin. 3.57: ‘de bona autem fama (quam enim appellant εὐδοξίαν aptius est
bonam famam hoc loco appellare quam gloriam)’, etc.
11
It is rather rare for the plural of the term to appear: see Vetter 1913, col. 206 (ll. 69–78).
12
The term rumor is used differently, often appearing in the plural to indicate the multiplicity
of circulating rumours and hearsay.
 Lat. Fama 59

The semantic ‘tree’ of Latin fama has two main branches: that of rumours/
hearsay and that of renown/reputation. These share a clear common matrix.
Applying Varro’s etymology, we can even state that, although the ways of
spreading these kinds of ‘talk’ across time and space are very different, both
the news circulating about someone or something, and the reputation or
glory of someone or something, are related to the fact that this someone,
this something, is being ‘talked’ (and heard) about.13 In other words, the
circulation of rumours and the spread of renown can be considered two
complementary aspects of a process of production and reproduction of
discourse, circulated in a decidedly impersonal way, by ‘speaking’ ( fando).
While the spread of rumours and hearsay is generally portrayed as a very
rapid movement through space, reputation often appears linked to the fact
that someone/something is talked about extensively and also for a long time.
In both cases, the act of speaking seems tied mostly to oral communication:
and this, as we have seen, is the preferred frame of reference for all the
images of the ‘winged word’ we have dealt with so far. Used to indicate a
similar network of communicative exchanges realized through ‘talking’, the
term fama designates a complex phenomenon, seen as a process that moves
through space and time, almost independently of the agents that are effect-
ively promoting it.
Recent studies have shown a clear tendency to emphasize the link
between writing and the dissemination of fama.14 Whether they speak
of the renown acquired by poets with their verses or refer to stories and
tales also passed down through literary tradition, it is clear that Latin texts
hint at the idea of fama as a collection of information that also moves
through writing.15 However, based on this we should not draw culturally
biased conclusions about the meaning of the term we are discussing. While
writing can indeed help spread knowledge of a story or the memory of
someone’s existence, feats, or works, this does not imply that the Latin
word fama ceases to mean that this story or this character is being
spoken about.

13
Several uses of the verb audire, equivalent to expressions like fama est with the infinitive,
point to an oral/aural conception of fama. See e.g. Caes. BGall. 7.59.1: ‘Iam Caesar a Gergouia
discessisse audiebatur’; cf. Caes. BCiu. 3.79.4: ‘fama percrebruerat pulsum fugere Caesarem’;
BGall. 6.36.1: ‘Cicero . . . longius eum [scil. Caesarem] progressum audiebat neque ulla de reditu
eius fama adferebatur’; Sall. Iug. 22.1: ‘Legati in Africam maturantes ueniunt, eo magis quod
Romae . . . de proelio facto et oppugnatione Cirtae audiebatur; sed is rumor clemens erat’. See also
the passages cited in n. 4.
14
See e.g. Hardie 2012, 5: ‘Etymologically fama means the spoken word, but the written (and
later printed) word is no less important a vehicle for fama.’
15
Here just one clear example suffices: Mart. 5.60.3–7: ‘certum est hanc tibi pernegare famam, /
olim quam petis, in meis libellis / qualiscumque legaris ut per orbem. / Nam te cur aliquis sciat
fuisse? / Ignotus pereas, miser, necesse est.’
60 Word of Mouth

As an example, let us examine the famous ending of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

(15.877–9):
Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris
ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama,
siquid habent ueri uatum praesagia, uiuam.
Wherever Rome’s power extends over the conquered world, I shall have mention
on men’s lips, and, if the prophecies of bards have any truth, through all the ages
shall I live in fame.16 (trans. Frank Iustus Miller)
The two enclitics (-que) articulate the separation between the dimensions
of space and time. In the spatial dimension, the reading of the poem
(significantly entrusted to the lips of the audience, as the ancients always
used to read texts aloud) guarantees the poet an extraordinary expansion of
his presence; in the temporal dimension, fama performs that function. The
continuation of the poet’s life, in particular, is closely related to the possi-
bility that he will continue to be talked about for a long time.17 This
interpretation of Ovid’s prophecy is also supported by a comparison with
Ennius’s famous epitaph, one of Ovid’s main sources of inspiration (Varia
17–18 Vahlen2):18
Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? uolito uiuos per ora uirum.
Let no one honour me with tears nor celebrate my funeral weeping. And why?
Alive I fly from lips to lips of men.
The flight of the word, which sustains a poet’s name and memory, also forms
the core of bold metaphorical images like this one, giving shape to the illusion
that the boundaries of an existence can be expanded so far that they cross the
barriers of space and time.

16
See the note ad loc. in Bömer 1986, 490, who also mentions Trist. 3.7.50–4: ‘me tamen
extincto fama superstes erit, / dumque suis uictrix omnem de montibus orbem / prospiciet
domitum Martia Roma, legar. / Tu quoque, quam studii maneat felicior usus, / effuge uenturos,
qua potes, usque rogos’, and Mart. 3.95.7–8: ‘Ore legor multo notumque per oppida nomen / non
expectato dat mihi fama rogo.’
17
For the purposes of my discussion, it matters little whether fama is considered ablative
(which seems far more likely to me) or nominative: on the problem, see most recently Gladhill
2013, 316.
18
Mentioned in Cic., Tusc. 1.34 (a passage centred on the theme of aspiring to glory and
immortality) and 117. While speaking about immortality Cicero also quotes the first line of this
epigram in Sen. 73. Of all the intertextual references we should keep in mind when considering
Ovid’s passage, we should at least remember the two famous reworkings of Ennius’s lines in
Verg. G. 3.8–9 (‘temptanda uia est, qua me quoque possim / tollere humo uictorque uirum
uolitare per ora’) and Aen. 12.234–5 (‘ille quidem ad superos, quorum se deuouet aris, / succedet
fama uiuusque per ora feretur’).
 Lat. Fama 61

2.1.3. φήμη in Greek

Observations similar to those proposed so far may also be made about the
corresponding Greek word, φήμη, which we already came across several
times in the previous chapter. However, delving into an analysis of the
semantics of φήμη might steer us too far from our main objective, which is
to illustrate the personifications of Fama, starting from Virgil’s original
creation in book 4 of the Aeneid. Moreover, the position of φήμη within
the extensive and diverse Greek terminology that defines the set of phenom-
ena related to the spread of rumours, opinions, and reputation seems to be
less central than its Latin counterpart. For the purposes of this discussion, we
may simply touch on this issue in order to define several points that will later
prove useful.19
The term φήμη was used very little in the archaic period. It appears just
three times in the Homeric poems, and then only in the Odyssey. Moreover,
in Hesiod’s works we find it only in the Erga passage where the first
known reference to φήμη as a deity appears in ancient literature. Φήμη
only became one of the most common terms used to indicate both the
spread of rumours and hearsay, and of someone’s reputation, from the
fourth century BCE.20
The distribution of meanings associated with this word is not so different
from what we have seen for the Latin fama, and evokes the production of
impersonal and mysteriously arising ‘hearsay’. The way Liddell and Scott’s
Greek–English Lexicon presents the entry φήμη is very clear:
I. Utterance prompted by the gods, significant or prophetic saying . . .
2. report, rumour usu. of uncertain and mysterious origin, . . . common
report . . . 3. report of a man’s character, repute . . . —esp. of good report,
fame . . . 4. φᾶμαι songs of praise . . .
II. Any voice or words, speech, saying; . . . esp. common report, tradition,
legend, . . . b. common report or parlance, . . . 2. message.21

19
For an idea of the huge lexical range found in Greek terminology for this context, see
Larran 2011, 12 and n. 26, 15.
20
φήμη appears in Od. 2.35, 20.100, and 20.105 (in the last two examples, the term clearly
means ‘presage’). The forms φῆμις (Il. 10.207, Od. 6.273, 14.239, 15.468, 16.75, 19.527, 24.201)
and φάτις (found only in the Odyssey: 6.29, 21.323, 23.362) also appear in the Homeric poems.
On this group of terms see Greindl 1938, 82–6 and Larran 2011, 12–15. In Hesiod’s passage (Op.
760–4) the term is repeated no fewer than three times. See Ch. 6, sec. 6.1.2. It also appears in a
fragment of Hesiod handed down in the Scholia at Eur. Or. 249, which Merkelbach and West
attributed to the Atlantides (fr. 176.2 κακῆι δέ σφ’ ἔμβαλε φήμηι).
21
Liddell and Scott 1996, s.v. φήμη. See Larran 2010, 232: ‘Désignant d’une façon générale ce
qui est montré, divulgué, puis ce qui est annoncé par la parole, phèmè peut ainsi se traduire tout à
la fois par oracle, rumeur, renommée, nouvelle, tradition, légende, voix, maxime.’
62 Word of Mouth

A difference between this classification and the semantic field encompassed

by the Latin fama immediately emerges. While the latter refers to two main
base-meanings (roughly, a rumour spread about an event or a person; an
opinion held of someone), various passages where the Greek term appears also
refer to a divine and prophetic (or otherwise mysterious) form of speech, as
can already be seen in the few attestations found in Homer and, later, also in
famous passages like Sophocles O.T. 42–3:
εἴτε του θεῶν
φήμην ἀκούσας εἴτ’ ἀπ’ ἀνδρὸς οἶσθά του.
. . . whether your knowledge comes from hearing a message from a god or from a
man, perhaps. (trans. H. Lloyd-Jones)
This kind of reference to a divine and mysterious sphere (which we have seen
was so important for Benveniste’s interpretation) must be considered more
relevant to the uses of the Greek φήμη than to those of its Latin equivalent.
Indeed, φήμη is often introduced as a (spoken) message whose incomprehen-
sible origin explicitly recalls a supernatural sphere. This helps explain, among
other things, why there was an altar of Φήμη in Athens, and how an author
like Aeschines could use the action of this ‘divinity’ to explain the birth of a
rumour.22
When it comes to how the spread of φήμη is described, Greek texts also
typically speak of a piece of news or information that diffuses among people,
generally without a clearly identifiable origin. The movement of these
messages is typically presented as an autonomous diffusion of the ‘rumour’
that announces them: φήμη ‘spreads’, ‘arrives’, ‘descends upon’ people and
cities, like a messenger endowed with an autonomous life. Φήμη is always
described as advancing rapidly, and arriving suddenly (instantly covering
unimaginable distances), and these movements are often portrayed as
miraculous.23

22
See Ch. 3, sec. 3.1.1.
23
See Larran 2011, 31–9 (mainly 31–2). See e.g. Hdt. 9.100.1: Ἰοῦσι δέ σφι φήμη τε ἐσέπτατο ἐς
τὸ στρατόπεδον πᾶν καὶ κηρυκήιον ἐφάνη ἐπὶ τῆς κυματωγῆς κείμενον· ἡ δὲ φήμη διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε,
ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες τὴν Μαρδονίου στρατιὴν νικῷεν ἐν Βοιωτοῖσι μαχόμενοι; Polyb. 11.3.4: τῆς δὲ
φήμης ἀφικομένης εἰς τὴν Ῥώμην τὴν μὲν ἀρχὴν ἠπίστουν τῷ λίαν βούλεσθαι τοῦτο γενόμενον
ἰδεῖν; Din. fr. 6.14: ἔπεσέ τις φήμη ποτὲ εἰς τὸ πλῆθος τὸ Ἀθηναίων ὡς ἐν Ὑμηττῷ χρυσοῦ ψῆγμα
πολὺ φανείη κτλ; Diod. Sic. 17.29.3: προσπεσούσης δὲ φήμης εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα διότι Μέμνων μετὰ
τοῦ στόλου μέλλει πλεῖν ἐπ’ Εὐβοίας κτλ; Plut. Pomp. 60.3: Ὡς δὲ πρῶτον ἡ φήμη προσέπεσε καὶ
κατέσχε τὴν Ῥώμην μετὰ ἐκπλήξεως θόρυβος καὶ φόβος οἷος οὔπω πρότερον κτλ; Plut. Ant. 10.7:
εἶτ’ ἄφνω φήμης εἰς τὴν Ἰταλίαν ἐμπεσούσης, ὡς ἐπίασιν οἱ πολέμιοι Καίσαρος τεθνηκότος,
ἀνέστρεψεν εἰς Ῥώμην. For φήμη’s function of ‘messenger’, see e.g. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom.
2.36.2: διαγγελλούσης δὲ τῆς φήμης πολλαῖς πόλεσι τήν τε κατὰ πολέμους γενναιότητα τοῦ
ἡγεμόνος κτλ; Joseph. BJ 3.9.5 (432–3): διεσώθη γὰρ οὐδὲ ἄγγελος, ἀλλ’ αὐτοματὶ διεκήρυσσεν
φήμη τὴν ἅλωσιν οἰκεία φύσει τῶν σκυθρωποτέρων; Plut. Cam. 24.1 (141b): Ἡ δὲ φήμη ταχὺ
διαγγέλλουσα τὴν πρᾶξιν ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις, κτλ; Charit. 3.3.2: ἄγγελος δὲ Φήμη ταχεῖα Συρακοσίοις
ἐμήνυσε τὸ παράδοξον.
 Lat. Fama 63

2.1.4. Different Terminologies, a Single Model

of Communication

After illustrating the semantic field embraced by fama in very general terms,
we can move on to a more specific analysis of its two main aspects: rumour
and renown. Recent studies have often shown a tendency to speak of both
without taking care to differentiate them systematically, since the same term
can refer to either.
Obvious simplification of terms is found in unassuming books like that of
Tom Payne (2009) on the phenomenon of contemporary ‘fame’, and in gener-
alizing essays like that of Leo Braudy (1997), also focused mainly on the topic of
reputation. Less obvious is the similar choice of terminology and argumentation
in important books like that of Hans-Joachim Neubauer (2009), who method-
ically uses the category of ‘Gerücht’ as an umbrella term for a large number of
disparate phenomena; or that of Philip Hardie (2012), who deliberately uses the
term fama as shorthand not only when discussing the many and varied forms
of rumours, but also when referring to the territory of renown.24 This mixing of
categories and of ancient and modern terminology generates grey areas that, in
the case of Hardie’s work, also prove very functional to an interpretative strategy
systematically projected towards the meta-literary dimension. This does not help
the reader to get a clear idea of the differences existing between two processes
that do not always overlap: on the one hand, the dissemination of news and
rumours; on the other, the prolonging of someone’s renown over space and time.
At the opposite extreme we have Francis Larran (2011), who recently
stressed—in general using persuasive arguments—the amount of attention
necessary to keep the communicative context of an ancient society (like
the one described in Greek texts) separate from that of modern societies,
without obliterating the anthropological distance that separates us from the
classical world. Larran reiterates that it is not appropriate to study ancient
descriptions of these phenomena using interpretative tools and theories drawn
from the observation of similar phenomena in other cultural contexts. How-
ever, he does not explain if the difference between ancient and modern
communication lies solely in the material conditions in which the former
was implemented (with ensuing differences in the development of the imagery
used to represent exchanges of information) or if he believes that in antiquity
there also existed a specific quality of the communicative process that generated
the spread of rumours—a quality that would make this kind of process
substantially different from what today remains the basis of the exchange of
hearsay and gossip.

24
Hardie 2012, 2: ‘ . . . the range of phenomena subjected to scrutiny in this book largely
coincides with the range of meanings of the Latin word fama, literally “what is said” . . . I repeatedly
use the Latin fama as a shorthand for the cluster of concepts that is the subject of the book . . . ’
64 Word of Mouth

The paradoxical result of this state of affairs, for anyone studying the
Roman fama, is that we either have the impression of travelling through a
fog in which it is difficult to grasp differences and identify outlines of the
phenomena, or we have an inkling of a looming radical otherness but are
unable to understand what it really is. Before starting the analysis of commu-
nicative processes ‘represented’ in the personifications we will discuss in the
course of this book, I wish to clarify the perspective from which I intend to
outline the discussion of ancient testimonies.
First, I believe the cases where the word fama indicates rumours and those
where it refers to renown or repute should be kept clearly distinct. The fact
that the two semantic branches of the term are linked by a common mechan-
ism for the transmission of information, based on the act of ‘speaking’ (of
something or someone), should not make us forget that rumour and renown
(or repute) are not the same thing. Essentially, it could be said that, through a
succession of communicative exchanges among people who ‘speak’ about
something or someone, in the case of rumour or hearsay news or information
is spread, while in the case of renown an individual’s ‘name’ has become
widely known—and in most cases an opinion or assessment is also shared,
helping to create that individual’s reputation. These are certainly subtle
differences, but to neglect them risks creating confusion in the analysis of
texts in which the term we are looking at appears, as can be easily seen if we
just consider the treatment that should be reserved for synonyms of fama-
rumour and fama-renown. For example, if a term like murmur can be
considered, under certain circumstances, a synonym of fama, and in other
circumstances the same can be said of a term like gloria, this does not imply
that murmur can simply be considered a synonym of gloria. For this reason,
I will try to keep rumour and renown separate, unlike more recent studies that
often present these branches as inextricably intertwined.
Secondly, when we talk about communication in ancient cultures, we must
always remember that we are referring to a setting where information and
language (not to mention literature) had not yet been subjected to the formal-
izations now familiar to us, after centuries of writing and printing culture.25 In
ancient societies oral communication played a role that is impossible to
compare with the one it might assume in a society like ours, where writing
continues to ‘paradigmatically’ take precedence over other forms of commu-
nication, so that we become accustomed to thinking of language and words in
their graphic forms. It is true that the ‘return to orality’, predicted with
exceptional foresight by Walter Ong in the second half of the last century, is
also systematically reintroducing typical characteristics of the transmission of
information ‘by word of mouth’ to our way of communicating. All the same,

25
A clear presentation of the issue can be found in ch. 2 of Zumthor 1990, 13–31.
 Lat. Fama 65

the inherent multimedia nature of main communication tools makes the

current communicative environment very different from that of the ancients.
As a result, it is certainly difficult for us to immerse ourselves in a communi-
cative universe so far removed from our own. However, as far as possible, we
should not forget that Roman fama was a process founded mainly on trans-
mission ‘by word of mouth’ and ‘talking’ about something or someone: and it
should be considered on these premises.
All this said, having established the necessary distinctions, it must be stated
that the specific process of information transmission underpinning both the
spread of rumours and the creation of reputation shares peculiarities with a
large area of communicative phenomena, which occur in comparable forms in
many human societies. The impersonal form of ‘speaking’ (fari), which we
have seen is also the etymological core of fama, is a tool that underlies the
creation of a wide range of human relations, according to social dynamics that
seem typical of the most basic forms of interaction within any community.
A considerable number of sociological and anthropological studies devoted
great attention to these dynamics in the second half of the twentieth century.
Some of the insight from this research will be considered in Chapter 4, in order
to more precisely outline the communicative processes I will address in this
book. While most of the studies that I will discuss focus on how rumour and
hearsay are involved in the diffusion of information, it is important to bear in
mind that this transmission mechanism is also relevant for the branch of fama
that encompasses renown and reputation (and by extension, even glory),
which I will examine later on.
But before we can look at the theoretical analysis of these communicative
processes, we would do well to concentrate on what the ancients regarded as
their general characteristics. I will start by describing the spread of fama
found in the texts of Latin authors who were particularly interested in using
the information travelling through this kind of communicative channel as
possible testimony.
 3

True and False

3.1. IN COURT

3.1.1. Truthful Information or Slander?

We might provisionally consider fama as the circulation of various kinds of

talk, imagined as ‘autonomous’ entities that move swiftly around in space by
word of mouth. What sort of informative value can be ascribed to such a
fleeting form of communication? This process permits what are often large
numbers of people to share news and stories about other individuals and all
kinds of events in an almost miraculous way. Does this fact guarantee the
reliability of such information? Or does such an extensive tangle of interper-
sonal communications end up concealing the dishonest intentions of someone
who, protected by anonymity, spreads false information? Such questions have
always accompanied the diffusion of rumours and hearsay—which, while
impossible to attribute to a specific source, are so pervasive that they suggest
the action of some supernatural agent.
At times, supporters and detractors of the reliability of these kinds of
information have gone so far as to debate the issue in a courtroom, a place
where it is necessary to provide an unequivocal response, even to questions
like these. The topic has even become a subject of reflection in treatises by
experts on rhetoric interested in making the best possible use of this enigmatic
genre of testimonies.
Before considering some of the Roman texts that addressed the issue in
depth, it may be useful to linger on a well-known Athenian court case, dating
back to the mid-fourth century BCE, when Aeschines and Demosthenes
respectively argued for and against the veracity of orally transmitted informa-
tion. This episode was commented upon several times in studies of ancient
rumours, eventually acquiring paradigmatic importance.1

1
See in particular Hunter 1990, 309–11, Gotteland 1997, 112–19, Larran 2011, 11–15,
216–17.
68 Word of Mouth

Demosthenes had accused his opponent, along with the entire diplomatic
delegation that had gone to Philip of Macedon in 346 BCE, of corruption.
This allegation was upheld by Timarchus (who may have acted as the main
appellant), an individual of controversial reputation and the target of much
gossip due to his sexual mores, among other things. The defence strategy
used by Aeschines hinged on this very aspect of Timarchus’s reputation.
With his speech against Timarchus, Aeschines managed to have him
sentenced to atimia, thereby bringing an end to his political career. As he
was placing this individual’s moral conduct and private vices in a bad
light, it is obvious that Aeschines had to gather up as much gossip and
rumour as he could about him. Moreover, much of his argument revolved
around the very nickname by which Timarchus was known: ‘the male
prostitute’ (ὁ πόρνος). At various points in his allegations, particularly
with regard to his adversary’s sexual conduct, hearsay was all the orator
had at his disposal. Consequently, while handling the fragile testimonies of,
φήμη he was obliged to put forward challenging and rather high-flown
reasoning.2
The starting-point of the case Aeschines dedicates to φήμη was Demosthenes’s
assertion about the insinuations made against Timarchus (125): ‘there is
nothing more unjust than φήμη’ (οὐδέν ἐστιν ἀδικώτερον φήμης). Aeschines
objects that there are, in fact, many who have always claimed the contrary,
recalling the famous lines where Hesiod presents φήμη as an entity that even
has a divine nature.3 Indeed, Aeschines continues, the action of φήμη has a
miraculous quality that allows the circulation of truthful information and even
the anticipation of future events (127):
περὶ δὲ τὸν τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίον καὶ τὰς πράξεις ἀψευδής τις ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου
πλανᾶται φήμη κατὰ τὴν πόλιν, καὶ διαγγέλλει τοῖς πολλοῖς τὰς ἰδίας πράξεις,
πολλὰ δὲ καὶ μαντεύεται περὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἔσεσθαι.
But in the case of the lives of men and their activities, an unerring report of its
own accord spreads throughout the city. This reports private activities to the
general public, and in many cases it actually gives a prediction about what is likely
to happen. (trans. Nick Fisher)
Some similarities between this description of the origin of rumours and the
one found in Plutarch are immediately evident: φήμη generates itself (ἀπὸ
ταὐτομάτου) and wanders (πλανᾶται) through the city. Nonetheless, compared
to Plutarch’s conception of the communicative phenomenon we are studying,

2
On the legal setting of this matter, see the classic monograph by Dover 1978, 19–39, and
Fisher 2001, 56–8, 270–1.
3
Hes., Op. 760–4 (with the famous closing line: θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή): see Ch. 6, sec. 6.1.2.
 True and False 69

Aeschines places much more trust in its informative potential, going so far as
to call it infallible.4
As evidence of the prophetic gifts attributed to φήμη, Aeschines pointed to
the fact that the Athenians had an altar and established cult devoted to her,
and to the fact that poets like Homer, Euripides, and Hesiod used expressions
intended for a goddess to describe her.5
Aeschines cites Hesiod in his closing remarks (129):
ὁ δ’ Ἡσίοδος καὶ διαρρήδην θεὸν αὐτὴν ἀποδείκνυσι, πάνυ σαφῶς φράζων τοῖς
βουλομένοις συνιέναι.
Hesiod too expressly represents her as a goddess, speaking very clearly to those
willing to understand. (trans. Nick Fisher)
According to Aeschines, those leading blameless lives need fear nothing from
φήμη, which will bring them the good reputation they deserve (δόξα). Those
who have something to be ashamed of will obviously refuse to worship the
goddess properly, as in the case of Timarchus. To confirm the gossip that his
adversary was a male prostitute, Aeschines simply called the goddess Φήμη as
his witness, certain his fellow citizens would trust her.6
The court judged in favour of Aeschines, but the efficacy of his allegations is
certainly not a result of the cogency of the arguments involved. For his part,
Demosthenes tried to turn this same reasoning against his rival two years later,
in a biting passage of his De falsa legatione (243–4). Making reference to the
very same lines by Hesiod, he insinuated that Aeschines’s arguments were a
banal expedient used to compensate for the lack of testimonies. What was
more, he added, if his opponent was right, we would have to acknowledge that
φήμη was also immortalizing a certain truth when everyone accused Aeschines
of being bribed by Philip:7
ὥστ’, εἴπερ ἐστ’ ἀληθὴς ἡ φήμη, καθ’ ὑμῶν ἐστιν ἡ παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν, ἣν ὅτι πιστὴν
εἶναι δεῖ καὶ ‘θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή,’ καὶ ὅτι σοφὸς ἦν ὁ ποιητὴς ὁ ταῦτα ποιήσας,
σὺ διώρισας αὐτός.

4
Obviously Aeschines is simply using a magniloquent rhetorical strategy. In order to evoke
similar news against an adversary, another orator, Andocides (Myst. 130), did not hesitate to
mention a simple rumour (κληδών) spread by children and silly women (παρὰ τοῖς παιδαρίοις
τοῖς μικροτάτοις καὶ τοῖς γυναίοις): see Kartzow 2009, 70–3.
5
Aeschines also mentions τὸν Ὅμηρον πολλάκις ἐν τῇ Ἰλιάδι λέγοντα πρὸ τοῦ τι τῶν
μελλόντων γενέσθαι· ‘φήμη δ’ εἰς στρατὸν ἦλθε’ (128). Allen recorded this passage among the
lines attributed to Homer which do not appear in the epic texts that have reached us (fr. 6), and
Bernabé actually included it among the fragments of the Ilias parua (fr. 27). We must acknow-
ledge, however, that it is an unusual epic formula (the only vaguely similar expression that recurs
in texts handed down to us is αἶψα μάλ’ ἐς στρατὸν ἐλθέ, only appearing twice: Il. 4.70 and
24.112). See Fisher 2001, 268–9 (who considers it a false creation by Aeschines himself) and
Larran 2011, 14. For the altar of Φήμη see Ch. 6, sec. 6.2.2.
6
Aeschin. 1.130: εἰ δὲ τὴν θεὸν μάρτυρα παρέχομαι, οὐ πιστεύσετε;
7
Dem. 19.243: καὶ σὲ πάντες οὗτοι χρήματ’ ἐκ τῆς πρεσβείας φασὶν εἰληφέναι.
70 Word of Mouth
So, if rumour is true, it’s you that the majority attack; you yourself laid down that
it ought to be trusted and ‘rumour too is a goddess’, and that the poet who wrote
that was wise. (trans. Douglas MacDowell)

In his reply (De falsa legatione 144–5), Aeschines seemed to struggle with his
response to this point—it was certainly no easy feat to dispute such a stringent
argument. All the same, he continued to view Hesiod’s lines as a valuable
anchor. Thus the orator appealed to the ancient poet’s authority once again,
also introducing a distinction that would favourably contrast his situation with
that of Timarchus. While the latter’s conduct would have been exposed by
φήμη, the insinuation that Aeschines was corrupt would have to be considered
the result of a very different kind of operation: a ‘false accusation’ (συκοφαντία).
In terms of argumentation, aspiring to uphold the supposed reliability of
φήμη while also declaring oneself the victim of simple slander seems a very
weak rhetorical device. However, it was the very vehemence with which
Aeschines tried to respond to his opponent that led him to persevere with
the analysis of the concept we are interested in, thereby providing us
with other information useful for understanding his way of conceiving the
action of φήμη (145):

Εὖ δ’ ἴστε, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, ὅτι πλεῖστον διαφέρει φήμη καὶ συκοφαντία. Φήμη μὲν γὰρ
οὐ κοινωνεῖ διαβολῇ, διαβολὴ δὲ ἀδελφόν ἐστι συκοφαντίᾳ. Διοριῶ δ’ αὐτῶν
ἑκάτερον σαφῶς. Φήμη μέν ἐστιν, ὅταν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν πολιτῶν αὐτόματον ἐκ
μηδεμιᾶς προφάσεως λέγῃ τινὰ ὡς γεγενημένην πρᾶξιν· συκοφαντία δ’ ἐστίν, ὅταν
πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς εἷς ἀνὴρ αἰτίαν ἐμβαλών, ἔν τε ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις ἁπάσαις πρός τε
τὴν βουλὴν διαβάλλῃ τινά. Καὶ τῇ μὲν φήμῃ δημοσίᾳ θύομεν ὡς θεῷ, τῶν δὲ
συκοφαντῶν ὡς κακούργων δημοσίᾳ προβολὰς ποιούμεθα. Μὴ οὖν σύναγε εἰς
ταὐτὸν τὰ κάλλιστα τοῖς αἰσχίστοις.
But be assured, fellow citizens, there is the greatest difference between Common
Report and slander. For common report has no affinity with malice, but malice is
slander’s own sister. I will define each of them specifically: it is a case of common
report when the mass of the people, on their own impulse and for no reason that
they can give, say that a certain event has taken place; but it is slander when one
person, insinuating an accusation in the minds of the people, calumniates a man
in all the meetings of the assembly and before the senate. To Common Report we
offer public sacrifice, as to a god, but the slanderer we prosecute, in the name of
the people, as a scoundrel. Do not, therefore, join together the most honourable
and the most shameful things. (trans. Charles Darwin Adams)

In this new definition of φήμη, Aeschines reiterates that it is formed

spontaneously (αὐτόματον), but insists on presenting the message as the
fruit of a multiple production. It is the spontaneous and almost unconscious
action of the masses that generates rumours. Without justifying the next
step of his argument, the orator then places this process in relation to
the divine sphere. This way of presenting the phenomenon effectively
 True and False 71

ascribes to the collective mechanism that produces the various comments

an unquestionably divine character. This kind of supernatural and collect-
ive message is, on the other hand, contrasted with an all-too-human
initiative: the well-reasoned action, intended for evil purposes, of a single
individual (in this case Demosthenes) committed to someone’s ‘defamation’.
According to Aeschines, the community would usually consider such an
individual as equal to a criminal.
Thus there is a clear opposition between the collective (impartial) produc-
tion of φήμη and the individual (partial) production of false accusations. As
usual, the former’s divine nature is ambiguously associated with both the lack
of a precise, recognizable source and with the alleged lack of a clear motive in
the production of the message.
This Athenian court case is a dynamic example of a typical situation that
has often created embarrassment in the courtrooms: when confronted with
widespread rumours about the accused, how much credit must be given to
what ‘everyone knows’? Today, the logic of legal procedure imposes a man-
datory approach: for a piece of information to be seen as valid testimony,
specific individuals must be identified as responsible for it, according to strictly
formalized rules.8 Consequently, news that lacks identifiable sources is not
normally considered relevant to the proceedings. In a case like the one under
discussion, however, the opposite seems to have occurred, although it is
impossible to establish the extent to which Aeschines’s confidence in the
veracity of φήμη was shared by the jury before him.
We may state that, even for the ancients in general, and for the Romans in
particular, this kind of trust was anything but undisputed. The arguments
found in treatises on rhetoric demonstrate this. One passage from Quintilian is
particularly useful, due to its conciseness and clarity, for illustrating the kind
of argument used in this respect. Book 5 of the Institutio oratoria opens with a
section on the probationes (proofs) required for resolving any legal contro-
versy. It should be noted that the term probationes corresponds to the Greek
πίστεις, a word that refers directly to the realm of trust, the topic Aristotle
addresses in the opening section of his treatise on rhetoric (Rhet. 1355b). This
discourse concerns the ability to exercise credibility.9
Like Aristotle, Quintilian also begins by distinguishing probationes inarti-
ficiales (‘inartificial’ proofs), in other words, those not produced using typical
rhetorical devices, from probationes artificiales (‘technical’ proofs), which are
created within the discourse itself, thanks to the debating skill of those who are

8
See Busino 2003, 21–2.
9
See Grimaldi 1957. Quint. Inst. 5.10.8 specifically states that he prefers πίστις to be
translated as probatio rather than with the term fides. On the meaning of probatio in Quintilian,
see Moussy 2005, 35–7.
72 Word of Mouth

able to put signa, argumenta, and exempla (5.9.1) to good use. The ‘inartificial’
probationes category includes (5.1.2):
praeiudicia, rumores, tormenta, tabulae, ius iurandum, testes, in quibus pars
maxima contentionum forensium consistit.
previous decisions, rumours, evidence from torture, documents, oaths, and
witnesses; the major part of forensic disputes rests on these.10 (trans. Donald
A. Russell)
So rumours must be included among the external elements that should be taken
into account during the proceedings, and which the speaker must make appear
credible. After briefly discussing the exemplary precedents (praeiudicia) that
can be cited to support a specific argument, Quintilian moves on to talk about
the subject that interests us (5.3):11
Famam atque rumores pars altera consensum ciuitatis et uelut publicum testimo-
nium uocat, altera sermonem sine ullo certo auctore dispersum, cui malignitas
initium dederit, incrementum credulitas, quod nulli non etiam innocentissimo
possit accidere fraude inimicorum falsa uulgantium.
Rumours and common talk are called ‘the verdict of society’ and ‘the testimony of
the public’ by one party; to the other they are ‘vague, unauthenticated talk, started
by malice and developed by credulity, something that can happen to the most
innocent of men through the fraud of enemies who spread false tales’. (trans.
Donald A. Russell)
This is clearly a new arrangement of the factors that Aeschines brought into
play when he contrasted φήμη with false accusation.

3.1.2. The Rhetorical Use of fama’s Testimonies

Quintilian provides us with two different interpretations of the same phe-

nomenon, treated as an indifferens. It is noteworthy that the veracity or
falsity to be attributed to hearsay is directly related to the way in which its
life-giving source is imagined. On the one hand, those disposed to trust
fama and rumores see the origin of hearsay in the consensus of the
community (consensus ciuitatis), and are therefore willing to consider it
as testimony endowed with collective authority. On the other, those who
reject the content of this gossip say that it derives from an initial spiteful

10
In Rhet.1355b Aristotle lists examples like ‘witnesses, torture, written documents, and so
on’ (μάρτυρες βάσανοι συγγραφαὶ καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα). The vagueness of the ending prevents us
from confirming whether he also believed rumours fell into this category.
11
Quintilian also notes that, in addition to the similarity with the case under debate, the
auctoritas of the person who issued those iudicia (5.2.2) is also important.
 True and False 73

intent that knowingly spreads rumours with no sure source (certus auc-
tor).12 This pattern is the same as the one we have already encountered
several times: only those who consider a more authoritative power to be
responsible for spreading the mysterious message can believe fama. In this
specific case, we are no longer speaking of the divine, but of the ‘commu-
nity’ as a whole. Otherwise, it is easy to imagine that the anonymity of the
information conceals conspiratorial machinations, fuelled by the credulity
of others. In both cases, the information’s source remains ambiguous and
uncertain.13
Hearsay reaches a courtroom in a rather weakened state. To be considered
real evidence, it must still be properly manipulated with rhetorical skill.
Quintilian does not devote much attention to this subject, and simply observes
that what people say is of unconvincing importance. In dealing with such
probationes, the orator has no choice but to appeal to the two opposing
predispositions of his audience, attempting to persuade it to accept or reject
information derived from rumours, depending on how useful it will be to him.
The discussion of the dubious reliability of torture in the next chapter is no
different, even though the directions about how to use information obtained
through violent interrogation are in this case a little more analytical. At any
rate, Quintilian particularly stresses the fact that this ‘external’ proof cannot be
obtained sic et simpliciter by a court, but must be substantiated further by the
parties involved.14

12
The definition of fama as slander born of unius hominis audacia is also found in one of the
ps.-Quintilian Declamationes maiores (11.6): see Dinter 2016, 133–4. For the concept of fama as
the ‘testimony of the community’, see the definition in Cic. Top. 76: ‘fama uulgi, quoddam
multitudinis testimonium’. It is not, as it might seem, a positive definition, given that Cicero is
speaking of a widespread belief that is often false, although it cannot be disproved even by
appealing to the truth. See also [Quint.] Decl. min. 252.16–17 and 269.4, and Hadrian’s rescript
to Valerius Verus in Dig. 22.5.3.2: ‘Alias numerus testium, alias dignitas et auctoritas, alias ueluti
consentiens fama confirmat rei de qua quaeritur fidem.’ A similar evaluation of the proverbial
expressions, which become ‘common heritage’ due to their lack of a reliable source, is again
found in Quint. Inst. 5.11.41: ‘ea quoque quae uulgo recepta sunt hoc ipso, quod incertum
auctorem habent, uelut omnium fiunt, quale est: “Vbi amici, ibi opes” etc.’
13
The structure of this definition makes it clear that Quintilian would definitely lean towards
a concept of fama as a product of specific sources: see Yavetz 1974, 64–5.
14
Or it can also be taken into account to complete other testimonies. In medieval law, fama
was included at best in the category of probationes semiplenae, and in any case had to be
integrated with other testimonies. See Lévy 1965, 39, 45 n. 2, 50, Lévy 1965a, 157, Gauvard
1994, 168, Kuehn 2003, 27–31, Mucciarelli 2013, 201. On the importance of Thomas de
Piperata’s Tractatus de fama in the debate on ‘proof in criminal cases’ that took place in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Migliorino 1985, 65–70 and Fraher 1989 (32–40 in particu-
lar). A complete summary of the arguments about this issue in the legal field, from Guillaume
Durand’s Speculum iudiciale to the mid-1500s, can be found in Freher 1588, which is also one of
the most extensive treatises ever dedicated specifically to the theme of fama (and its conception
in antiquity). In modern times, hearsay testimonies are subjected to various verifications or
discarded directly: see Gilissen, 1965, 809–12. Gordon 2001 shows that even today it is necessary
74 Word of Mouth

In this exemplary passage of Quintilian, the question of how much value

should be given to rumour has characteristics not altogether dissimilar from
what we saw in the dispute between Aeschines and Demosthenes. The entire
Roman tradition of legal and rhetorical studies also attributed a similar weight
to inartificiales probationes.15
A particularly clear general approach to the question already appeared in
book 2 of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which is also the oldest Roman
treatment of the subject that has reached us. This section of the work deals
with how the accuser and defender must present their arguments in some of
the most complex trials, based on conjectural reasoning (causa coniecturalis).
In these debates, such narratives must be subdivided into six major sections
(probabile, conlatio, signum, argumentum, consecutio, adprobatio). The last of
these consists of the adprobatio, that is, the phase in which the petitioner and
the defence must support their arguments for and against the suspicions about
the accused.
To address these issues, whose value is structurally doubtful, both the
petitioner and the defence can make use of loci communes, which are liable
to be treated in two conflicting ways.16 One of these particularly interests
us, as it concerns rumours (rumores). As usual, the insights offered by the
hearsay that is brought to the attention of the judges may be accepted
or discredited, according to the speaker’s interests. The arguments that
defenders and prosecutors may use for and against rumours are quickly
listed (12):17
A rumoribus dicemus: si negabimus temere famam nasci solere, quin supsit aliquid;
et si dicemus causam non fuisse, quare quispiam confingeret et eminisceretur; et
praeterea, si ceteri falsi soleant esse, argumentabimur hunc esse uerum.

to expose ‘hearsay’ to a complex textualization process in order to transform it into material that
can be used as testimony.
15
On ‘ “inartificial” proofs’ in Latin rhetorical texts, see Pugliese 1964, 308–44. Rumores are
taken into account in this context, not only in the passage of Quintilian quoted above, and in that
from the Rhetorica ad Herennium that I will discuss later on, but also in Cic. Inu. 2.46–7. To give
just one of many possible examples of the contrast between the hearsay typical of fama and
reliable testimonies for legal purposes, see Cic. Clu. 126: ‘Quid igitur censores secuti sunt? Ne ipsi
quidem, ut grauissime dicam, quicquam aliud dicent praeter sermonem atque famam. Nihil se
testibus, nihil tabulis, nihil graui aliquo argumento comperisse, nihil denique causa cognita
statuisse dicent.’
16
See also Michel 2003, 213–17 on the similar consideration of these loci comunes in Cicero’s
works. In Inu. 2.46–50 the same subject is treated more concisely, and the question that interests
us is simply reduced to the alternative ‘rumoribus credi oportere et non oportere’ (see n. 18).
17
As will have been noticed, to indicate rumours in these contexts, terms such as fama,
rumor, and murmur (in some cases also sermo, sermo uulgi in particular) are used quite
interchangeably. On the similar meaning of rumor and fama in the contexts that speak of
rumour and hearsay, see Ch. 4, sec. 4.4.2.
 True and False 75
Contra rumores dicemus: primum, si docebimus multos esse falsos rumores, et
exemplis utemur, de quibus falsa fama fuerit; et aut iniquos nostros aut homines
natura maliuolos et maledicos confinxisse dicemus; et aliquam aut fictam fabulam
in aduersarios adferemus, quam dicamus omnibus in ore esse, aut uerum rumorem
proferemus, qui illis aliquid turpitudinis adferat, neque tamen ei rumori nos fidem
habere dicemus, ideo quod quiuis unus homo possit quamuis turpem de quolibet
rumorem proferre et confictam fabulam dissipare. Verumtamen si rumor uehe-
menter probabilis esse uidebitur, argumentando famae fidem poterimus abrogare.
We shall speak in favour of rumours by saying that a report is not wont to be
created recklessly and without some foundation, and that there was no reason for
anybody wholly to invent and fabricate one; and, moreover, if other rumours
usually are lies, we shall prove by argument that this one is true.
We shall speak against rumours if we first show that many rumours are false,
and cite examples of false report; if we say that the rumours were the invention of
our enemies or of other men malicious and slanderous by nature; and if we either
present some story invented against our adversaries which we declare to be in
every mouth, or produce a true report carrying some disgrace to them, and say we
yet have no faith in it for the reason that any person at all can produce and spread
any disgraceful rumour or fiction about any other person. If, nevertheless, a
rumour seems highly plausible, we can destroy its credibility by logical argument.
(trans. Harry Caplan, modified)
These arguments are not founded on a specific ‘positive’ assessment of the
rumours as such: technical instructions like these clearly assume that we are
nonetheless speaking of stories that circulate without sure foundation. The
two sides only have to convince whoever issues the verdict to confirm or reject
something that has no proof, and is at best merely plausible.18
Even the arguments presented by the author of the treatise reveal an
implicit conviction that, while it is easier to defend a rumor by presenting it
as a ‘collective’ production which must conceal some indefinable truth, the
most effective way of discrediting a rumour is to reconnect its hidden source to
the hostile action of malicious individuals (possibly just one individual). We
therefore find ourselves before a different version of the same two arguments
that Aeschines had already used, respectively, to validate his own use of the
rumours that circulated about Timarchus and to discredit the way in which
Demosthenes employed hearsay to accuse him of corruption.

18
See also Cic. Inu. 2.46–7: ‘Accedunt autem saepe ad coniecturam quaestiones, testimonia,
rumores, quae contra omnia uterque simili uia praeceptorum torquere ad suae causae commo-
dum debebit. Nam et ex quaestione suspiciones et ex testimonio et ex rumore aliquo pari ratione
ut ex causa et ex persona et ex facto duci oportebit . . . Nam et eius, qui in quaestione aliquid
dixerit, et eius, qui in testimonio, et ipsius rumoris causa et ueritas ex iisdem adtributionibus
reperietur.’
76 Word of Mouth

3 . 2 . A R U M O R I B U S , CO N T R A R U M O R E S

3.2.1. [Quint.] Decl. mai. XVIII

We may ascertain how an accuser or defender could make use of the

arguments listed by the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium either for or
against hearsay by looking at two scholastic exercises that discuss an imagin-
ary event where particularly defamatory hearsay plays a key role, doing so
from completely opposite perspectives. These two major declamations (XVIII
and XIX) end the collection handed down to us with a false attribution to
Quintilian.19
The story involves a young man suspected of having an incestuous rela-
tionship with his mother. Demanding an explanation for this and other
transgressions, his father tortured him to death. The first of the two discourses
(XVIII) develops the arguments of a lawyer who represents the boy’s mother.
He asserts that the woman was dragged into this scandal when her husband
cruelly decided to lend credence to gossip, and also requests respect for her
chastity. The second (XIX) comprises the father’s self-defence: rejecting his
wife’s accusations, he demands that his authority over his son be respected.
Before examining the arguments produced in the two exercises, it is
important to provide a few more details about the imagined situation. The
son of the couple involved in the trial is described as extremely handsome.
A number of disgraceful rumours had been circulating about him for some
time, and his closeness to his mother, in particular, had led to gossip that
something beyond mere maternal–filial love existed between them. The
enraged father then chose to exercise his power of life or death (uitae
necisque potestas)—granted to him by Roman tradition—over his son. He
subjected the boy to torture in the innermost part of the house, far from
prying eyes, to force him to reveal what had actually happened. The interro-
gation led to his son’s death, but no one had any way of knowing what the
two men had said to each other in the final minutes of the son’s life. Indeed,
after this disgrace, the man fell into mournful silence.
In accordance with the declamatory convention adopted in this controuer-
sia figurata, the lawyer is complaining about the woman’s mistreatment (mala
tractatio), indirectly referencing the real complaint at hand.20 In this specific
case, the husband’s refusal to reveal what he discovered during the fatal
interrogation is presented as wronging the respectability of the woman, as
her pudicitia had been placed in serious doubt throughout the course of
events. The declamation that develops the arguments in defence of the
woman revolves entirely around disparaging the defamatory hearsay. To use

19
On these Declamations see Breij 2015 and Dinter 2016, 127–43.
20
On the actio malae tractationis see Breij 2015, 60–70.
 True and False 77

the terms we found in Rhetorica ad Herennium, we are decidedly in the

territory of arguments contra rumores.
To gain credibility in the eyes of the judges, the matron’s lawyer first
declares her irreprehensible pudicitia, even if it means having to face, yet
again, the infamia that such a discussion could engender against her. How
could the husband have believed unfounded hearsay that raised such profound
doubts about his wife’s honour?21
The accusatory speech against the father naturally stresses the uncertainty and
imprecision of the rumours in every way possible. The rhetorician emphasizes the
impossibility of confirming their reliability and of relying on the testimony and
evidence typically used to make a story credible. And yet the widespread circu-
lation of these rumours and the way they gain increasing credibility are aston-
ishing. Even those who do not believe these rumours contribute to their rapid
diffusion if they happen to discuss them with someone (6.6):
Est tamen hoc iniquissimum de loquacitate populi, quod plerumque accendit
contentio non credentium fama<m>: materiam miraris rumoris, de qua nemo
nec sibi credit? quam qui narrat, adsignat alii? Rumor res sine teste, sine indice, res
ex incertis inprobissima, maligna, fallax . . .
The most unfair thing about people’s talkativeness is the fact that in most cases
the hostility of those who do not accept a rumour as true kindles its circulation: is
it surprising that talk no one believes is fuelled? That the very person who reports
it attributes it to someone else? Rumour is something with no witnesses or
informers at its disposal: of all uncertain things, it is the vilest; it is spiteful,
deceitful . . . 22

Nevertheless, the line of accusation followed in the declamation does not

simply re-propose the generic criticism traditionally levelled against rumores.
The speech primarily seeks to raise the suspicion that the accused himself was
the source of the rumours (4.2–5):
Questurum nunc me, iudices, putatis de licentia sermonis humani? Ego uero iuxta
hunc patrem non accuso rumorem. Quae materia fabulae tam inpudentis, qui
fuerit auctor, iste probauit, qui credidit. Facillimum fuit, ut loqueretur populus de
incesto, de quo mirabatur patrem suspicari . . . . . Torsit filium, ut probaretur
incestum; occidit, ut crederetur.
Judges, do you think I mean to complain about the unrestrained liberty of
popular gossip? In fact, faced with a father like this I do not accuse the rumour.
What encouraged such a shameful story? Who was its source? It was revealed by

21
It is particularly interesting that this pudicitia is claimed using the topical argument of
bearing legitimate offspring. The woman had indeed given birth to a son ‘resembling his father’,
and the latter had recognized him (quem maritus agnosceret, 3.2) according to a cliché that
frequently recurs in Roman literature (for one well-known example, see Catull. 61.214–18).
22
Regarding the lack of witnesses (sine teste, sine indice), Breij 2015, 215 refers to similar
expressions present, for example, in Cic. Clu. 38, Iuv. 10.70 and Quint. Inst. 7.2.54.
78 Word of Mouth
the same person who gave credence to it. Of course people began to talk about a
case of incest which they were shocked to hear the father suspected. . . . He
tortured his son to prove the incest; he killed him so that others would believe it.
In accordance with what we read in the Rhetorica ad Herennium or in
Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, the hearsay is discredited here because it is
proven to be rooted in the malicious intent and criminal interest of a
clearly identified person. Furthermore, the dubious credibility of the ru-
mours (sermo humanus, rumor) is referred to as an established fact. The
arguments summoned are essentially the same as those we encountered in
the case of Aeschines. Like Demosthenes, the woman’s lawyer insists on
the lack of reliable testimony about the alleged incest: the father has
nothing to demonstrate his son’s guilt but the hearsay about the latter’s
incestuous relationship.23 At the same time, like Aeschines, the lawyer
denies that this hearsay truly falls into the category of rumours generated
independently by the community, instead suggesting that it was produced
by the very person who used the situation as an excuse to treat his wife and
son mercilessly.
The lawyer suggests that the matron’s motherly love was exaggerated to an
extraordinary level (culminating with the rumour of incest), not because of her
excessive affection for her son, but due to the father’s disproportionately
severe attitude towards him from birth. In addition, his disdain for his wife
was the main source of others’ suspicions about her pudicitia (5.6):
Tristior uultus, querela, fastidium fatum est coniugii. De pudore pronuntiat, mittit
in ora populi, mittit in fabulas. Hoc proxima ministeria narrant, hoc exteri putant.
Nemo peiore exemplo temere de uxore credit, quam cui omnes credituri sunt.
A face more grim than usual, a complaint, disgust—they seal a married woman’s
fate: they pronounce on her chastity, they make people talk, they provoke gossip.
It is what personal servants talk about, it is what outsiders think. It sets the worst
example if someone whom everybody is prepared to believe is rash in believing
tales about his wife. (trans. Bé Breij)
It was unnecessary for him to appeal to concrete facts, much less real crimes,
to generate the defamatory rumours about his wife. The suspicions raised by
his hostile behaviour towards her sufficed (8.2–4):

23
Later on, when the rhetorician objects that the man should have repudiated his wife if he
had suspicions about her, he also dwells on this lack of ‘evidence’ (16.2–3): ‘non uerba tibi contra
miseram, sed argumenta desunt, non uoce, sed probatione deficeris. Quod solum datur, relinquis
infamiae, et nos cum perpetua sermonum malignitate committis. Qui interrogantem uxorem nec
damnat nec absoluit, rumore contentus est.’ (‘You aren’t short of words against the poor woman,
you are short of arguments instead; you don’t lack a voice, you lack proof instead. The one
possible source of evidence you give over to slander, leaving us to contend with undying
malicious gossip. Whoever, when being questioned by his wife, refuses either to condemn or
to absolve her, is satisfied with a rumour’; trans. Bé Breij).
 True and False 79
Sed quid ego sic ago, tamquam inauditum, incredibile scelus locutus sit populus?
Teneo in hoc sermone facinus unius. Mali mariti non interest, incestum de uxore
fingat an credat. Quid? Iste ergo non timuit tam nefandae rei famam, nec ad aures
patris peruenire rumor erubuit? Dissimules licet, a te malignitas accepit ortum, te
secutus est, quisquis hoc ausus est narrare, proferre. Da bonum patrem, bonum
maritum; dicturum me putas, ‘non credet’? Nesciet esse rumorem. Ite nunc, iudices,
et adhuc dubitate, quis famae fuerit auctor, cuius pater agit causam.
But why do I act as if it were the people who were talking about an unheard-of,
unbelievable crime? In this talk, I see the crime of just one person. It makes no
difference whether an evil husband has invented his wife’s incest or whether he
truly believes in it. What? Did this man not fear the gossip about such a
abominable affair, and was the rumour not ashamed to reach the father’s ears?
Even if you pretend it is not the case, this malice came from you, followed you:
whoever was the one who dared relate such a thing and make it plain for all to see.
Let us imagine a good father, a good husband: do you think I would say ‘He won’t
believe this?’ No, he will not even know that these rumours are circulating. Well,
judges, then keep wondering who put the rumour in motion, the very person the
father defends.
Obviously, the woman’s lawyer is unable to conclusively prove who began to
spread the rumours about the mother and son. However, he deftly exploits
the structural lack of sources that characterizes gossip, sliding the very person
he is condemning into the open slot of the uncertain source, the unidentifi-
able auctor. According to his reconstruction of the events, the husband
created the grounds necessary to justify his crime, motivated by a false
accusation against an unloved son. The information circulated about the
young man was not even very likely and, in any case, to be so it would at
least have had to come from an eyewitness or derive from direct verification
of incest (6.3–4):
‘Rumor fuit.’ Hoc ergo sic audiemus, tamquam si diceres: ‘Conscius detulit seruus,
nuntiauit ancilla, inprouisus adstiti, dum non timeor, adueni’? Rogo, iudices,
utrum credibilius putatis incestum de matre an de rumore mendacium? Rem
inpudentissimam populus loquendo fecerat, nisi pater credidisset.
‘There was a rumour.’ So shall we understand you as saying: ‘A slave who was
accessory to the fact reported it, a maid informed on them, I was unexpectedly
present, I came upon them unawares’? I ask you, gentlemen, which would you
sooner believe, a mother’s incest or a lie about a rumour? It would have been
unutterably shameless for the people to talk if the father had not believed it.
(trans. Bé Breij)
Thus, the accusatory tactic is focused on the hypothesis that at the root of all
this there was a ‘false accusation’—to use Aeschines’s term—that the man had
an interest in supporting, and not a true work of fama. Lacking conclusive
evidence, the lawyer attempts to use the father’s own severity against him. In
any case, emphasis is placed on the complete lack of direct witnesses.
80 Word of Mouth

Before we move on, it is worth examining a rather evocative passage in

which the woman’s lawyer imagines summoning all the anonymous people
who contributed to spreading the defamatory hearsay about the poor young
man, so they can be present when the truth is revealed. Here, the murderer is
rhetorically challenged to publicly (rather than in the recesses of a torture
chamber) prove the suspicions that were the pretext for his crime. The
testimony obtained through violence should be presented to sate everyone’s
curiosity (12.5–13.2):
Quodsi tormenta etiam filii placent, si praestanda est satisfactio tam nefanda
rumori, exigo, ne perdas quaestionem. In media ciuitate, in ipsa constitue fama,
aduoca illos malignos, illos loquaces, et saeculi rem exquire audiente populo.
Coram omnibus torqueri debet, de quo locuntur omnes. Interroget quisque, quod
uolet, suis auribus, suis credat oculis. Cur in abditam semotamque partem iuuenis
abducitur? Secretum quaestionis nec incesto filio debetur nec innocenti. Dabo
adhuc inter secretum publicationemque temperamentum: aduoca propinquos,
adhibe amicos, circumpone iuveni serios senes, intersint magistratus, adsistant,
quibus habere possit ciuitas fidem. Praestare debes aut tibi, ut probare possis, si
confessus fuerit, aut filio, si pernegauerit . . . Quid agunt contra populum tormenta
secreta? Praedico, testor, iterum dantur malignis alimenta sermonibus, et a quaes-
tione seposita in maius reditur incertum.
But if you have now decided to torture your son, if you wish to give rumour such
monstrous satisfaction, I insist you do not waste your interrogation. Organize it at
the city centre, right amidst all the talk. Summon those gossips and rumour-
mongers, and investigate the crime of the century publicly. Someone about whom
everyone is talking should be tortured in front of everyone. Let each individual
ask him whatever he wants, and believe his own ears and eyes. Why is the youth
dragged to a hidden and secluded part of the house? Neither an incestuous nor an
innocent son has the right to a secret interrogation. But I shall even propose a
middle ground between the secret and public forms of inquiry: gather relatives,
invite friends, place respected elders around the young man, let magistrates
intervene, let all those in whom the community may trust be present. You must
allow evidence to be provided, whether in your favour, in the event that he
confesses, or in your son’s, in the event that he continues to deny it . . . In the
face of a crowd, what can come of secretly conducted torture? I proclaim and call
you to witness that the malicious rumours are fuelled once more, and after a
private investigation, the uncertainty grows still greater.
What makes this passage interesting is not the traditional criticism of a father
who heartlessly exercised his absolute potestas.24 The original rhetorical move
instead lies in the development of the idea whereby, through torture, the father
sought to make people believe he was seeking the information necessary to

24
For example, accusing him of not involving the ‘family council’ (consilium domesticum) in
such a serious matter: see Breij 2015, 23–6 and 315–16 (on the subject of uitae necisque potestas,
see in general the entire discussion in Breij 2015, 14–26).
 True and False 81

confirm the stories circulating about his son (‘praestanda satisfactio rumori’).
We are thus called to imagine all parties involved in the exchange of gossip
participating in the interrogation, directly questioning the tortured son so they
can ascertain what actually happened with their own eyes and ears (‘interroget
quisque, quod uolet, suis auribus, suis credat oculis’). In this way, all the
leading players involved in transmitting the defamatory information are
imagined filing past the dying boy. According to the woman’s lawyer, if
the father had truly desired to clarify the veracity of the rumor, he should
have conducted his investigations to satisfy not only his own but also the
public’s curiosity.

3.2.2. [Quint.] Decl. mai. XIX

Again drawing on the terminology proposed by the author of the Rhetorica ad

Herennium, we would naturally expect the man’s self-defence to contain
arguments favouring hearsay (a rumoribus). In reality, however, the father’s
entire speech is designed to avoid directly confronting the slippery subject of
gossip. Aversion to excessive gossip is one of its main themes. The wife is not
only chastised for her unrestrained sentiments (‘immodici semper adfectus’,
1.1), but is also portrayed as a person who tends to talk too much. In turn, her
husband presents his own silence as a way of stifling all the gossip surrounding
the circumstances, the very gossip the trial would inevitably put back into
circulation.25
The father structures his discourse so as to depict himself as a direct victim
of the onslaught of fama, a victim who made a desperate attempt, using every
possible means, to counteract the disgrace that his son’s depraved conduct had
brought on him and his family. There is no need to examine this highly
complex argument in more detail here. For the purposes of this discussion,
we need only say that while the man glosses over the guilt of his wife and son (2.5,
11.4–5, and 13–14), he also describes the murder as necessary for eliminating the
source of so much slander. The father is convinced that this gossip—which soon
would have tainted him as well—was not a result of hostility on anyone’s part:
rather, his son’s proud and arrogant demeanour made people talk.26
This does not mean, however, that the father has an indulgent attitude
about the garrulousness of so many unknown people: quite the contrary. He

25
‘Rursus ad populum uocas miserum pudorem, materiam noui rumoris accendis’ (5.2)
(‘Again you call upon our miserable shame to appear before the people; you are supplying fuel
for a new rumour’; trans. Bé Breij).
26
‘Dii inmortales, quantus qualisque circa iuuenem rumor ingemuit! . . . Iamiam non evitabat
fama nec patrem, iam meis auribus nemo parcebat’ (3.1–3) (‘By the immortal gods, a rumour of
terrible scale and content began to complain all around the young man! . . . By now the rumour
did not even shun the father, now nobody had mercy on my ears’; trans. Bé Breij).
82 Word of Mouth

even asserts that he did all he could to fend off the defamatory power of
rumores (‘contra ma<li>gnos sermones’, 10.4) by saving his son—by then
irremediably degenerate—from the machine of infamy. The best way to
react to people’s insinuations was not to be passive, accepting the credibility
of what they were saying, nor did he wish to sink to the level of small-minded
gossips. He attempts to present his action as a way of transferring the hatred
these rumours had aroused against his son onto the rumours themselves: a
way to ‘torture fama’ (8.6–9.1):
Iuuenem cunctis pignoribus inuisum, omnibus adfectibus grauem maligni fecere
sermones. Quid agimus, anime, quemadmodum effugimus, euadimus? In tanta
infamia nihil facere credentis est. Vis me circumire singulos, reclamare populo,
cum rumore rixari? Tuae fortassis infirmitati conueniat negare; me tantum fortior
adsertio unici decet: eripiendus est non contentione uerborum, sed ut ciuitas
stupeat, ut erubescat. Torquere me filium putas? inuidiam facio populo: uideor
mihi illis uerberibus lacerare famam, illis ignibus increpare rumorem. Quaestio de
infami filio unam rationem habet, ut probes innocentem.
Spiteful gossip had rendered the boy hateful to all the people closest to him, and
unbearable to those who used to love him. What to do? I wondered, how to
escape, how to come through this? In the face of such dishonourable reports, to
do nothing means to believe it. Do you wish me to go around to each of these
people, protest against the crowd, struggle with rumours? Perhaps for someone
weak like you, it would be natural to deny everything: but to me nothing but a
more energetic defence of my only son seems appropriate. Using words to fight is
not the way to free him, it is necessary to do it in a way that would leave the
community shocked and humiliated. Do you believe I am torturing my son? I am
shaming the crowd: with those blows I think to tear apart fama, with those flames
I think to denounce the gossip. Interrogating a dishonoured son makes sense only
to prove his innocence.
While the accuser challenged the father ‘to offer a wicked satisfaction to
gossip’ (‘praestanda satisfactio nefanda rumori’) with a public hearing, the
latter says he felt it best to remove his son from the defamatory action of public
opinion rather than fight in vain against hearsay passed from person to person
(‘cum rumore rixari’).
In this declamation, we find only a partial disposition to admit the
reliability of the hearsay stirred up by fama. However, as we already saw
in our examination of Aeschines’s response to Demosthenes, it is difficult
for the respondent to turn to a communicational circuit that would be
exceedingly embarrassing to rely on. The father consequently opts for the
ambiguous strategy of separating the informative side of rumours, described
as a simple consequence of the depraved conduct of his son (and wife),
from its ‘defamatory’ side, which proved damaging to the young man’s
entire family. Fama is thus referred to as a mirror of the son’s immoral
behaviour, but at the same time is actively fought: it is an enemy that must
 True and False 83

be disarmed, as its weapons have been used to damage the family’s

respectability.
The arguments of the two opposing declamations reveal a struggle over
the identification of the cause that gave rise to the circulation of rumours.
According to the woman’s lawyer, the stern and ‘slanderous’ father contrib-
uted to the gossip about incest; according to the defendant, the fault lay with
the degenerate son. In this curious contest, neither of the two parties attempts
to support the gossip about the situation: if anything, they hurry to criticize it
and affirm their wish to repress it. The woman’s lawyer essentially uses
Aeschines’s argument, which consists of classifying what seems to be a rumour
as defamation, triggered by the man’s hatred towards his wife and son. The
father contends that his son’s shameful behaviour was responsible for the
uproar that ultimately crushed him, akin to what Aeschines claimed happened
to Timarchus.
What still remains evident is the fact that rumours never constitute stable
terrain on which to base a search for truth. Regardless of whether they are
considered reflections of reality or the products of malice and calumny, it is
only thanks to a great rhetorician that they can become part of a convincing
argument.

3.3. FAMA, NOMEN INCERTI

3.3.1. An Unreliable Form of Communication

The transmission of hearsay was considered an ambiguous and elusive source

of information, mainly due to the distinctive communicative setting where the
process takes place. When someone sends a message to a specific recipient, it is
in his or her own best interest that the instrument (or messenger) entrusted
with the information relays it correctly. The situation changes considerably
when the message is introduced into a disorderly chain of transmission
instead. A children’s game, often called ‘Chinese Whispers’, reveals just how
flawed the dynamics of the process can be.27 When a group of people lined up
in a row attempts to transmit a short phrase, sending it along a small chain of
individual transmissions by ‘word of mouth’, quite often the message that
reaches the last member of the chain does not coincide with what was
originally said by the ‘source’ of the message. The main cause of this distortion
is an ordinary mechanical factor: the more nodes of communication, the more
likely it is that the original phrase will be altered. This type of ordinary

27
See Froissart 2002, 26–8.
84 Word of Mouth

transmission defect is compounded by the fact that when information is not

transferred via a fixed written or mnemonic text, but through a series of oral/
aural communications that are not bound to a particular form of utterances, it
is inevitably reformulated freely at each step of the process.
As philologists are well aware, the reproduction of written messages lends
itself well to verification processes, even when we are dealing with alterations
of the text. When confronted with a series (even an incomplete one) of written
‘witnesses’ of a text that has been recopied several times—even with extensive
tampering—it is usually possible to go back along the chain of transmission
and identify at least a series of points at which the message was distorted. In
fact, it is often possible to conjecturally fill the gaps in the documentation and,
in many cases, reconstruct the original form of the text sent into the chain of
reproductions. It is practically impossible to carry out this procedure when a
series of oral utterances inevitably obliterate the ‘original’, subjecting it to a
tangled series of variations where additions, reformulations, mistakes, and
intentional changes end up altering the characteristics of the initial message.
As we will see, this renders the very existence of an ‘original’ irrelevant (or at
any rate undetectable). Naturally, without an ‘original’, we cannot check
whether or not the message has been reproduced faithfully, nor can we control
what we might call the enunciatory responsibilities of the individuals involved
in the transmission process.

3.3.2. Nomen incerti

As early as classical antiquity, many writers were already carefully observing

the state of uncertainty in which rumours spread. Tertullian wrote a particu-
larly insightful page on the subject. In book 1 of Ad nationes (7.1–33), the
apologist presented an extensive and disjointed discourse aimed at disparaging
the unfounded, defamatory hearsay circulating about the ritual practices of
Christians. The first six chapters of this work contain observations that were
then proposed again in a briefer, more incisive passage of the Apologeticum
(7.8–12).28 Tertullian begins his discussion with a citation of Virgil’s famous
definition from Aen. 4.174, according to which Fama is the fastest misfortune
that exists (‘malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum’). He interprets it as follows:
Cur malum fama? Quia uelox, quia index, an quia plurimum mendax? Quae ne
tunc quidem, cum aliquid ueri adfert, sine mendacii uitio est, detrahens, adiciens,
demutans de ueritate. Quid quod ea illi condicio est, ut non nisi cum mentitur,
perseueret, et tamdiu uiuit, quamdiu non probat? Siquidem ubi probauit, cessat

28
On the relationship between the two passages and the possible sources of Tertullian, see
Schneider 1968, 164–7.
 True and False 85
esse et quasi officio nuntiandi functa rem tradit; et exinde res tenetur, res nomi-
natur. Nec quisquam dicit uerbi gratia: ‘Hoc Romae aiunt factum’, aut: ‘Fama est
illum prouinciam sortitum’; sed: ‘Sortitus est ille prouinciam’, et: ‘Hoc factum est
Romae’. Fama, nomen incerti, locum non habet ubi certum est. An uero famae
credat nisi inconsideratus? quia sapiens non credit incerto. Omnium est aestimare:
quantacumque illa ambitione diffusa sit, quantacumque adseueratione constructa,
quod ab uno aliquando principe exorta sit necesse est. Exinde in traduces lin-
guarum et aurium serpit, et ita modici seminis uitium cetera rumoris obscurat, ut
nemo recogitet, ne primum illud os mendacium seminauerit, quod saepe fit aut
ingenio aemulationis aut arbitrio suspicionis aut non noua, sed ingenita quibus-
dam mentiendi uoluptate.
Why is rumour an evil? Because it is swift? Because it gives information? Or is it
because it is very often lying? Even when it brings some truth with it, it is not
exempt from the flaw of falsehood, as it takes away from, adds to, and alters the
truth. What are we to say of the fact that its character is such that it does not
persist without lying and it lives only as long as it cannot prove its truth; since
when it has proved it, it ceases to exist and as though it had done its work of
reporting hands down the matter, and thereafter it is held to be fact, and is so
called. Nor does anyone for example remark: ‘They say this has happened at
Rome,’ or ‘The rumour is that he has obtained the province (by lot),’ but ‘He has
obtained the province,’ and: ‘This has happened at Rome.’ Rumour, a name
belonging to uncertainty, has no place where certainty exists. Would anyone
indeed, unless he were devoid of sense, believe rumour? A wise man does not
trust what is uncertain. Anyone can judge that, however great may be the extent
to which the story is spread, however great the confidence with which it has been
built up, still it must have sprung at some time or other from a single root. From
that it creeps into the branches of tongues and ears. And a fault in the little seed is
so concealed by the shield of rumour, that no one reflects whether that first
mouth may not have sown the lie, a thing that often happens either through the
inventiveness of jealousy or the humour of suspicion or the pleasure in lying,
which is not new but inborn in some people. (trans. Alexander Souter)
Unlike other ancient authors, who focus mainly on describing how fama
circulates its news, Tertullian concentrates his attention on the mechanisms
of distortion to which such information is inevitably subjected. Even
when reported without malicious intent, information spread through fama
is exposed to a series of variations that add, subtract, or modify (‘detrahens,
adiciens, demutans de ueritate’).29 Therefore, transmission that travels ‘from
mouth to ear’ (‘in traduces linguarum et aurium serpit’), with its constant
accumulation of alterations, eventually stifles the voice of its original source

29
See the corresponding formulation in Ad nationes (1.7.2): ‘Quae ne tum quidem, cum uera
defert, a libidine mendacii cessat, ut non falsa ueris intexat adiciens detrahens uarietate con-
fundens.’ This text may better express the corrupting power of the blending of true and false on
the overall value of information.
86 Word of Mouth

(‘ab uno aliquando principe exorta’). In fact, it is usually not even asked
whether the source of the initial information said something true or false.
Like Plutarch, Tertullian emphasizes the impossibility of going back to the
very first stage of a rumour’s transmission. However, he also lucidly views this
characteristic as the main core of fama’s nature. The fact that it progressively
accumulates continuous variations with respect to the original information
makes it a process infused with uncertainty. Rumour is propagated and
performs its functions by beginning to circulate information so imprecise
that it effectively becomes false and deceitful. Therefore, its role is not that
of a normal messenger, who must merely transfer the message from a given
sender to his or her recipient. On the contrary, fama consists of the continuous
movement of information that has no way of becoming sure and verified
knowledge.
This page of the Apologeticum focuses on a point that is central to our
discussion: the way fama transmits information is decidedly abnormal. Start-
ing from such a premise, its value cannot easily be measured according to the
standards of normal communication, which is performed by agents who are
usually easy to identify (sender, messenger, recipient) and guided by specific
goals during their exchanges of information. Anyone wishing to contemplate
the complicated and sometimes enigmatic paths of fama must contend with
disorder and approximation, vagueness and uncertainty.
This passage of Tertullian significantly influenced how fama was defined
during the Middle Ages, if for no other reason than the fact that Isidore of
Seville used part of the passage from the Apologeticum for his definition of the
concept of fama (Etym. 5.27.26–7):
Fama autem dicta quia fando, id est loquendo, peruagatur per traduces linguarum
et aurium serpens. Est autem nomen et bonarum rerum et malarum. . . . .
Malarum, ut Vergilius: ‘Fama, malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum’. Fama
autem nomen certilocum non habet, quia plurimum mendax est, adiciens multa
uel demutans de ueritate: quae tamdiu uiuit, quamdiu non probat. At ubi pro-
baueris, esse cessat, et exinde res nominatur, non fama.’ 30
And ‘report’ is so called because by speaking (fari), that is, talking, it roves about,
creeping through the grapevine of tongues and ears. The term fama is also
appropriate for both good and evil things. For ‘report’. . . . is also of evils, as in
Vergil (Aen. 4.174): ‘Report [fama], than which no other evil is more speedy’.
Report does not possess a trustworthy [certilocum] name, because it is especially
untruthful [mendax], either adding many things to the truth, or distorting the
truth. It lasts just as long as it is not put to the test, but whenever you put it to the
test, it ceases to be, and after that is called fact [res], not report. (trans. Stephen
A. Barney et al.)

30
My underlinings highlight the formulations of Tertullian adopted by Isidore.
 True and False 87

It may be no accident that Isidore reproduced the most original point of

Tertullian’s reasoning almost word for word: the part that contrasts the
ambiguous informative ability of the formidable circuit of rumours with the
operation of probare, which would paradoxically strip away fama’s most
distinctive characteristics and reduce it to a common form of information
transmission. In effect, the possibility of probare would transform rumour (‘it
is said that this happened’) into genuine information, giving a name and
precise outlines to the things that happened (‘this happened’).
As Claude Moussy recently clarified, the etymology of the verb probare
refers to the idea of ‘considering [something] to be good, of good quality’, but
also the idea of ‘making [someone] consider [something] to be good, of good
quality’.31 From this derives the meaning of ‘demonstrating’ and ‘proving’ that
perhaps constitutes the semantic core of this verb. In a passage like the one
under discussion, the use of probare presents a few ambiguities, but Tertul-
lian’s main idea nonetheless remains very clear. His discourse is structured
according to a precise series of oppositions:
falsehood (mentiri) / announcement (officium nuntiandi)
vs.
proof (probare) / ‘delivery of information’ (rem tradere)
Only ‘proof ’ can turn a piece of news into something that is truly known.
Fama only transmits information within a dimension of ambiguity, if not
outright falsehood, through a process that systematically modifies the outlines
of what actually occurred. In contrast, the action of probare lies in the realm of
concreteness (rem) and verifiability.
In this passage, fama is portrayed as a paradoxical messenger who performs
an informative function (officium nuntiandi) that exists only as long as
something false or unverifiable remains in circulation. We need not dwell on
the fact that Tertullian was attempting to discredit the hearsay circulating
about the Christians. In any event, what is very interesting in this passage is
the phrase identifying the exact point at which fama ceases to exist (cessat
esse), the moment after the subject of the gossip is proven (probare). This
observation grasps a crucial aspect of the dynamics fundamental to the
mechanism we are discussing and very effectively isolates one of the main
characteristics that is still considered typical of the circulation of rumours
today. Set in motion by an undetermined source, they never ‘deliver’ their
message to a specific recipient: if they did so, they would no longer be ‘hearsay/
rumours’. The contents they transmit appear structurally uncertain and it is
impossible to disentangle the mixture of true and false of which they are made.

31
Moussy 2005, 31–2.
88 Word of Mouth

Probare something communicated in this way means shifting from the unre-
liable world of fama to the realm of correctly transferred information.

3.3.3. An Initial Summary

On the basis of the texts examined so far, we can now gather some of the
distinctive elements of the communicative phenomenon we are studying into
a concise scheme. This will give an initial general picture that can be used later
as a reference model (also on a terminological level) when describing the
complicated paths that the ‘winged words’ circulated by fama might follow.
With regard to the transmission of information, the main characteristics of
the circulation of rumours are:
• rapid and continuous ‘chain-like’ propagation;
• erratic and disorderly progression;
• transfer ‘by word of mouth’.
If we then consider the main pillars of any transmission process (sender and
recipient), we find ourselves before a decidedly unusual situation when talking
about fama. It is very difficult—if not impossible—to determine the physio-
gnomy of both the ‘first enunciator’ of rumours and their final recipient. In
general, we usually find the following:
• the sudden/spontaneous origin of the information;
• the difficulty in identifying its first source;
• its disappearance into thin air.
Lastly, the contents of the message divulged by rumours generally have these
characteristics:
• they blend true and false;
• they twist the truth (through additions, subtractions, variations), stifling
the voice of the initial speaker;
• they are infused with uncertainty;
• they cannot be verified (otherwise they would be the contents of a
‘normal’ message).
It would consequently be difficult to believe this type of hearsay, even when it
speaks the truth. What happens with rumours is essentially what various
proverbs remind us also happens with liars, whose falsehoods render even
the true things they might happen to relay unreliable.32

32
For example, see Arist. apud Diog. Laert. 5.17: ἐρωτηθεὶς τί περιγίνεται κέρδος τοῖς
ψευδομένοις, ‘ὅταν,’ ἔφη, ‘λέγωσιν ἀλήθειαν, μὴ πιστεύεσθαι’. and Cic. Diu. 2.146: ‘Cum mendaci
homini ne uerum quidem dicenti credere soleamus’ (see also Hieron. Ep. 6.1: ‘Antiquus sermo
 True and False 89

How should we judge such an ambiguous form of communication? Its

spontaneous and hidden origin, astonishing speed, and ability to spread itself
widely throughout large social groups all combine to form something with a
mysterious and vaguely supernatural nature. The famous medieval saying,
‘Vox populi, uox dei’, memorably synthesizes the idea of the consensus of a
large mass of people and of its superior authority.33
On the other hand, an objective assessment of the fama phenomenon
supports Tertullian’s observation that precise sources must exist at its origin.
Particularly in situations involving gossip and malevolent hearsay, we might
easily suspect the existence of a spiteful, petty individual motive.34
This particular form of oral communication was described time and again
in ancient texts—sometimes, as we have seen, in highly evocative ways.
However, the phenomenon certainly did not receive the kind of attention
that sociological and anthropological research began to devote to it in the
second half of the twentieth century, both within our own communities and
within populations of ethnographic interest. Despite the enormous distance
that separates modern and ancient cultures, we may find it useful to embark
on a brief overview of the results achieved by these studies. This will allow us
to examine the mechanism of rumour’s diffusion from a broader perspective,
and to acquire effective interpretative instruments that we will then use for
further analysis of Roman testimonies.

est: Mendaces faciunt, ut nec uera dicentibus credatur’). On proverbial expressions of this kind,
see Otto 1890, 219, under the entry Mendax 2.
33
On the history of this proverb, first mentioned by Alcuin (who described it as already being
widespread) in a letter to Charlemagne, see Gallacher 1945 and Boas 1969, 8–22. Boas devotes
great attention to the complex identification of the concept of populus in the sources where this
formula appears (pp. 39–71).
34
Seen in this light, a rumour clearly takes on the characteristics of slander. The ‘affinity’
between these two concepts has been highlighted numerous times by ancient authors. In a
passage from his romance The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon (6.10.2–6), Achilles Tatius
even makes Φήμη a daughter of Διαβολή (see Wassermann 1920, 34–6 and Ch. 1, sec. 1.3.2). For
the association between the two concepts in a famous passage of Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de
Séville, ou la Précaution inutile, and later on in Rossini’s famous aria ‘La Calunnia è un venticello’
see Ch. 10, sec. 10.2.3, n. 61. The relationship between rumour and slander also has an interesting
iconographic history (see Ch. 9, sec. 9.1.1).
 4

Producers and Performers of Rumour

4.1. MODERN THEORIES ON RUMOUR AND GOSSIP

4.1.1. Hearsay, Rumour, and Gossip

A great deal has been written about the phenomenon of rumour and gossip,
and this is certainly not the place for an exhaustive review of the research that
has been done. It may, however, be useful to provide a general picture of the
state of the scholarship.1
An important initial line of research was the study of the role rumour
played in dynamics of social tension and disinformation. Pioneering work in
this field was done by Marc Bloch on the ‘fausses nouvelles de la guerre’. Bloch
sought to understand how the legends and false information that historians
often have to deal with arose and were propagated (orally or by writing). The
First World War had just provided him with a privileged observatory, which
he was able to exploit with his usual acumen and a capacity for insight
sharpened by both his familiarity with sociological research and the most
recent findings about the psychology of testimony.2 Bloch was particularly
interested in how large social groups responded to situations of extreme
tension by reorganizing randomly gathered information into stories condi-
tioned by ingrained narrative habits and pre-existing cultural models, as well
as collective fears; these kinds of stories were circulated through informal
channels of communication, typically in the oral forms that characterize
traditional societies.3

1
A good classification of the main theories advanced in the twentieth century may be found
in Fine 1985.
2
The studies of Sir Frederic Bartlett on cognitive psychology (collected in Bartlett 1932)
exerted an enormous influence on this field beginning in the 1910s and 1920s until the end of the
twentieth century. See Froissart 2002, 85–7.
3
Bloch 1921, 31: ‘Une fausse nouvelle naît toujours de représentations collectives qui
préexistent à sa naissance; elle n’est fortuite qu’en apparence, ou, plus précisément, tout ce
qu’il y a de fortuit en elle c’est l’incident initial, absolument quelconque, qui déclenche le travail
des imaginations: mais cette mise en branle n’a lieu que parce que les imaginations sont déjà
92 Word of Mouth

The Second World War provided new impetus for work in this sector, and
most research was done in the United States. Not coincidentally, these studies
generally viewed the phenomenon as an almost mechanical effect of certain
social dynamics marked by a high degree of psychological tension; one of the
main objectives of these studies was to promote initiatives designed to counter
the effects of disinformation. As an example, we might cite the well-known
contributions of Robert H. Knapp, as well as of Gordon W. Allport and Léo
J. Postman, who were the main reference figures in this area of scholarship for
some time.4
The research really took off in the 1960s, and it should be said from the
outset that the results of this great debate were not particularly satisfying. As
Marina Sbisà has written, ‘speaking about idle talk means speaking about
everyday life: a field in which you always run the risk of reinventing the
wheel’.5 Many of the studies devoted to this topic in widely disparate scholarly
and literary fields tend to lump all these communicative phenomena together:
chatter and gossip (gossip, idle talk, commérage, potin, Klatsch, Tratsch),6 and
rumour and hearsay (hearsay, rumours, rumeurs, bruits, Gerüchte, Gerede) are
treated as analogous processes that often contribute to spreading the same
type of information. One might define such an approach as ‘non-structured’.
A more extensive current of research, in mainly the English-speaking world,
adopted a different approach and drew a rather clear distinction between
rumo(u)r (hearsay, unsubstantiated news, and highly popular urban legends)7
and gossip (the private and trivial conversation, not necessarily unfounded,

préparées et fermentent sourdement . . . .La fausse nouvelle est le miroir où «la conscience
collective» contemple ses propres traits’ (see also pp. 32–4).
4
Knapp was in charge of ‘rumor control for the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety’:
see Knapp 1944, 22. For a long time the definition proposed by Allport and Postman 1947, ix
(‘A rumor [ . . . ] is a specific (or topical) proposition for belief, passed along from person to
person, usually by word of mouth, without secure standards of evidence being present’) was
considered the standard. The two American scholars distinguished ‘news’ from ‘rumour’, which
is essentially founded on the lack of ‘secure standards of truth’ due to the fact that ‘in rumor the
source of evidence has grown dim’ (p. x). Rumour, whose expressive functions are more
important than its informational ones (p. 198), was described as having a tendency not only to
model itself around the personal and cultural contexts in which it was circulating, but also to
function ‘as a rationalizing agent’ in these contexts, able to provide interpretations of reality that
confirm the current emotional conditions of the group (pp. viii and 43). These circumstances
obviously create strong effects of distortion in the perception and memory of reality (pp. 49–60).
An insightful reconstruction of the origin and development of this particular branch of studies
dedicated to gossip can be found in Froissart 2002, 63–88.
5
Sbisà 1998, 27. See also Wickham 1998, 9–11.
6
On the meaning of these terms and their etymology, see Bergmann 1993, 55–6, Marcarino
1997, 19–21 (on gossip see also Spacks 1985, 25–6), Benvenuto 2000, 15.
7
See e.g. Rosnow 1988, 12: ‘public communications that reflect private hypotheses about how
the world works’, ‘attempts to make sense of uncertain situations’, ‘a proposition for belief of
topical reference disseminated without official verification’. Various monographs, often a mix
between journalistic account and sociological analysis, have been devoted to this topic: Marc
1987, Kapferer 1987, and Sunstein 2009 being among the most interesting contributions.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 93

that goes on behind someone’s back; or the more recent media-related phe-
nomenon involving revelations about the private lives of celebrities).8 The
former was studied mainly by communications experts and economists inter-
ested in the turmoil generated in society and in financial milieus by the
circulation of unverified information (often released on purpose). In contrast,
gossip has drawn the attention of anthropologists and sociologists observing
the dynamics of social control (since the sharing of ideas and information
serves as the basis for processes of inclusion/exclusion in a community).9

4.1.2. General Characteristics of the Phenomenon

I will confine myself to providing a brief summary of the distinctive features

that, in recent years, sociologists, anthropologists, and communications ex-
perts have consistently attributed to this mechanism of transmitting rumours
and gossip.
In general, we might say that the features rumour and gossip have in
common are:
a. Predominantly oral/aural circulation of information;
b. Circuit of information organized in the form of a private open-ended
network;
c. Informality of communication;

8
See e.g. Rosnow and Fine 1976, 4: ‘Rumor is information, neither substantiated nor refuted;
gossip is small talk with or without a known basis in fact. The multiple functions that both serve
are practically identical, but the motivational hierarchies appear to be different: rumors seem
most often fueled by a desire for meaning, a quest for clarification and closure: gossip seems
motivated primarily by ego and status needs.’ See also Klapp 1972, 221 (gossip is an intimate
conversation that primarily takes place within a restricted community, while rumour is imper-
sonal and produced ‘from the larger society, the world outside’), Paine 1970 (rumour is an
‘unsigned kind of gossip’), and White 1994, 75 (both these phenomena are ‘not substantiated’,
but while gossip is a practice of ‘speech and control’, rumour is information whose frequent
falsity is discovered only later on). A good summary in Lauf 1990, 14–17. For some more typical
definitions of gossip see also Rosnow 1974, 27, Merry 1984, 275, Spacks 1985, 4–7, Marcarino
1997, 43–4, Adkins 2002, 216. In my opinion, the best treatment of this topic is Bergmann 1993.
Bergmann defines gossip as a ‘discrete indiscretion’ that performs an indirect function of social
control: the groups that share this practice subject the private behaviour of others to a continuous
hermeneutic analysis and in doing so put their own shared ethical models to the test, benevo-
lently isolating the deviation (often with a mix of censure, understanding, and tolerance). On
gossip about celebrities see Bergmann 1993, 50–4. Various contributions exist on the construc-
tion of celebrity in contemporary society (such as Payne 2009) that merely provide colourful
examples without any particularly interesting critical discourse. Marshall 1997 and Braudy 1997,
though, offer some useful insights on these topics.
9
A very useful review of the anthropological debate in Merry 1984 (with an extensive
bibliography on pp. 296–302); a review of the sociological scholarship in Rosnow 1974 and
1991, 488–94 (see also Fine and Severance 1987 and Froissart 2002, which contains a lively
discussion of the previous bibliography).
94 Word of Mouth

d. Impersonality of communication, uncertain identity of the interlocutors;

e. Impossibility or irrelevance of ascertaining the sources;
f. Volatility of the information
However, we might consider the following features as specific to gossip:
g. Strong relational function;
h. Marginal character of communication;
i. ‘Poor’ contents and use of maliciousness;
j. Presumed association with gender.
Let us now quickly review the meanings attributed to each of these general
features.

a. Primarily oral/aural circulation of information

‘Hearsay’ and ‘word of mouth’ are the modes of reception/transmission
typically attributed to the propagation of information occasioned by rumours
and gossip. This type of communication was characterized by orality/aurality
throughout the course of antiquity and the Middle Ages.10 Only in the modern
age has it begun (but only in a rather limited way) to coexist with predomin-
antly written forms of transmission. As we shall see in the next chapter, the
context in which rumours and conversations circulate today has changed
rapidly, and diffusion through different media has become a stable fixture.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the transmission of rumour and gossip the
oral/aural channel still has a clear advantage over the other media.

b. Circuit of information organized in the form of a

private, open-ended network
Rumours and gossip spread out through unpredictable networks that are
always open to new ramifications and whose intricate structure is difficult to
reconstruct.11 Obviously, these contexts favour the proliferation of all kinds of
errors, distortions, and reformulations, so that the sequence of transmission is
inevitably rendered opaque and the responsibility for various assertions is
almost impossible to determine.

10
See Wickham 1998, 3–6. Wickham also describes very effectively how the typical features
of conversation were transcribed in documents that attempted to set down in writing rumours
that could have a bearing on economic transactions or judicial trials (pp. 16–18).
11
In Primo Levi’s words: ‘Since the recipients are more than one, this gossip spreads in a
ramified pattern and thus, tendentially, follows the exponential law. It has, that is, the tendency
to invade the ecumenical area, as happened with the chain letters’ (Levi 1997, 176, translation
modified). See also Buckner 1965. In Lauf 1990 we can find a detailed experiment of recon-
struction that shows very clearly how small rumour-propagating networks arise and are
organized.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 95

c. Informality of communication
In both gossip and rumour, communication occurs without any concern about
providing a stable and well-encoded form for the transmission of information.
As Tamotsu Shibutani has written:
The distinctive characteristic of rumor as a collective transaction . . . is the lower
degree of formalization of many of its component communicative acts. There is a
relaxation of conventional norms governing social distance, sources of informa-
tion, verification, procedures, subject matter, and sometimes even the use of
gestures. Precisely because these transactions do not develop within an institu-
tional framework there are opportunities for spontaneity, expediency, and
improvisation.12
This circumstance also favours the multiplication of individual interventions
whose form, and often whose informational content, vary uncontrollably;
competing versions may even coexist simultaneously without either conflating
or eliminating each other.13

d. Impersonality of communication, uncertain identity of

the interlocutors
Gossip and rumour belong to the world of ‘it is said’,14 rather than a world
where individual players assume clear communicative roles in the chain of
transmission.15
Marina Sbisà writes:
In gossip . . . the features of the speakers are in continuous fluctuation, the attri-
butions of responsibility fade away, the players are at least in part interchange-
able . . . Gossip moves in zig-zags, in jumps and starts, and each person is the
enunciator of what he is saying, but in a banal way, in the sense that he issues it,
utters it; if we attempt to reconstruct the subject of the assertion through deictic
and illocutionary indicators, we find that it constantly shifts: . . . Gossip always
tends to be an ‘it is said’: not only do the people who gossip embody a fluctuating
and ill-defined plurality of speakers, but often, even when we reason backwards
and start from something that has been affirmed, if we ask ourselves who said it,
in which psycho-physical individual is the enunciator of that assertion anchored,
no definite answer is plausible, almost as if the thing had said itself (an ‘it is said’, a
dicitur . . . ) . . . Thus, individuals avoid assuming the fixed and regular burden of
the figure of the speaker, implicit in the things that are said. . . . It is of no

12
Shibutani 1966, 23.
13
See Shibutani 1966, 124, Paine 1967, 283, Marc 1987, 239.
14
A world in which the function of ‘expressing the non-person’ typical of the third person
(Benveniste 1971, 197–201) is further enhanced by the structural impersonality of the assertion.
15
As Primo Levi recalled, someone reporting a rumour often asks to remain anonymous
(‘don’t tell who told you’): cf. Levi 1997, 178 and Fabbri 1998, 16.
96 Word of Mouth
importance that one person or another may have said it: what ‘is said’ may have
been said by anyone . . . The interchangeability of the roles of speaker and inter-
locutor [is] altered only when an element no longer of Gossip but of Discourse,
for example an institutional role, structures one of the interlocutors and assigns to
him/her a specific modal competence.16
As a result, the process itself tends to be described as a phenomenon that has
its own individuality: ‘rumour’ is often represented as something that lives a
life of its own, independently of the network of exchanges that extends its
itinerary in every direction (‘rumour has it that’).17 Obviously, this process is
very similar to that which gave rise to the personifications of Fama.

e. Impossibility or irrelevance of ascertaining the sources

Under these circumstances, is there any point in investigating the respective
sources of the information that has been released into circulation? In general,
anyone taking part in the production/reproduction of gossip and rumour is
completely unconcerned with that aspect of the question, which, in any case,
would be extremely difficult to determine. Some source or other is imagined or
assumed to be at the origin of the news being transmitted, but it seems
unimportant to establish its identity, given the informal and often haphazard
climate in which the communication occurs. It matters little whether or not
anybody is required to take responsibility for the contents of what is being
transmitted, even if attempts are often made to quote from a source that is
supposedly closer to the origins of the information repeated through hearsay.18
Paolo Fabbri has described this state of affairs very evocatively:
Elusive and imminent, rumours refer to a nearby source (family, acquaintances,
familiar places, chance encounters) but one that avoids investigation. Any
attempt at research appears destined to fail. It is not a secret in the sense of a
deliberate mystification. In any case, there is Someone whom if we don’t believe
we are at least ready to listen to, but this Someone is always Someone Else. In fact,
experiments have shown that rumours circulate precisely because the source is
considered inconsequential.19

f. Volatility of the information

Marc Bloch maintained that often the origins of rumours and gossip were to
be found in strong feelings of anxiety or curiosity shared by the community
(be it small or large) in which the information was circulating. The topics

16
Sbisà 1998, 28–9. 17
Froissart 2002, 44–6 in this regard speaks of ‘rumorisme’.
18
On the authentication strategies used by the protagonists of gossip, see Bergmann 1993,
98–100.
19
Fabbri 1998, 16.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 97

subjected to enquiry or discussed are treated in very approximate or general

terms, whether while commenting on the behaviour of familiar persons or
embodying a fear or collective hope. The often sudden and haphazard origin
of this type of information is thus the symptom of a more or less strong
collective tension: as is its cessation, which is frequently just as unexpected.20
Usually, the circulation of rumours is dampened either by a drop in collective
emotion or by a clear determination of the truth of the facts. The latter
deprives the community of the chance to create its own explanation based
on the precarious information available to it, or gives the longed-for confirm-
ation of reports that originally gave rise to widespread hope.21
Tamotsu Shibutani has given a convincing description of the phenomenon:
Since rumor is an interpretive transaction made up of communicative acts, it is
terminated when those in a public stop talking and thinking about the common
object of attention. Since rumors emerge as part of the efforts of men to cope with
a problematic situation, the activity ceases when something has been done about
the problem . . . Rumor construction may be terminated by verification or refuta-
tion from formal news channels. Where faith in institutional channels is high,
people rely on rumors only because of insufficient news from more trusted
sources. Especially where intense collective excitement has developed over some
unusual event, tension drops suddenly when an acceptable explanation is pro-
vided in institutional channels. Conventional perspectives are quickly restored.22

g. Strong relational function of gossip

This was one of the most debated points among anthropologists, especially
towards the end of the 1960s. The main protagonists of this debate were Max
Gluckman and Robert Paine. Gluckman sought to highlight the aggregating
function of gossip within the social groups observed by anthropologists; the
latter’s interpretation centred more on the individual and his or her interests,
which were promoted through the kind of targeted discussion in which,
according to Paine, people who engage in gossip are typically involved.23 In
spite of the validity of many of Paine’s observations, Gluckman’s views have
found considerably more favour in the scholarship. Gossip is generally

20
See Kapferer 1987, 125–31.
21
These are the situations that ancient authors like Plutarch and Tertullian described very
effectively: the former relating the spontaneous origin of the news of the victory of Pydna, the
latter noting how the information obtained from fama ceases to be such once its contents have
been proven, thus ceasing its function as messenger (see Ch. 1, sec. 1.5.2 and Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.2).
22
Shibutani 1966, 130–40 (esp. 131–2: see also 23–8). When there is a great collective tension
at the origin of a rumour, the information generated often functions as ‘wish-fulfillment’: ‘If a
rumor is confirmed, it is regarded as a good guess: in some cases it is simply relabeled “news”. If a
rumor is contradicted, it is dismissed as a “rumor”.’ In situations where the official channels are
not entirely trusted, rumours often continue even when they have been officially denied (p. 139).
23
Gluckman 1963 (esp. 308) and 1968, Paine 1967 and 1968.
98 Word of Mouth

considered to be a social practice that performs a necessary function in

defining relations and, ultimately, the identity of the very groups participating
in networks of private discussion. The relational function of gossip prevails
clearly over its informational role, which in many cases can be considered as
merely an opportunity to create/consolidate relationships between people.24

h. Gossip as marginal communication

As Primo Levi observed: ‘Gossip prospers in the soil of idleness, forced or
voluntary: in prisons, jails, hospices, barracks . . . in resorts, on cruises, in
drawing rooms.’25 Whenever and wherever nothing is happening, time tends
to be spent talking about matters of little importance. Many have written
about the relationship between idleness and peripheral activities, in which
gossip plays an essential role. In this respect, Bergmann has spoken about a
particular type of gossip: ‘diversion gossip’ (or ‘Pausenklatsch’). In addition, he
has also drawn attention to the gossip that is often practised in the workplace,
which is used to break the monotony of routine, among other things. This
kind of activity is generally considered to be of lesser importance and tends to
be regarded with disdain; despite this it often seeps into the main (more
‘serious’) occupation.26

i. ‘Poor’ contents and use of maliciousness

Gossip is usually considered a privileged space of indiscretion, slander, and
scandal. The topics it most frequently concerns are those of daily life, espe-
cially the private lives of others, and above all their most indecorous or sordid
behaviours. This range of themes has meant that gossip is mainly associated
with malicious talk—or in the best of cases, with indignation—even if, as
Bergmann has observed, this is only one of the possible functions of gossip,
which must be considered alongside its repertoire of other uses.27

24
See Shibutani 1966, 9–17 and passim, Haviland 1977, 6–11 and 167–70, Marc 1987, 239,
Marcarino 1997, 24–5, Sbisà 1998 (30–1 in particular, where she makes interesting linguistic
observations about the relational, more than strictly phatic, aspects of gossip). A sophisticated
development of this position may be found in Dunbar 1996, who attempted to establish a
relationship between the delousing activities common among primates and gossip, considering
both to be instruments used to establish and consolidate relations within social groups.
25
Levi 1997, 178.
26
Bergmann 1993, 71–80. Various scholars have nonetheless pointed out the great amount of
time devoted to this kind of activity during normal conversations (see e.g. Emler 1994, 125–6 and
131–2).
27
Bergmann 1993, 97–101. See also Pozzato 1998.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 99

j. Presumed association with gender

The traditional view that gossip is a typically feminine activity has even left
traces in the terminology of some languages like French (commérage). This
conviction is closely connected to hackneyed remarks aimed at devaluing
women and their communication networks.28 Recent studies have done
away with this false belief, demonstrating the impossibility of assigning a
gender-label to either the nature of the topics usually addressed during the
exchange of gossip or the kind of communication that characterizes the
circulation of such information.29

4.1.3. The Space of Reputation

Both studies dealing with rumour—a type of communication that travels in a

rather uncontrolled manner within wide social spheres—and those that exam-
ine gossip—the idle conversation practised within the restricted confines of
private and intimate settings—describe the circulation of information as a
kind of ‘hearsay’ (ouï-dire, Hörensagen, sentito dire), that moves along a more
or less extensive, typically aural–oral, chain of transmission.
In these studies, the semantic branch of the Latin term fama that concerns
reputation/renown is not generally considered to be of crucial importance. It is
primarily scholars dealing with gossip who have also studied the ways in
which reputation is created and managed. As we have seen, gossip is, in fact,
an instrument of social control that also expresses more or less bland forms of
criticism about the reputation of individuals.30
Patricia Meyer Spacks, for example, has suggested distinguishing between
two types of gossip: one ‘serious’ (whose contents have a relative importance),
and another, more vulgar kind whose specific target is the reputation of
individuals.31 The aim of the first is to forge bonds of solidarity within the
group by discussing a great variety of facts and situations through the co-
operative creation of shared interpretations. The latter, on the other hand, is
less nobly focused on criticizing the behaviour of others. Spacks proposes
creating another two subcategories: ‘distilled malice’ and banal ‘idle talk’, in
which any existing malice is unintentional.
Particularly interesting for our discussion is Nicholas Emler’s rather more
radical interpretation of the link between reputation and gossip, which views
the latter as a process whose main purpose is to create opinions about one’s

28
See e.g. Bergmann 1993, 55–67, Bardsley 2006 (45–68 and esp. 90–5), Phillips 2007, 106–7
and passim, Kartzow 2009, 17–40, Larran 2011, 199–202.
29
See Jones 1980, Coates 1989, Emler 1992, 34–5, Dunbar 1996, 175–7, Marcarino 1997, 46,
Sbisà 1998, 32–4. An extensive bibliography on the topic in Tebbutt 1995, 186–97.
30 31
See e.g. Bergmann 1993, 120–34 and 144, Emler 1992, 33. Spacks 1985, 4–7.
100 Word of Mouth

neighbour.32 According to Emler, ‘reputational knowledge’ plays a vital role in

our interactions with others and allows us to do things like identify the people
we can trust with a sufficient degree of reliability. Exchanging and sharing
evaluations like these is an operation of inestimable social utility, and gossip is
one of its main instruments:
gossip does not merely disseminate reputational information but is the very process
whereby reputations are decided. Reputations do not exist except in the conversa-
tions that people have about one another. Certainly my neighbor’s reputation
depends upon what he does . . . but this is only the starting point for his reputation.
Unless others both observe and then discuss his actions, there is no reputation.33
This perspective again brings together the two semantic aspects of the Latin
term fama as complementary: ‘what is said’ about someone refers to the
interaction in the kind of dialogue that forms opinions about facts and
individuals, but it also constitutes the very material from which reputation is
made. In other words, when an opinion of someone is formed, it is derived
from both the information that has been circulating and the judgments
formulated about his/her conduct as the news spread.
Of course, this reputation-generating mechanism cannot be confined to the
domain of gossip. Even the huge number of opinions about our neighbours
that we form and renegotiate on a daily basis are produced through a wide
variety of communication circuits. ‘What is said’ about someone may be—and
is, in fact—commonly expressed in various communicative contexts, both
private and public. As we shall see in the next section, in a communication-
based society like ours, reputational information travels every day in every
direction, through channels that are conspicuously multimedial, recycling an
enormous quantity of suggestions from every type of source.

4.2. THE MULTIMEDIA TRANSMISSION

OF INFORMATION

ex recitationibus singulorum constat seu constare potest super aliquo esse

famam, opinionem, sive existimationem, et non aliter, quia sine voce nil
dicitur.
Thomas de Piperata

32
Cf. Emler 1992, 26: ‘A Reasonably neutral definition of gossip is that it is the exchange of
observations between people about third parties, about specific named individuals’; and p. 28:
‘Reputations imply gossip; they imply that people do continually exchange information and
observations about each other’.
33
Emler 1994, 135.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 101

4.2.1. More on fama and fari

Fama consists in speaking (fari) about something or someone. It is a kind of

‘speaking’ that in both classical sources and modern theory is characterized by
its impersonal mode. Fama is what ‘is said’. It is quite reasonable to suppose
that, since ancient times, it was precisely this impersonal conception of
fama’s circulation that inspired the common way of imagining it as an entity
endowed with its own autonomy, and, therefore, capable of an enormous
range of movements (ire, uenire, peruenire, exire, peruadere, uagari, penetrare,
sequi, praecurrere, etc.) or actions (ferre, referre, tradere, prodere, canere,
docere, memorare, nuntiare, diuulgare, etc.).34 This manner of representing
fama may be easily explained if we refer back to ancient imagery, which
connected it to the idea of a ‘winged word’ able to move alone very swiftly
over great distances: a word that we must primarily imagine as an oral
phenomenon.35 The ancients were well aware of the fact that this informa-
tion’s ability to move ‘autonomously’ in every direction meant that it eluded
the control of senders, ‘repeaters’, and receivers. The unreliability of the
volatile word that circulated unrestricted in no particular direction, in a
space without boundaries, contrasts with the stable and reassuring bond that
attaches the written word to its material medium (to be borne over conven-
tional ‘roads’ by messengers). This dichotomy would later be aptly expressed
in the celebrated medieval proverb that contrasted the elusive evanescence of
orality with the certain stability of writing: uerba uolant scripta manent.36
Quoting texts to demonstrate how this conception of fama remained stable
over the course of the Middle Ages would be a lengthy and superfluous
operation. I would merely like to consider how the term was defined in the
great encyclopedic works of the last quarter of the twelfth century, such as
Hugutio’s Deriuationes (F 12.6–9 Cecchini):
fama -e, quasi famula, quia famulatur nobis dum, ad modum famule, discurrendo
rumores de nobis portat per diuersas terras etiam nobis ignorantibus: uel dicitur
fama a fando, quia fando peruagatur; et est nomen bonarum et malarum rerum.
sed sine adiuncto sepe accipitur in bono: et describitur sic: fama est sine certo

34
See Vetter 1913, coll. 211 and 220–1.
35
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.3. Riepl 1913, 235–40 (in the section ‘Die Schnelligkeit des Gerüchtes’,
236–7 in part) went so far as to claim that the Romans were unable to exploit the speed and
powerful transmission mechanism that rumours could have provided in their long-distance
communications. Riepl mistakenly likened the process of transmitting information activated by
fama to that of the telegraph, without realizing that the two methods were fundamentally
incompatible, one connected with orality, the other with writing.
36
See Walther 1967, 658, no. 33093a (see also Tosi 1991, 39), and 917 (nos. 34168 and
34169), where we can find interesting variations that insist on the concept of the evanescence of
the spoken word (vox audita perit). Fabbri 1998, 19 aptly adapted the saying to the new
multimedia context (signa manent).
102 Word of Mouth
auctore inuentum, cui malignitas dedit initium, fides autem incrementum. Et inde
famosus -a -um, de quo fama loquitur siue bene siue male.37 (emphases mine)
fama –ae, as if it were famula (servant), because it is at our service (famulatur)
when, in the manner of a servant it brings the rumours that talk about us to
different regions, running here and there (discurrendo), even without our know-
ledge. In other words, fama comes from fari, because it wanders here and there,
speaking (fando peruagatur); and it is a term that has positive and negative
connotations. But if not specified, its meaning is often positive. And it is defined
as follows: fama is something for which there is no sure source, originated from
malice and fed by credulity. From here famosus -a -um, about whom/which fama
speaks good or evil.38
A word like fama, used so widely and for such a long time to indicate the
transmission of news by rumours, must obviously have embraced a diverse
range of ways in which information could be released into circulation: among
these, at some point, writing must also have assumed an increasingly import-
ant function.39 But what permanently linked the phenomenon fama-rumour
to the world of orality remained both the way it was transmitted/received and
the vagueness of the forms in which an indistinct mass of information crossed
vast and largely undefined spaces. This is a constant feature that all the
phenomena associated with the circulation of hearsay, chatter, and gossip
have retained over time. By their very nature, these forms of communication
are not destined to be fixed in textualized forms, but undergo continuous
variations and modifications. Even when writing intervenes during the course
of transmission, the traits of variability and indefiniteness remain evident and
tend to represent characteristics particular to the world of orality.

4.2.2. Orality vs. Writing

In general, we are justified in asserting that societies in which communication

moves by ‘word of mouth’ are unfamiliar with the techniques that enable
written cultures to reproduce their own messages in exact forms. It was
especially around this point that twentieth-century scholars of orality and

37
Also under the entry fama in Papìa’s Elementarium doctrinae rudimentum (mid-11th
century) we find ‘Fama dicta quod fando peruagatur. Est autem nomen et bonarum rerum et
malarum’ (I quote from the ed. Venetiis, per Philippum de Pincis Mantuanum Mcccxcvi,
fol. hii v).
38
Almost the same is the entry ‘fama’ in the Catholicon, the Summa grammaticalis completed
by Johannes de Balbis in 1286 (I consulted Gutenberg’s Mainz edition, 1460, n.p.). It is clear that
the core of this definition derives from Isid. Etym. 5.27.26–7: ‘Fama autem dicta quia fando, id est
loquendo, peruagatur per traduces linguarum et aurium serpens. Est autem nomen et bonarum
rerum et malarum’ (see Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.2), and from Quint. Inst. 5.3.1: ‘sermonem sine ullo certo
auctore dispersum, cui malignitas initium dederit, incrementum credulitas’ (see Ch. 3, sec. 3.1.1).
39
See Hardie 2012, 5.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 103

anthropologists began to distinguish oral from written cultures.40 According

to their theories, societies that are largely unfamiliar with writing transmit
messages without bothering to keep their linguistic form the same: at each
stage along the chain of transmission, they generally reformulate the messages
while preserving the contents. Jack Goody has termed this the ‘generative recon-
struction’ of messages.41 While every member of the chain may modify—even
considerably—the linguistic form of the information being transmitted, the
participants do not believe this alters the identity of the message released into
the chain of transmission.
Moreover, in some illiterate societies the transmission of lengthy poems,
myths, and tales occurs in a radically different way from how we habitually
conceive the production of these forms from the perspective of the tradition of
literary texts. The bards entrusted with reciting and transmitting these very
special ‘texts’ re-create them on each occasion through mnemonic techniques
based on a series of guiding devices (such as formulas, recurring themes, or
characteristic recall structures) while retaining the overall frame and funda-
mental outline.42 One version of the myth of the Bagre (a creation tale),
collected among the LoDagaa of north-western Ghana, contains an expression
that clearly reveals an awareness of this process: ‘Bagre / is all one; / nevertheless /
the way it’s performed / is different.’43
In contexts like these, communication occurs rather fluidly, and verifying
the forms through which messages circulate becomes an impracticable under-
taking, at least in the way we have become accustomed to through the
systematic use of writing. Since it is not possible to ‘fix’ an orally transmitted
message in written or recorded form, its very identity can be conceived of in
rather flexible terms: it may even be influenced by the particular circumstances
in which the persons entrusted with the message happen to find themselves.
Thus, for example, the bards occasionally insert entire sections that they know

40
Just to mention the most important contributions in this field, see Lord 2000, Goody 1977,
1986, 1987, Ong 1982, Finnegan 1988, Havelock 1982 (a particularly controversial study: see the
reasonable assessments of it by Ford 2003, 15–20 in particular).
41
Goody 1987, 178–80.
42
In this case, the conventional use of the word ‘text’ can be justified only for practical
reasons. In fact, applied to orality the concept of ‘text’ (which suggests the idea of a finished
product, or, as the term’s etymology indicates, the fruit of a skilful labour of verbal ‘weaving’) is
inappropriate because it risks assuming the presence of the features typical of literary works we
are familiar with from the tradition of writing. The term ‘oral literature’ (itself a contradiction as
its etymology explicitly refers to the ‘letters’ of writing) is only a conventional way of naming
something that is radically different from the range of literary products typical of our tradition.
For the sake of convenience, I deal with the topic in extremely general terms. We should
remember that the theories I refer to created the dichotomy orality/writing on the basis of
sweeping generalizations, and often too schematically. For a richer and more nuanced idea of all
the ways in which the memory of such creations can be organized, see Severi 2004.
43
I quote from Goody 1987, 169.
104 Word of Mouth

will appeal to their listening public without considering their version of the
poem to be substantially different.44
The notion of the ‘identity’ of a transmitted message that we are used to
arises precisely from our ability to verify the form of a ‘text’ through writing or
another kind of exact recording. The transition from orality to writing, a
fundamental change in the technology of the word, brought with it the very
idea of the text, the distinction between form and content, the need to verify
the reliability and correctness of the transmission, and so forth. The fact that
the ‘letter’ of a text can be fixed, among other things, permits a type of
analytical reflection on the forms of language that the flow of orality would
generally not allow; and it has opened the way for a type of certification (in the
fields of law and bureaucracy, for example) that would be unthinkable without
the support of recorded texts in stable forms.45 Finally, writing has made it
possible to create an indissoluble association between a given text and its
author, so that the latter’s identity is not lost as often as it would be during the
countless stages of oral transmission.
Rumours certainly appear to belong to the world of messages entrusted to
the ‘spoken’ word, and therefore by their very nature they resist being set
down in any textual form. One of the main consequences of oral transmis-
sion’s typical resistance to stability is the impossibility of identifying the
contours of the information being transmitted with any certainty, as well as
of tracing back to its original source. In the case of the propagation of rumours
and gossip, what makes retracing the pathway of information even more
difficult is the rapidity and pervasiveness with which it spreads through a
variety of communicative environments that are almost always private and
casual. The multidirectional and disorderly itinerary of these messages is
extremely difficult to reconstruct with any precision. This much is evident
from a few recent and well-documented experiments that painstakingly man-
aged to reconstruct (and only partly) the route taken by several rumours
within some rather small-scale social milieus.46
In brief, the predominantly oral nature of the information released into
circulation, its disorderliness, and its informality, as well as the multitude of
channels through which this type of message moves, are all factors that result
in the opacity and instability of both the linguistic forms entrusted with the
contents of the news spread and the exact sequence of exchanges between the
participants in the communicative process.

44
Classical philologists have become very familiar with these arguments, since at least the
research done by Milman Parry and Albert Lord.
45
On all these aspects again see Goody 1987.
46
See Lauf 1990. The impossibility of accessing a sufficiently large body of data to permit
detailed analysis of the phenomenon usually constitutes a fundamental methodological limita-
tion: see Boissellier 2011, 255–6.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 105

4.2.3. From Orality to Multimediality

Until now, I have used very general and necessarily schematic terms to
describe the sharp distinction between the clearly identifiable pathways
along which written texts are transmitted and the disorderly itineraries fol-
lowed by oral messages. The space through which the written and fixed
messages of a text move is the linear one of communication routes, travel
itineraries, and channels of information. In contrast, the space in which words
move fluidly and unpredictably has the form of a territory overlaid by a
densely interconnected and multidirectional network, which may be crossed
at considerable speed along unconventional and unforeseeable pathways. For
a long time this has been the reference model for anyone dealing with the topic
we are considering.
But during the last hundred years—and especially during the past few
decades—the situation has changed dramatically. The centuries-old dichot-
omy between writing and orality, which determined the communication
strategies of official information and rumours respectively, has acquired new
meaning with the advent of communications technology. At least since Mar-
coni first transmitted signals in Morse code over the air (1901), both ‘spoken’
and written words have been endowed with the ability to ‘fly’.47 In daily life,
over mysterious pathways we are often unaware of, the telephone network
(landlines or wireless) can transmit both the voice and the image of a distant
person, in addition to various forms of text (fax, email, tweet). Vocal utter-
ances themselves can now be easily textualized with different computer
applications, and written texts are commonly vocalized. A smartphone can
simultaneously manage (and manipulate) writing, voices, and images (still or
moving), both recorded and live.
Writing and orality also appear to be inextricably intertwined with regard to
the movement of messages through geographical space. When looking at a
map it is easy to imagine all the pathways along which communications travel,
transmitted by satellite, relay stations, and broadcast channels. It matters little
whether the messages that circulate over this global ‘web’ are written or oral:
both can be recorded and verified even without the filter of writing. In
addition, messages are increasingly including images (still or moving). To
summarize: we are now immersed in a communicative context dominated by
multimediality at all levels.
This situation has altered the features of our social life, creating unheard-of
contaminations between the public and private spheres and transferring a
good deal of ‘gossip-like’ communication onto the new media (for example,

47
I am only using a metaphorical expression, of course. I mean that the traditional image of
‘winged words’ was integrated and transformed into that of messages that, thanks to techno-
logical instruments, travel by air and spread through the Web.
106 Word of Mouth

social networks).48 The phenomenon appears in its most evident form when-
ever we get the impression of having crossed the boundary between public and
private life by reading or listening to the profusion of gossip about the lives of
‘celebrities’. This chatter invades different types of public space (‘commercial’
television, tabloids, etc.), and it is endlessly recycled by millions of people who
tend to identify with their ‘idols’. In this case, we are dealing with rumours and
indiscretions that we (not coincidentally) continue to call ‘gossip’—even if it is
transmitted through every medium.49
But even in this new context, a few of the most important characteristics we
saw above regarding the transmission and diffusion of gossip remain the same:
a. the chain-like transmission of information predominates;
b. the information travels through an open-ended circuit;
c. verifying single pieces of news is made difficult by the speed of transmission
and the ramification of the exchanges;50
d. the information is not authenticated by sources that assume a clear
responsibility;
e. and all of the above make such information structurally unreliable.
In brief, even if gossip of this kind spreads through a complex multimedial
context like print or large-scale broadcast media (radio, TV, Internet), it
nevertheless remains tied to disorderly, excessive, and ‘untraceable’ forms of
communication.51
The fact that rumours come in both written and oral form (or as videos,
etc.) does not alter the basic characteristics of the process I have been describ-
ing. Features that originally belonged to a context in which communication

48
Useful observations on the changes the world of literacy has undergone in the past twenty
years may be found in Simone 2012. See also Emler 1994, 123–6.
49
With regard to this ‘gossip about well-known persons’, Bergmann 1993, 51 rightly pointed
out that the specific nature of fame is revealed by this asymmetric relationship between those
who are the object of gossip and those who exchange it: ‘For this one-sided acquaintanceship
relation is precisely the defining characteristic of prominence and fame. “Fame” means that the
circle of those who know of a person because of his or her deeds, successes, and status and know
something about him or her can be very large and—viewed relatively—is always greater than the
circle of those with whom this person enjoys a relationship of reciprocal acquaintance.’ Spacks
1985, 68–9 and 259 suggested that gossip published in tabloids should be distinguished from the
gossip of cocktail parties because it is done for commercial purposes that play on the public’s
baser instincts, rather than for the more authentic reason of constructing relationships and
enjoying conversation.
50
In a limited number of cases, only a court of law can put an end to this proliferation by
formally identifying an order of responsibility in the transmitters.
51
The gradual contamination between modes of transmission has a very long history (see e.g.
Braudy 1997, 382, Adkins 2002, 227–31). On the gradual transformation of the communicative
setting as regards the multimedia, see Allport, Postman 1947, 162, Rosnow 1974, 28, Rosnow,
Fine 1976, 94–106, Post 1994, Braudy 1997, 548–55, Fabbri 1998, 18–20, Ferraro 1998, 71–6,
Benvenuto 2000, 141, Adkins 2002, 223, Froissart 2002, 68–72 and 105–13, Solove 2007, 35–8.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 107

was exclusively oral have retained their characteristics even after the transition
to the multimedia setting. Words that moved in a disorderly, informal, and
excessive fashion by ‘word of mouth’ continue to remain elusive even in the
presence of media that would theoretically allow them to be traced.52
It is therefore in an informal and open-ended system of transmission, a
place where communication is for the most part anonymous and collective,
that we must look for the characteristics of the phenomenon we are studying:
characteristics that are modified according to the prevailing communication
circuits of the time periods being examined. The very concept of hearsay in the
contemporary multimedia context has lost its original ‘aurality’, but retains its
intrinsically haphazard and anonymous character.
Recently, Daniel Solove made some convincing remarks on this topic when
he attempted to analyse the new scenarios in which reputations are now
usually generated.53 According to Solove, the Internet has quickly become
fertile ground for rumours and slander precisely because it is an open-ended
environment, having the structure of a network in which verification is
difficult to perform and often not even possible. The transition to new and
extremely powerful computer media has also made gossip much quicker and
more versatile than it once was, pushing it beyond the marginal areas it was
confined to in the past: ‘The Internet is transforming the nature and effects of
gossip. It is making gossip more permanent and widespread, but less discrim-
inating in the appropriateness of audience.’54 In effect, for a variety of reasons,
chatter and gossip are becoming an ever-growing presence in our daily lives:
from the non-stop chat messaging of the social networks, to the pervasive
habit of conversation observable in many environments where talk appears to
be a continuously active component of multitasking. One has the impression
of being immersed in an intricate whirl of conversations. The ‘it is said’
of fama is weaving an increasingly dense web around almost all of our daily
activities.
The new communicative context allows us to consider the circulation of
rumours from a more complex perspective than the one proposed by trad-
itional opposition between writing and orality, which still remains, if only for
obvious historical reasons, in the background of this process. Hearsay circu-
lates with the same structural absence of verifiability and reliability, both when

52
Some instructive cases of the spread of rumours by journalistic sources are described by
Kapferer 1987, 33–58 in the chapter ‘Comment naissent les rumeurs’. It would be complicated to
analyse the differences between the world of oral tradition and the new context of Internet
technology: a fascinating topic that would lead us too far astray. An extremely stimulating
website on the homology between these two universes is the ‘Pathway Project’, <http://www.
pathwaysproject.org/pathways/show/HomePage> (accessed 21 July 2016). By navigating the site,
a text (Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind) turns into a ‘morphing book’
conceived by the late John Miles Foley (Foley 2012).
53 54
Solove 2007, esp. 60–3 and 74–8. Solove 2007, 74.
108 Word of Mouth

it is spread by the ‘spoken’ word and when its transmission takes place via
multimedia channels unknown in antiquity. What makes hearsay elusive and
untrustworthy is not so much (or not only) the medium through which it
passes as the very process of its construction, which, as we shall see in the next
sections has no room for any form of textualization.

4. 3 . T H E I N S TA B I L I TY O F R U M O U RS

4.3.1. A Message Constantly in the Making

Fifty years ago, Tamotsu Shibutani effectively identified one of the main
potential misunderstandings involved in any discussion of hearsay and
rumours. If we treat rumours like any other message, we risk attributing
characteristics to them that are typical of other forms of communication,
especially forms in which textualization plays a central role. In addition,
experiments conducted by sociologists and psychologists at the end of the
Second World War have generally fuelled this misunderstanding: rumours
were often studied by releasing more or less textualized messages into circu-
lation and then looking at how these ‘texts’ were gradually deformed:
Perhaps because ‘rumor’ is a noun rather than a verb, it is seen as a thing having a
separate existence. It is treated as something that can be passed around from
person to person—somewhat like a brick . . . In the experiments rumor has been
treated operationally as a fixed combination of words which may be altered by
additions and subtractions—as if one were manipulating a set of blocks. The
implication is that a given word combination could be maintained if only men
were more careful in handling them. If rumor is to be identified as distortion so
conceived, then almost everything that men say would constitute a rumor, since
verbatim reproductions are very infrequent.55
Shibutani was right. Anyone familiar with rumours knows that their formu-
lations of the same piece of information constantly vary from speaker
to speaker: only in absolutely exceptional cases is there a ‘standardization
of word order as in slogans, proverbs or ceremonial greetings’.56 Under
these circumstances, it makes no sense to speak of the original text as distorted
for the simple fact that an original text does not exist—and even if it did, it
would never be used as a source of reference by anyone transmitting its
contents.
The transmission of rumour is one of the most elementary forms of
communication. Circulating information is transformed many times and

55 56
Shibutani 1966, 7–8. Shibutani 1966, 16–17.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 109

assumes many different aspects as it passes from one speaker to another. This
is just the opposite of what happens when instead of ‘spreading’ a message, the
attempt is made to ‘preserve’ it, to entrust it to a single, stable version (which
may then be subject to verification).
Various scholars hold that the fundamental mechanism behind the propa-
gation of rumours is not so much the relatively faithful reproduction of a
textualized message, as its continuous re-creation (a little like what we have
seen when songs and tales are transmitted in societies without writing). One
might even say that the extreme variety of the formulations of the same piece
of information proves the activity of a collective process that ultimately gives
shape to that information. Seminal thinkers in this area, like Allport and
Postman, even claimed that every person involved in the transmission of a
given message adapts it to his or her own interpretations and prejudices,
according to mechanisms of normalization and assimilation that they went
so far as to reduce to general laws governing how information is deformed.57
Shibutani’s proposal certainly seems more convincing. It views rumour not so
much as the progressive distortion of a hypothetically original ‘source text’,
but rather as the gradual, collective construction of a piece of information
through the great variety of its different versions. Rumour is a process that
thrives on variations that can never be traced back to a base text.58

4.3.2. The Mirage of the Text

Nonetheless, we should remember that, even in the case of ‘official’ informa-

tion, texts rarely provide a reliable anchor for their messages. Robert Darnton
has recently made an enlightening contribution to the topic in his discussion
of the epoch-defining impact of technology on the world of information.59
Darnton lays a great deal of emphasis on the ‘inherent instability of texts’ that
has characterized the transmission of information in every period of its
development. Looking at some news items that emerged recently over the
Internet and rapidly assumed a textualized form, Darnton argues that the
modern mass media have merely multiplied the opportunities to release false
information, but in reality, ‘news has always been an artefact and . . . it never
corresponded exactly to what actually happened’.60 There are several reasons
for this. First of all, a news item is obviously not the fact itself but only an
account of something that happened: as such, it must conform to the narrative

57
Allport, Postman 1947, 134–58 in part.
58
Shibutani 1966, 9. See also Kapferer 1987, 59–65. Mullen 1972 proposed looking at the
formation of legends in the same light.
59
Darnton 2009, 23–33.
60
Darnton 2009, 24 (the claim is supported by convincing examples). Useful observations on
the same subjects are also found in Schneider 2008 and Leggewie and Mertens 2008 (esp. 195–8).
110 Word of Mouth

requirements of any text intended for certain kinds of formats, such as the
columns of a newspaper. Furthermore, the transmission process that any
piece of news undergoes is itself intrinsically unstable.61 Drawing on several
examples, as well as on his own experience as a journalist, Darnton invites us
to reconsider pieces of information not as stable texts that cloak ‘hard facts’ or
‘nuggets of reality’, but rather ‘as messages that are constantly being reshaped
in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must
deal with multiple, mutable texts’.62 Darnton goes on to look at the entire
world of print media where, according to him, textual stability has never really
existed.63 There is no need for us to dwell on these further arguments of his:
what he says about mass information has more to do with my point. He makes
it rather clear that even in a field dominated by writing—which that of contem-
porary information has been, and in many respects continues to be—the
stability of text tends to be illusory. What predominates instead is a process
of continuous reshaping that is implied in the very act of transmitting news,
one might say, necessarily so. The process of information transmission itself is
something of a gigantic relaying mechanism, continuously reformulating
messages, while involving the contributions of numerous personnel.
Darnton’s remarks, together with Shibutani’s—which were the inspiration
for this section—can help us to reformulate the problem we are dealing with.
Rumour transmission essentially works the way any other information system
does: it traverses a space in which a large community of people collaborate to
continuously modify various types of stories. In the case of rumours, these are
mostly orally transmitted stories that tend to remain confined to the private
sphere of conversation. Here a number of factors contribute to making the
information unstable: forms of information transmission that are intrinsically
unstable; the pervasiveness and social marginality of the circuits through
which news of this kind spreads; and finally orality, the medium that, more
than any other, reproduces contents by continuously varying their formal
terms. One might say that when a rumour is propagated, the setting where this
occurs intensifies the instability that characterizes the usual processes of
information transmission (pervasiveness, informal manner of transmission,
and the absence of instruments permitting traceability), making it practically
impossible to verify the contents released into circulation.

61
That is, it makes the news an object of convenient manipulation in the world of the media:
see Froissart 2002, 74–7 and 105–13. For an idea of the kind of blending of various kinds of
sources (written and oral) and of news and opinions that can be created within an information
system, see also Pettegree 2014, 346–72.
62
Darnton 2009, 29.
63
On this also see the chapter ‘The Instability of the Text’ by O’Donnell 1998 (44–9), where
the reader is reminded that ‘before the relative stability of printing, texts were often disconcert-
ingly labile and unreliable’.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 111

4.3.3. Ancient Rumours, Modern Rumours

Can we also apply these general considerations to the circulation of rumours

in antiquity? This is certainly a legitimate question if our aim is to interpret
these phenomena in cultural contexts that are remote from our own in time
and/or space.
As I have already mentioned, Francis Larran recently intervened on this
topic, vigorously insisting on the need to distinguish between the two kinds of
‘bruit qui vole’: the ancient and the modern. In his monograph, Larran
continuously and very rightly argues that we must not lose sight of the
differences separating the culture of the ancient Greeks from our own,
which gave rise to the most important theories on the spread of rumours.64
He also stresses that we should view the ancients’ information about rumours
as a literary object that must be evaluated from the historical and the
anthropological perspectives and within the cultural framework that produced
it. According to Larran, we should draw a distinction between the references to
‘rumours afoot’ found, for example, in the Homeric poems and Aeschines’s
references to the Athenian rumours of his own time; and we should resist the
temptation of associating ῎Οσσα in book 2 of The Iliad with the Φήμη to whom
the Athenians erected an altar. All the more reason that we should avoid
judging the phenomena described in ancient literary works by the same
standards as those used by sociologists and historians of contemporary cul-
ture. Finally, Larran reminds us of the extreme differences between the
conditions that characterize ancient and modern processes of emission and
reception of information. For example, the public rumours of the ancients,
because they were involved in a complex relationship with the divine world, ‘in
contrast to our rumours, often part of daily life like little stories mired in the
present, . . . possess a marvellous strength that guides them at each stage of their
lives’.65 In spite of these warnings, Larran never clearly explains just how this
ancient mechanism of information transmission differs from the modern one.

64
I need only quote the opening pages of Larran’s book (2011, 9): ‘Contre l’étonnante
prétention de façonner les médias des Anciens à partir d’un patron contemporain, on rappellera
que la notion même de rumeur est née récemment et qu’elle est véritablement devenue objet
d’étude pour les sociologues et les historiens d’aujourd’hui.’ Larran hammers home this concept
for the entire length of the book. He is most convincing when he warns against the tendency to
project modern categories on ancient terminology and precisely defines the semantic limits of
the names the Greeks gave to various phenomena (Larran 2011, 12–15). In fact, in this field the
easy assimilation of terms like ὄσσα, φήμη, and φάτις (not to mention κλέος) has often been
responsible for interpretative misunderstandings that perpetuated themselves until recently.
65
Larran 2011, 21. Larran goes on to observe that while contemporary rumour ‘court, gronde
ou couve, les bruits publics des Anciens volent, rapides, à tire d’aile, s’embrasent comme une
traînée de feu, s’étirent comme une arme de jet quand l’on bande, prolifèrent dans toute la cité et
montent parfois, gigantesques, jusqu’au ciel . . . ’ In this case, these differences are obviously also
related to a different standard imagery and different literary traditions, but what remains
unchanged are the shared characteristics of speed, the mysterious capacity to travel great
112 Word of Mouth

It is true that the range of propagation media in the two cultures is different: in
the Homeric world, for example, communication seems to occur almost exclu-
sively through oral/aural channels.66 But, as we have seen, this fact doesn’t
appear to have a substantial effect on the mechanism we are studying. It is also
true that some of the individual relay ‘nodes’ in ancient communication net-
works were considered to be more important than others (for example, because
of the status attributed to single bearers of information). But if the disorderly
and confused route taken during the transmission of information ultimately
cancelled these hierarchies among the various participants in the communica-
tive process, ultimately making the production of information collective and
undifferentiated, then that fact is of no great importance.
My impression is that, although he justifiably worries about not glossing
over the cultural ‘otherness’ of antiquity, Larran goes to the opposite extreme
and ends up postulating a difference where it probably does not exist: that is,
in the inner workings of the transmission mechanism whose general features
I have attempted to delineate here. If we compare how ancient authors spoke
about the propagation of rumours with the outline I have just given above, in
which I refer to the most recent studies, then we see the transmission mech-
anism is essentially the same.
Here we need to verify whether we are justified in making such a claim. Let
us recall the general common features I drew from ancient descriptions at the
end of the third chapter.67
We have seen that at the level of information transmission, the ancients
viewed the propagation of rumour as characterized by:
• rapid and continuous ‘chain-like’ propagation;
• erratic and disorderly advancement/expansion;
• transfer ‘by word of mouth’.
The main poles of any process of transmission (sender and receiver) become
obscured by some characteristics of the process by which rumours are
spread:
• sudden/spontaneous origin of the information;
• difficulty identifying its first source;
• its disappearance into thin air.

distances, and disproportionate growth: all characteristics that contemporary rumours have largely
kept intact, beyond the different metaphorical veils that cover them.
66
With the exception of Bellerophon’s well-known σήματα λυγρά (Iliad 6.168).
67
See Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.3.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 113

Finally, the contents of the message:

• blend true and false;
• twist the truth (through additions, subtractions, variations), stifling the
voice of the initial speaker;
• are infused with uncertainty;
• cannot be verified (otherwise they would be the contents of a ‘normal’
message).
In this brief list, the only feature that makes ancient rumour transmission
different from the contemporary process is that it was exclusively oral/aural,
and as we have seen, this fact is of minor importance for how transmission
actually occurs and how it modifies content. In any case, even today it would
be hard for anyone to claim that orality is not at the basis of the most common
way of exchanging rumours. The differences arising from the new possibilities
provided by contemporary technology do not change the nature and dynamics
of the phenomenon.
Ancient rumours and contemporary rumours appear to have spread in
similar ways, as may be seen from the rather ‘modern’ manner in which
ancient authors describe the mysterious process. In my view, we are quite
justified in applying ideas from some of the most recent theoretical studies—
with all due caution—to the context of antiquity, and in attempting to draw
some general conclusions about the ambiguous informational qualities of the
phenomenon we are studying.

4.3.4. Impracticable Verification

Despite its instability, ‘official’ information is generally amenable to verification

mechanisms that at the very least put its reliability to the test. These mechanisms
are mainly founded on two complementary procedures: retracing the transmis-
sion sequence and attributing responsibility for the information to one or
several clearly identifiable sources (which may be compared). In the case of
rumours, however, the very nature of the communicative context in which the
information is being spread means that the usual verification mechanisms
cannot be applied. The widespread transmission network of hearsay does not
allow a linear reconstruction that traces back to the exact source (or sources)
that initially released the information. Plutarch and Tertullian already remarked
on this in different ways: in all likelihood, these sources must have existed, but it
was never possible to identify and produce them.68

68
See Ch. 1, secs. 1.5.1 and 1.5.2, and Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.2.
114 Word of Mouth

What attitude should we take when faced with this kind of information?
Plutarch and Tertullian (like many others after them) tended to view the
phenomenon of rumours from the perspective of normal message transmis-
sion and were therefore inclined to consider the circulation of rumours as a
defective mechanism for producing information.69 Today, however, scholars
like Shibutani invite us to revise this view and consider the production of
rumours as a collective cultural process that sometimes generates and circu-
lates information by itself, and at times merely appropriates already circulating
information and significantly reshapes it. Once released into this circuit, the
information is continuously re-edited, mostly in such a way that confirms
shared convictions and holds widespread anxieties in check. The deeper
purpose of this work of collective communication is not to transmit reliable
news or data but to maintain high attention levels when it comes to topics of
shared interest, through a mechanism of private and informal discussion that
‘mimics’ that of official information.
If rumours are indeed circulated in these conditions, there is clearly not
much point in attempting to reconstruct or trace them back to the ‘original
sources’ of information. In fact, the conditions needed to return to the origin
of the process are entirely absent. Such an operation would be even more
misleading than attempting to reconstruct the original version of a hypo-
thetical text starting from a series of translations made in other languages. In a
context like the one we are studying, not only is information not transmitted
according to any unvarying principle,70 but the actual process of transmission
necessarily produces a series of variations that, taken together, constitute the
information itself.
Given a communicative context like this, it is always problematic (if not
illusory) to try and look for poles around which to precisely apply conven-
tional linguistic functions (especially the role of the information’s sender, of its
receiver, or of the message itself). These functions are obviously active between
individual segments in the route; that is to say, in any of the single linguistic
exchanges between speakers/receivers of the information, which taken to-
gether constitute the entire communicative chain, or rather network. But to
return to Shibutani’s image, we should not think of the mechanism of rumours
as being the transfer of a ‘brick’ (or several ‘bricks’) of information from a
hypothetical source along a reception vector that ends in an identifiable
receiver. The curious indefiniteness of the sources and receivers in the process
is a structural aspect of the phenomenon we are studying: an aspect that

69
It is different when false information is purposely and maliciously released into circulation,
and Aeschines already distinguished such information from real rumours. Nonetheless, it must
be said that—leaving aside the different purpose of the sources—real and manufactured rumours
spread in basically the same way.
70
Much less to the principles of distortion that Allport and Postman hoped to use for
controlling the transmission process.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 115

hampered the ancient authors who sought to describe it and whose nature
only the most recent studies have enabled us to understand.
Returning to the point so rightly advocated by Larran, it is probably the very
awareness we have acquired of the roots and dynamics of this phenomenon
that distinguishes us from the ancients. Since they could not benefit from the
large body of research and fair number of sociological experiments available
to us today, ancient authors were not in the position to observe the movement
of rumour in its entirety. When talking about the miraculous diffusion
of rumours, they limited themselves to describing the phenomenon as an
extraordinary and vaguely mysterious form of communication. However, a
comprehensive picture of the communicative mechanism that supports the
spread of rumours can help us when we study ancient manifestations of the
phenomenon. Let us now consider in more detail how Latin literary sources
describe the formation and propagation of fama and rumores.

4 . 4 . FA MA AND R U M O R

4.4.1. Sermo uulgi, Fast and Uncertain

To illustrate how Roman literary texts describe propagating rumours, we

should examine not only the attestations of the term fama (which relates
more directly to our discussion) but also those of rumor, a Latin term often
used to denote gossip and rumours.71 Due to the extensive documentation
conveniently collected in traditional instruments of consultation, it is unneces-
sary to detail the various aspects of the matter here. We can simply examine a
select number of passages that will allow us to briefly review the main
distinctive features of the communicative phenomenon under discussion.
Ancient texts tend to ascribe rumour quite similar traits to those that have
attracted the attention of modern sociologists and anthropologists. Rumour is
seen as talk that arises among people, usually in an unspecified way. A clear
example of this interpretation of fama appears in a passage of Cicero (Verr. 2.1.1):
Neminem uestrum ignorare arbitror, iudices, hunc per hosce dies sermonem uulgi
atque hanc opinionem populi Romani fuisse, C. Verrem altera actione respon-
surum non esse neque ad iudicium adfuturum. Quae fama non idcirco solum
emanarat quod iste certe statuerat ac deliberauerat non adesse, uerum etiam quod

71
We would do well to warn against the possible interferences that the use of the English term
‘rumo(u)r’ or the French ‘rumeur’ can create in the interpretation of Latin passages (for an idea
of the semantic shifts between Latin and the Romance languages, see Gauvard 1994, 161–3). This
modern terminology has recently become specialized and is particularly used to indicate gossip
and urban legends. As we will see, the Latin term has a much broader semantic scope.
116 Word of Mouth
nemo quemquam tam audacem, tam amentem, tam impudentem fore arbitraba-
tur qui tam nefariis criminibus, tam multis testibus conuictus ora iudicum aspicere
aut os suum populo Romano ostendere auderet.
Gentlemen of the jury, I think none of you is unaware that in recent days it has
been the common talk and the belief of the Roman people that C. Verres would
not present himself for the second stage of the trial or attend the court. This
rumour had not spread abroad merely because he had made a definite and
deliberate decision not to attend, but also because nobody believed that anyone
would be so brazen, demented, or shameless as to dare look on the faces of the
jury or show his own face to the Roman people after being convicted of such
wicked crimes by so many witnesses. (trans. T. N. Mitchell)
No one is certain if Verres will show up, but among the crowd ‘it is said’
(sermo) and ‘it is thought’ (opinio) things will unfold in this way: and this is the
very fama that arose (emanarat) from conversation and transpired among a
crowd whose profile needs no description. Expressions that insist upon this
collective production of rumours have always been used frequently in Latin:
both populi fama and populi rumor, hominum fama and hominum rumor,
uulgi fama and uulgi rumor are all often mentioned.72
Rumours like these, entrusted to anonymous chains of oral transmission,
spread with extraordinary speed. The movement of fama tends to be described
in two ways: as wandering (uaga, uagatur) and as flight (uolucris, uolat).73
These characteristics allow fama to reach far-off destinations much faster than
‘official’ information entrusted to writing and to the documented testimony of
messengers.
As an example, we might consider a passage like Caes. BGall. 5.53.1, in
which the news of Caesar’s victory quickly reaches Titus Labienus:
Interim ad Labienum per Remos incredibili celeritate de uictoria Caesaris fama
perfertur ut, cum ab hibernis Ciceronis milia passuum abesset circiter LX, eoque
post horam nonam diei Caesar peruenisset, ante mediam noctem ad portas
castrorum clamor oreretur, quo clamore significatio uictoriae gratulatioque ab
Remis Labieno fieret.

72
Populi fama: Sen. Thyest. 204–5, Sil. 17.34, Tac. Ann. 14.51; populi rumor (rumores): Enn.
Ann. 244 Skutsch (from book 7), Plaut. Cas. 11, Cic. Verr. 2.2.48, Rhet. Her. 4.53; hominum fama:
Caes. BCiu. 3.55 (56), Cic. Clu. 12, Har. resp. 20; hominum rumor (rumores): Cic. Clu. 28, Liv.
3.34; uulgi fama: Cic. Top. 76, Tac. Ann. 13.1, Quint. Inst. 4.1.52; uulgi rumor (rumores): Liv.
44.34, Tac. Hist. 4.11. Sometimes we also find the expression plebis rumor (rumores), but not
plebis fama, which has a decidedly pejorative connotation: Sall. Iug. 40, Liv. 26.26; Tac. Hist. 2.91.
73
Fama uagatur: Cic. Arat. 419 Soubiran, Verg. Aen. 2.17, Tac. Ann. 1.70; uaga fama: Ov.,
Her. 21.233 and Met. 8.267; fama uol(it)at: [Sall.], Ad Caes. 2.13.4; Verg. Aen. 3.121, 7.104 and
392, 8.554, 9.473, 11.139; Petron. Sat. 123 (211), Stat. Theb. 10.626–7, Val. Flac. 5.82, Tac. Ann
13.37; uolucris fama: Ov. Her. 17.207; Stat. Silu. 5.1.105–6 (uolucri cursu); Apul. Met. 11.18.
Some of the cases cited involve the personification of fama.
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 117
Meanwhile report of Caesar’s victory was brought to Labienus with incredible
speed through the agency of the Remi. In fact, though Labienus was about sixty
miles away from Cicero’s cantonments, and Caesar had not reached the latter
until after the ninth hour, before midnight a shout arose at the gates of Labienus’
camp, to signify the victory and to express the congratulations of the Remi to
Labienus. (trans. H. J. Edwards)
Or we could recall the passage in which Livy reports that Theodotus and Sosis,
who participated in the conspiracy against Hieronymus (killed at Leontini
in 214 BCE), arrived in Syracuse and, despite the swiftness of their journey,
discovered that fama and the tyrant’s messengers had preceded them (24.21.5):
ceterum praeuenerat non fama solum, qua nihil in talibus rebus est celerius, sed
nuntius etiam ex regiis seruis.
However, not only rumour, than which nothing is swifter in such cases, but also a
messenger, one of the royal slaves, had anticipated them. (trans. F. G. Moore)
I have intentionally chosen two passages that refer to fama generically, as news
that travels in an indefinite and informal manner. In such situations (their
exact dynamics are glossed over), ‘nothing is swifter’ than rumour, as Livy
mentions in passing.
In contrast to rumours, writing and messengers travel both slowly and
reliably. The untrustworthiness of fama is a trait that emerges in a large
number of ancient texts. Information obtained through rumours is always
presented as a sort of conditional preview of what remains to be confirmed
with authoritative and verifiable documentation or by witnesses and author-
ized messengers.74
By way of example, we can cite a passage of Sallust that describes the ‘letter
of presentation’ sent by Scipio Aemilianus to Micipsa, to vouch for the valour
Jugurtha showed in Numantia (Sall. Iug. 9.3):
Igitur rex ubi ea quae fama acceperat ex litteris imperatoris ita esse cognouit, cum
uirtute tum gratia uiri permotus flexit animum suum et Iugurtham beneficiis
uincere aggressus est, statimque eum adoptauit et testamento pariter cum filiis
heredem instituit.
Then the king, upon learning from the general’s letter that the reports which had
come to his ears were true, was led both by Jugurtha’s merits and by his influential
position to change his plans and attempt to win the young man by kindness. He
adopted him at once and in his will named him joint heir with his sons. (trans.
J. C. Rolfe)
In the letter, Micipsa finds confirmation (ita esse cognouit) of what he had
already learned about the young prince through hearsay (fama acceperat). This

74
See Drecoll 2006, 44–8.
118 Word of Mouth

passage and many others create the impression that fama and writing are
conceived of as two separate and complementary channels of communication.75
In addition, fama seems to be a way of spreading information that is always
an alternative to the transmission method allowed by the intermediation of
messengers (nuntii).76 Clear examples of this can be found in expressions like
the one Livy uses (40.57.3) to describe how Antigonus and Cotto learned of
Philip’s death (in 179 BCE):
haud procul Amphipoli fama, in<de> certi nuntii occurrerunt mortuum esse regem.
When they were not far from Amphipolis, first the rumour and then the
authenticated tidings of the death of the king reached them. (trans. E. T. Sage
and A. C. Schlesinger)
Fama nearly always arrives first, but then it must be supported by more
reliable information, not least because in many cases news that is just trans-
mitted orally often proves completely false. As a result, we often come across
passages that accuse fama of being not only uncertain but also deceitful, and of
twisting the truth more often than not.77 Erato, the Muse who tells the story of
Claudia Quinta in book 4 of Ovid’s Fasti, maintains that only the naive and the
gullible trust in hearsay. A Roman matron who managed to singlehandedly
drag the ship bearing the Magna Mater to Rome, Claudia Quinta’s sophisti-
cated elegance and blunt manner of speaking had given rise to unjust rumours
(rumor iniquus, 307) about her chastity, which Erato reminds us the matron
ignored (4.311–12):
Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit,
sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.
Conscious of innocence, she laughed at fame’s untruths; but we of the multitude
are prone to think the worst.78 (trans. J. G. Frazer)

4.4.2. Rumor

While fama indicates the general phenomenon of the propagation of all forms of
‘talk’—and thus also hearsay and gossip—the Latin term rumor seems reserved

75
See e.g. Caes. BCiu. 3.72 (‘fama ac litteris’), Liv. 27.27.13 and 38.56.1 (‘cui famae, quibus
scriptis adsentiar’), Ov. Her. 6.9, Mart. 5.25.5.
76
See e.g. Caes. BGall. 6.30.2 and 7.8.4, Cic. QFr. 1.1.1, Verg. Aen. 11.511–12, Liv. 3.40.13,
5.37.6 and 28.1.6, Tac. Hist. 2.46.
77
See e.g. Prop. 4.2.19, Aetna 369 and 571, Curt. 9.2.14 (‘numquam ad liquidum fama
perducitur: omnia illa tradente maiora sunt uero’), Sen. Ep. 76.6 and 95.58, Tac. Hist. 1.34.
78
Here there is probably a hard-to-translate reference to the traditional idea that the Muses
(the ‘group’ to which the turba of l. 312 refers) had to do as much with falsehoods as with truth
(a well-known motif starting with the preface of Hesiod’s Theog. 26–8).
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 119

specifically for rumours.79 Roman texts more or less treat fama and rumor as
synonyms, as is revealed by an extensive array of evidence,80 and as we had
ample opportunity to observe in the preceding chapters when commenting on
the passages of Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, and
pseudo-Quintilian’s Declamationes maiores XVIII and XIX.81 We need only cite
the notes in which Servius uses one term to explain the other, or else the fact that, in
the Aeneid, Iarbas reacts rumore accensus amaro (‘inflamed by the irritating
rumour’) upon hearing the displeasing information that Fama has given him in
person, telling him of the relationship between Dido and Aeneas.82 We can also
recall Juvenal’s portrait of the gossipy woman in the extensive misogynistic gallery
that populates his Sixth Satire (408–9): ‘famam rumoresque illa recentis / excipit
ad portas, quosdam facit’ (‘She picks up the latest tales and rumours at the city
gates and she invents some herself ’; trans. Susanna Morton Braund).83 In Juvenal’s
description, while fama indicates the entirety of what is being said, the term rumores
refers to the most recent rumours that have come to the city.84 However, these are
also part of the gossip that the woman in question collects and then circulates.
It is impossible to reconstruct a credible and convincing etymology
for rumor, a term that seems isolated in Latin. Nonetheless, it refers to a
well-defined semantic sphere85 that we can summarize with the subdivision
proposed in the Oxford Latin Dictionary:86
1. The noise made by many voices, clamour or similar.
2. Common talk, rumour, gossip (as a vehicle of information or comment).

79
Obviously, in Latin the phenomenon of rumours can be evoked with many other expres-
sions, including voice (uox), conversation (sermo), story (fabula), opinion (opinio), and so on.
A term that, in some ways, is similar to rumor and that indicates gossip and rumours,
emphasizing the phonic aspect of a confused blend of whispering, is murmur (murmura
famae is specifically mentioned in Prop. 2.5.29, Ov. Her. 9.41, and Stat. Silu. 1.4.14).
80
See e.g. Cato apud Fest. 208 L. (‘rumorem, famam flocci fecit’), Caes. BGall. 6.20.1 (‘si quis
quid de re publica a finitimis rumore ac fama acceperit’), Prop. 2.18.37–8, Liv. 22.39.18, 28.24.1,
Ov. Tr. 3.12.43–4, [Quint.] Decl. min. 252.16–7, Plin. Pan. 59.3, Tac. Agr. 33.3, Hist. 1.34, Ann.
14.22.
81
See Ch. 3, secs. 3.1 and 3.2.
82
Verg. Aen. 4.203; Serv. ad Aen. 8.90: ‘rumore secundo hoc est bona fama, cum neminem
laederent’; Serv. ad Aen. 8.132: ‘didita fama diuulgata, ut “diditur hic subito Troiana per agmina
rumor” (Aen. 7.144)’.
83
On this passage, see Kartzow 2009, 89–93.
84
As I mentioned before (see Ch. 2, sec. 2.1.2), fama is normally used only in the singular.
85
See Ernout and Meillet 1967, 581, where a rather uncertain connection between rumor and
the root of the verb *rumare is suggested, based on a passage of Paulus-Festus 9.7 Lindsay:
‘Adrumauit rumorem fecit, siue commurmuratus est, quod uerbum quidam a rumine, id est
parte gutturis, putant deduci’ (also taken up in Bettini 2008, 359–61). On the basis of Paulus-
Festus 333.2 Lindsay, it is only possible to suggest a link between this verb and hapax legomena
like the verbs rumitare and rumigerari, to which we can also add the other hapax, rumigeratio,
which appears in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Heliogab. 10.4: ‘infami rumigeratione
pascuntur’). The possible parallels with Sanskrit and ancient Slavic proposed by Ernout and
Meillet refer to verb roots that mean ‘to shout’.
86
Glare 2012, 1838, under the entry rumor.
120 Word of Mouth

3. A report or rumour of some particular occurrence.

4. That which people say about one for good or ill (sometimes almost =
reputation, esteem).
5. a. Unfavourable report, ill repute.
b. favourable report, esteem.

The various meanings listed here essentially correspond to those covered by

the term fama. Rumor can be considered a synonym of fama particularly when
it comes to the concepts of ‘hearsay’ and ‘rumours’. In a more limited number
of attestations, however, these rumours are portrayed as the very essence of
‘reputation’, which can naturally be good or bad, depending on whether the
gossip circulating about someone is favourable or unfavourable. A rather clear
example of this comes from a passage of Cicero’s oration Against Piso (57) that
contrasts true and false glory:

Nam ut leuitatis est inanem aucupari rumorem et omnis umbras etiam falsae
gloriae consectari, sic est animi lucem splendoremque fugientis iustam gloriam, qui
est fructus uerae uirtutis honestissimus, repudiare.
For as it is a proof of a trifling character to catch at such praise as is derived from
empty reports, and to hunt after all the shadows of even false glory; so it is surely a
sign of a very worthless disposition, of one that hates all light and all respectabil-
ity, to reject true glory, which is the most honourable reward of genuine virtue.87
(trans. C. D. Yonge)

‘Rumours’ and ‘hearsay’, as well as the opinions they engender, are presented
as immersed in an indistinct and confused circulation of information that
comes from indeterminable sources. In many of the expressions that indicate
communication processes like these, rumor could easily be replaced with
fama. For example, for ‘rumour has it that’ and ‘people say that’, one could
use both rumor est and fama est. Likewise, both rumori seruire and famae
seruire mean ‘being subordinate to others’ opinions’.88

87
See e.g. also Cic. Leg. Man. 45, Clu. 131 (‘rumorem quendam et plausum popularem’), Pub.
F 28 (‘Frugalitas miseria est rumoris boni’) and H.15, Liv. 27.20.10 (‘aduerso rumore esse’), Apul.
Pl. 2.23 (‘Mortem . . . . honestiorem . . . . et rumoris secundi’), Fronto ad M. Caesarem 5.48 [p. 80
van den Hout] (‘rumore . . . . incolumi’), Principia historiae 2.16 [p. 199 van den Hout] (‘secundo
gentium rumore’), Mart. 10.3.9–10 (‘Procul a libellis nigra sit meis fama, / quos rumor alba
gemmeus uehit pinna’), Tac. Ann 15.48 (‘claro apud uulgum rumore’).
88
Rumor est: Ter. An. 185 (‘meum gnatum rumor est amare’), Cic. Fam. 1.8.7 (‘rem te ualde
bene gessisse rumor erat’). Fama est: Lucr. 3.981 (‘ut famast’), 5. 17, Nep. Them. 10.4 (‘neque
negat fuisse famam uenenum sua sponte sumpsisse’). Rumori seruire: Plaut. Trin. 640 (‘nec tuis
depellar dictis quin rumori seruiam’), Q. Cic. Pet. 50 (‘Sequitur enim ut de rumore dicendum sit,
cui maxime seruiendum est’). Famae seruire: Cic. Att. 5.10.2 (‘persuasum est omnibus meis
seruiendum esse famae meae’); Nep. Them. 1.3 (‘diligentius amicis famaeque seruiens’); Hor. Sat.
1.6.16 (‘et famae seruit ineptus’).
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 121

Rumor naturally possesses all the characteristics we briefly examined before

when we discussed fama-rumour. It moves extremely quickly, constitutes a
main—albeit very particular—font of information, along with letters and
messengers, and it is frequently revealed to be uncertain or false, given the
lack of clearly identified and reliable sources that can confirm it.89 The verbs
used to indicate its rapid movement through space are often those used to
describe the ‘autonomous’ activity of fama: it, uenit, existit, serpit, (per)cre-
brescit, manat, peruadit, occupat, nuntiat, narrat, and so on. In particular,
rumor is also ascribed the ability to fly, as is evident from a passage of Ovid’s
Fasti (6.527–8). Once Ino reaches Latium, her name spreads rapidly thanks to
rumor, which in this instance also appears to have the characteristics of an
authentic personification:
Rumor, ut est uelox, agitatis peruolat alis,
estque frequens, Ino, nomen in ore tuum.
Rumour—for she is fleet—flew far on pulsing wings, and thy name, Ino, was on
many lips.90 (trans. J. G. Frazer)

4.4.3. The Sources of Rumours

The lack of precise sources is one of the traits that fama and rumor have in
common. The latter is frequently presented as the product of an indistinct
crowd from which it is impossible to single out the information’s initial source.
In other words, rumor is also none other than a form of talk whose origin is
almost always imagined as being collective, or as undeterminable and con-
cealed behind the mass of people among whom the information is spread

89
The speed and transmission of news: Enn. Ann. 491 Skutsch (‘celerissimus rumor’, fr. sedis
incertae), Cic. Att. 1.3.2, 1.15.1 (‘non enim dubito quin celerius tibi hoc rumor quam ullius
nostrum litterae nuntiarint’), 3.11.1, 4.1.4, Fam. 2.8.1 (‘scribent alii, multi nuntiabunt, perferet
multa etiam ipse rumor’), Leg. Man. 25 (‘non ex proelio nuntius sed ex sermone rumor’), Caes.
BGall. 2.1.1, Tac. Ann. 11.32. Uncertainty or falseness of information: Cic. Att. 16.12.1 (‘etsi uarii
rumores multique quos cuperem ueros, nihil tamen certi’), Liv. 28.24.2 (‘uanus rumor’), 28.24.6
(‘rumores dubii’) and 42.13.1, Tac. Hist. 1.34.2: (‘uagus primum et incertus rumor: mox, ut in
magnis mendaciis, interfuisse se quidam et uidisse adfirmabant, credula fama inter gaudentis et
incuriosos. Multi arbitrabantur compositum auctumque rumorem mixtis iam Othonianis, qui ad
euocandum Galbam laeta falso uolgauerint’), Ann. 4.59 (‘uana rumoris’). Lack of sources: Cic.
Fam. 12.9.1 and 12.10.2 (‘adhuc sine capite, sine auctore, rumore nuntio’), Curt. 6.2.15, Liv.
28.25.1 (‘Cum alios subinde recentes nuntios non mortis modo sed etiam funeris exspectarent,
neque superueniret quisquam euanesceretque temere ortus rumor, tum primi auctores requiri
coepti; et subtrahente se quoque ut credidisse potius temere quam finxisse rem talem uideri
posset’ etc.), 33.41.1, 35.23.2 (‘rumores temere sine ullis auctoribus orti multa falsa ueris
miscebant’).
90
Frazer’s translation oddly assigns a feminine gender to the personification, which should
more probably be male.
122 Word of Mouth

along unspecified routes. With a somewhat paradoxical statement, Cicero

even suggests that rumor itself is a source of news (Verr. 2.3.49):
Haec uos antea, iudices, audistis, uerum fortasse ita audistis ut auctorem rumorem
haberetis sermonemque omnium.
You, gentlemen, have already heard these facts. But you may have heard them
only on the authority of rumour and popular talk. (trans. L. H. G. Greenwood)
On another occasion (Fam. 12.10.1–2) the orator repeats something similar,
but this time he only ascribes rumor the role of messenger, highlighting the
lack of sources underlying the rumours in question:
Nos de Dolabella cottidie quae volumus audimus, sed adhuc sine capite, sine
auctore, rumore nuntio.
The daily news about Dolabella is all we could desire; but it is still without a
definite source, unvouched for, and only voiced by rumour. (trans. W. Glynn
Williams)
Rumour’s peculiar status (nuntius) makes it a carrier of information that
should be used with particular caution, as historiographers have invariably
observed. For example, Tacitus, who cites numerous rumours and employs
them in particularly insightful ways, is careful to emphasize the delicate
position of the historian, who must weigh the appropriateness of completing
his reconstruction of events by using hearsay in addition to the more authori-
tative written testimonies available to him.91 On the news of Drusus’s death,
he goes so far as to say (Ann. 4.10–11):
In tradenda morte Drusi quae plurimis maximaeque fidei auctoribus memorata
sunt rettuli: set non omiserim eorundem temporum rumorem ualidum adeo ut
nondum exolescat . . . .92 Haec uulgo iactata super id quod nullo auctore certo
firmantur prompte refutaueris . . . Mihi tradendi arguendique rumoris causa fuit
ut claro sub exemplo falsas auditiones depellerem peteremque ab iis quorum in
manus cura nostra uenerit <ne> diuulgata atque incredibilia auide accepta ueris
neque in miraculum corruptis antehabeant.
In my account of Drusus’ death I have followed the version to be found in the
most numerous and reputable sources. But I feel I should give a mention to a
rumour which started at the time and has had sufficient resilience to retain

91
On this aspect of Tacitus’s historiographical writing, see the still-useful works of Ryberg
1942, Ferrero 1946 (esp. 50–66), Ries 1969 (esp. 92 and 179–90), Shatzman 1974 (esp. 560 and
577–8), and Develin 1983 (esp. 76–85): see also Gibson 1998 (particularly the conclusions,
123–7) and Hardie 2009a, 559–69.
92
Tacitus shows a similar attitude in the face of information he heard first-hand from people
who allegedly witnessed the reported events (Ann. 3.16.1): ‘Audire me memini ex senioribus
uisum saepius inter manus Pisonis libellum, quem ipse non uulgauerit . . . .; nec illum sponte
extinctum . . . Quorum neutrum adseuerauerim: neque tamen occulere debui narratum ab iis qui
nostram ad iuuentam durauerunt.’
 Producers and Performers of Rumour 123
credence even today . . . . This version had wide currency at the time, but one
would place little trust in it for a number of reasons, not to mention the fact
that it was not supported by any reliable authority . . . My reason for recounting
and refuting the rumour has been to use it as a signal example with which
to discount false stories, and as a pretext to appeal to my readers not to
be ready to accept incredible rumours in preference to the unvarnished truth.
(trans. D. C. A. Shotter)
Here Tacitus discredits the very rumour he nevertheless found fitting to
report. However, his attitude about this kind of information is usually far
less cautious, and he is actually inclined to exploit the cloud of suspicion that
arises from a rumour reported without much comment.93 In any case, his
words clearly document the problematic informative nature of rumores. What
should be done with this type of news? Should it be overlooked because it is
not supported by the implicit guarantees that come with the presence of
readily identifiable auctores, or should it be used with the appropriate caveats?
Historians often choose to follow the second approach, as embarrassing as it
may later prove to determine the reliability of what is related.94
A famous passage of Livy (37.48) provides us with a clear example of such
an attitude:
M. Fuluio Nobiliore et Cn. Manlio Vulsone consulibus Valerius Antias auctor est
rumorem celebrem Romae fuisse et paene pro certo habitum, recipiendi Scipionis
adulescentis causa consulem L. Scipionem et cum eo P. Africanum in colloquium
euocatos regis et ipsos comprehensos esse, et ducibus captis confestim ad castra
Romana exercitum ductum, eaque expugnata et deletas omnis copias Romanorum
esse . . . Rumoris huius quia neminem alium auctorem habeo, neque adfirmata res
mea opinione sit nec pro uana praetermissa.
In the consulship of Marcus Fulvius Nobilior and Gnaeus Manlius Volso [189
BCE] Valerius Antias records that a rumour was generally circulated in Rome and
taken as almost certain that, for the purpose of recovering the young Scipio, the
consul Lucius Scipio and with him Publius Africanus had been invited to a
conference with the king and had been arrested, and that after the capture of
their generals the army had been led against the Roman camp, that this had been
captured and all the Roman forces destroyed . . . Because I have no other authority
for this story the rumour, in my judgement, should not have been given credence
nor yet dismissed as without foundation. (trans. E. T. Sage)
Despite relying on various precautionary tactics, the historiographer has no
choice but to incorporate data and suggestions from uncertain and dubious
sources into his narrative. Such information is often highly relevant to the

93
See Shatzman 1974, 558, Develin 1983, 82, and Feldherr 2009, 179–86.
94
In many cases, biographers have little choice but to make recourse to undocumentable
information: see Guastella 1992, 28–37, Giua 1998, 43–9 and 58–9.
124 Word of Mouth

dynamics of the facts reported by historians.95 Furthermore, this material is

part of a tradition that, as long as it relies solely on orality, has limited
temporal scope: those who shoulder the responsibility of recounting the past
must conserve its traces and extend its duration through writing. Moreover,
such operations allow a historian, paradoxically, to change (at least partially)
the status of the rumours by provisionally serving as their (‘traceable’) inter-
mediate witness, permitting them to be connected to at least one identifiable
source. Through this process, the historian attempts to give at least some
substance to the information, thanks to the stability of writing. As contradict-
ory as it may seem, Livy cites Valerius Antias as the auctor of information
related to a rumor: in other words, he was the written source of the hearsay
according to which Lucius Scipio and Publius Africanus fell into a trap.
Similarly, today we can still cite Tacitus as the source of information that
circulated in Rome thanks to the gossip that was spread about the death of
Drusus. None of this makes the hearsay more reliable, but it does make its use
easier to manage, as it associates the information with a precise and clearly
identified origin.
The identification of a source to which specific information can be traced
has always been considered a crucial process in the assessment of information.
Until this point, I have limited myself to observing how rumours and gossip
are distinguished by the substantial lack of an auctor or auctores. Now it is
time to look more closely at the implications of this state of affairs for the
dynamics of communication.

95
Gibson 1998, 123 offers an excellent illustration of the potential rumours have ‘to be a
decisive cause of events’.
 5

Authority

non uidet auctorem, sed sentit quisque refertque

atque audisse putat nec primus in agmine toto est.
Anth. Lat. 1.941 (Patricii Epithalamium Auspicii et Aellae), 52–3 Riese

5.1. AUCTOR

5.1.1. Auctor—ἀρχή

Many of the passages that I have analysed so far place considerable emphasis on
the unattainability (if not the total lack) of the point of origin, of the ‘source’ to
which a rumour should be connected: from the descriptions that Plutarch dedi-
cates to the arrival at Athens and Rome of news issued from war scenarios to the
various selections from Livy and Tacitus discussed at the end of the last chapter.1
To indicate an elusive source of this kind, where some Greek texts use a term
that refers to the actual origin of the process, ἀρχή, their Latin counterparts
generally use auctor.2 This is the term from which modern languages derive the
very notions of ‘author’ and ‘authority’. In the language of the Romans, it usually
designated the person that sets a process in motion and makes it possible: a
counsellor or inspirer (auctor . . . arma capiendi, auctor sententiae), the promoter
of an initiative (auctor coniurationis, legis auctor), an inventor, the progenitor of a
line of descent (generis auctor, sanguinis auctor), a founder (urbis auctor, templi
auctor). The semantic field of literary and artistic production, to which the
contemporary term ‘author’ is still linked, must also be considered from this
perspective: the auctor is also the writer or the artist, and in a manner of speaking,
the ‘source’ of his/her own works (as well as the reference for those who draw

1
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.5.1 and 1.5.2, and Ch. 4, sec. 4.4.3.
2
Even the Vulgate translates the Greek ἀρχηγός with the term auctor on various occasions
(see Zink 2008, 149–50). On the function of the ἀρχή in foundation processes, the observations
of Detienne 1998, 114–20 are still very interesting.
126 Word of Mouth

inspiration from them). In legal contexts, an auctor was also someone who acted
as ‘guarantor’ of someone else’s actions (e.g. the guardian of a child or a woman)
or of something (e.g. the promoter of a normative or political initiative).3
Since its oldest literary attestations, this term has primarily indicated
someone who provides advice, inspires an action and legitimizes it.4 But use
of the term also proves crucial when describing the ‘sources’ from which
various types of information derive. The cases in which I am directly inter-
ested are those where there is marked opposition between the propagation
mechanism of fama (or of a rumor) and the guarantees of correct information.
As an example, let us consider this excerpt of a letter from February 43 BCE,
where Cicero asks Cassius for news on his movements (Fam. 12.4.2):
Fama nuntiabat te esse in Syria, auctor erat nemo.
Rumour had it that you were in Syria, but there was no source.5
The news reported by fama is presented as devoid of the guarantees that would
be available were an auctor identifiable. Lacking these, the information trans-
mitted via rumours remains uncertain,6 or is even reduced to an unmanage-
able mix of true and false, to borrow a phrase found in an illuminating passage
by Livy (35.23.2):
Nam etsi per legatos identidem omnia explorabantur, tamen rumores temere sine
ullis auctoribus orti multa falsa ueris miscebant.
For although everything was repeatedly investigated by commissioners, yet ru-
mours, anonymous and groundlessly circulated, mingled much falsehood with
the truth.7 (trans. Evan T. Sage)

3
On these last cases, for which it is difficult to give concise examples, see Bögel 1903, 1195–6.
A specialized legal use is that of auctor as ‘seller’ (see Bögel 1903, 1194–5).
4
The majority of cases witnessed in the archaic and Republican periods belong to this
context. See e.g. Plaut. Aul. 250–1: ‘Si hercle ego te non elinguandam dedero usque ab radicibus, /
impero auctorque <ego> sum, ut tu me cuiuis castrandum loces’, mil. 1094–5: ‘Quid nunc mi es
auctor ut faciam, Palaestrio / de concubina?’ (this is the formula in which the term is most
commonly used in both Plautus and Terence), Trin. 106–7: ‘MEG. Fuitne hic tibi amicus
Charmides? CAL. Est et fuit. / Id ita esse ut credas, rem tibi auctorem dabo’, Ter. An. 18–9: ‘qui
quom hunc accusant, Naeuium Plautum Ennium / accusant quos hic noster auctores habet.’
5
Cicero subsequently contrasts the uncertainty of the news concerning Cassius with the
greater probability of the news related to Brutus (‘De Bruto, quo propius est, eo firmiora uidentur
esse, quae nuntiantur’). For other examples that highlight the absence of auctor, see Cic. Fam.
12.9.1: ‘ . . . rumores de oppresso Dolabella, satis illos quidem constantes, sed adhuc sine auctore’
(see sec. 5.1.3) and Liv. 34.16.9: ‘uanum et sine auctore ullo rumorem’.
6
Obviously, the chance to identify an auctor makes only the possibility of verifying the
news—and not the news itself—certain. In any case, sometimes it is the very identity of the
auctor that nudges the information towards trustworthiness or its opposite. See e.g. Liv. 2.37.8:
‘consules cum ad patres rem dubiam sub auctore certo detulissent, auctor magis, ut fit, quam res
ad praecauendum uel ex superuacuo mouit.’
7
See Liv. 28.25.1: ‘Cum alios subinde recentes nuntios non mortis modo sed etiam funeris
exspectarent, neque superueniret quisquam euanesceretque temere ortus rumor, tum primi
auctores requiri coepti; et subtrahente se quoque ut credidisse potius temere quam finxisse
 Authority 127

The very fact that the sphere of fama and rumor seems dominated by
uncertainty and confusion appears closely related to the impossibility of
invoking one or more auctores. From this perspective, any piece of informa-
tion accompanied by a phrase like cuius rei certi sunt auctores, or by the
citation of a clearly specified author (auctor est . . . ), seems to be the opposite
of any assertion simply based on hearsay (fama est).8
By virtue of which qualities is the figure of the auctor able to restore order in
the realm of information? And what, exactly, is the meaning of the term
auctor?

5.1.2. Morphology of auctor

From an etymological point of view, there can be no doubt that auctor is a noun
derived from a verb: a typical nomen agentis with the suffix -tor attached to the
root of the verb augēre, which in Latin primarily means ‘to increase, to make
grow’. But, as sometimes happens with etymologies, its clear derivation provides
us with information that only partially explains the meaning of the term.9
Manu Leumann stressed the fact that auctor never means ‘he who increases’;
rather, it indicates ‘he who engenders something’ or ‘who puts something in
motion’, ‘who inspires something’, ‘who achieves something’; all meanings that
seem rather far removed from the semantic scope of the verb augēre.10

rem talem uideri posset, destituti duces iam sua ipsi insignia et pro uana imagine imperii quod
gererent ueram iustamque mox in se uersuram potestatem horrebant’; Curt. 6.2.15: ‘Itaque
rumor, otiosi militis uitium, sine auctore percrebuit’, etc.
8
For the formula ‘certi sunt auctores’ see Val. Max. 8.13. ext 4 (and Bögel 1903,
1206.60–1207.24). For ‘auctor est’, see passages like Plin. HN 35.70: ‘pinxit [scil. Parrhasius] et
archigallum, quam picturam amauit Tiberius princeps atque, ut auctor est Deculo, HS LX
aestimatam cubiculo suo inclusit.’ Statements introduced by the formula ‘auctor est’ (or ‘sunt
auctores’) followed by the accusative with the infinitive (e.g. Liv. 2.58.1: ‘Numero etiam additos
tres, perinde ac duo antea fuerint, Piso auctor est’, Plin. HN. 8.2: ‘auctores sunt in Mauretaniae
saltibus ad quendam amnem, cui nomen est Amilo, nitescente luna noua greges eorum descendere’
etc.), are the opposite of those introduced by ‘fama est’ with the accusative and the infinitive (e.g.
Liv. 21.22.6: ‘ibi fama est in quiete uisum ab eo iuuenem diuina specie qui se ab Ioue diceret ducem
in Italiam Hannibali missum’).
9
See Hiltbrunner 1988, 25–6 and Watmough 1995–6, 109. The relationship between the
term and the verb augere was very clear, for example, to Servius (ad Aen. 12.159: ‘tale est et “hic”
et “haec auctor”, sed tunc cum ab auctoritate descendit, ut hoc loco: cum autem uenit ab eo quod
est “augeo”, et “auctor” et “auctrix” facit, ut si dicas “auctor diuitiarum” vel “auctrix patrimo-
nii” ’) and to the Bern scholia ad Georg. 1.27 (‘ab augendo dictus’). It was also very clear, even in
etymological terms, to Isidore of Seville (Etym. 10.2: ‘Auctor ab augendo dictus’). This etymo-
logical link continued to be remembered throughout the medieval period, along with other
theories (see Minnis 1988, 10–12) that also established a connection with the term actor (see
Zink 2008, 155–8).
10
Leumann 1937, 31–2: ‘der auctor ist nicht der “Mehrer”, sondern der “Anstifter, Urheber”.’
Also see Heinze 1960 [1925], 44.
128 Word of Mouth

In these conditions, it seems inappropriate to force an imagined succession

of evolutionary stages that lead from an original meaning to that/those which
we can observe very clearly in the vast number of examples offered to us by
Roman texts. The suggestions so far advanced to this effect do not offer
satisfactory solutions. In Ernout and Meillet’s etymological dictionary, for
example, the alleged ‘sens premier’ of auctor as ‘celui qui fait croître, ou qui
fait pousser’ was identified in an isolated and rather peculiar case (Verg. Georg.
1.27: ‘auctorem frugum’).11 This contrived method was also used rather
nonchalantly by Benveniste, although instead of manipulating the meaning
of auctor, he modified that of augēre.12 Primarily basing his argument on some
Lucretian passages chosen ad hoc, he posited that: ‘In its oldest uses augeo
denotes not the increase in something which already exists but the act of
producing from within itself; a creative act which causes something to arise
from a nutrient medium and which is the privilege of the gods or the great
natural forces, but not of men.’ Once modified, albeit without reliable docu-
mentary evidence, this concept of augēre became perfect for explaining the
meaning of auctor:
The term auctor is applied to the person who in all walks of life ‘promotes’, takes
an initiative, who is the first to start some activity, who founds, who guarantees,
and finally who is the ‘author’. The notion expressed by auctor is diversified
according to the different contexts in which it is used, but they all go clearly back
to the primary sense ‘cause to appear, promote’.13
It would be easy to propose other etymological reconstructions similar to this
one, imagining various ‘original’ meanings of the verb augere.14 But this would
have no impact on the range of meanings that the term auctor possesses
consistently throughout the Republican and Imperial Latin periods. For the
purposes of our discussion on the relationship between rumours and auctores,
we must concentrate on the linguistic horizon of established uses rather than
on the historical-linguistic phase—now inaccessible to us—whose only dem-
onstrable remnant is the etymological link between auctor and augere.15 We

11 12
Ernout and Meillet 1967, 57. Benveniste 1973, 420–3.
13
Benveniste’s method and proposal were subject to a stringent critique by Belardi 1995,
144–7. Even more daring was the attempt of Leumann 1937, 32 to base his reconstruction on a
passage from Plautus (As. 280: ‘inimicum animos auxerit’): ‘augere animum alicui [ . . . ] “jem.
Mut machen zu” ist dasselbe wie auctorem esse “jem. antreiben zu”: auctor ist elliptisches
auctor animi’.
14
This is what Bettini has also done more recently, shifting the argument to the field of
anthropological models in an attempt to demonstrate that ‘für die Römer der Begriff des
Vermehrens vielleicht Werte und kulturelle Modelle implizierte, die sich von dem unterschei-
den, was wir uns heute darunter vorstellen’; and assigning the verb augēre the function of
metaphorically expressing ‘die undefinierbare, schlecht zu fassende und doch so mächtige
Aura . . . die erfolgreiche Menschen und ruhmreiche Taten umgibt’; as well as assigning auctor
that of the one ‘der auget “damit etwas «gelinge»” ’ (Bettini 2005, 250–2).
15
As Heinze 1960, 46 has already rightly expressed.
 Authority 129

start from the fact that our term is a nomen agentis that indicates someone (or,
more rarely, something) who—as we have said—sets a process in motion, and
who is consequently at the origin and can be considered guarantor of
something.16

5.1.3. The Starting-point

So what do we mean when we speak of the auctor of a piece of information? Or

when we say that there is no auctor at the base of hearsay and rumours, or that
at most there is only an uncertain one? A passage by Valerius Maximus may be
a useful starting-point for our explanation. In the section on prodigies from
the first book of Memorable Deeds and Sayings, the author talks about Gaius
Hostilius Mancinus (consul in 137 BCE), who suffered a series of resounding
defeats after failing to heed several portentous events that should have put him
on guard. Among these, Valerius Maximus mentions a mysterious voice, said
to have expressly ordered the consul to stop (1.6.7):
cum ab Herculis portu, quo pedibus peruenerat, nauem conscenderet, talis uox sine
ullo auctore ad aures eius peruenit, ‘Mancine, mane’.
When he was going aboard ship from [the] Harbour of Hercules, where he had
arrived on foot, a voice from nowhere came to his ears: ‘Mancinus, remain!’17
(trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey)
It is difficult to precisely establish how Valerius Maximus imagined the
scene—that is, whether he was thinking of a genuinely miraculous voice of
divine origin, or of ‘ominous’ words, which anyone could have pronounced
randomly from the middle of the crowd near Mancius. This is of little
importance to us: what matters is that the impossibility of identifying who
pronounced the mysterious phrase is expressed by the Latin phrase sine ullo
auctore, which has an almost formulaic quality (we have already encountered
it several times in other excerpts referencing news that fama has begun to
circulate). It is conceivable that the process behind the production of rumours
was imagined in about the same way: hearsay was put into circulation without
anyone knowing where it originated.

16
According to various interpretations (see Hiltbrunner 1988, 28), even uses of auctor in the
legal sense of ‘seller’ could be reconnected to the notion of ‘legitimizing’ the transfer of property
(Leumann 1937, 32 generally thought of a ‘Rückableitung aus auctoritas’; in Ernout and Meillet
1967, 57 this meaning of the word auctor is made to derive from auctio). Pariente 1964 even
claimed that ‘seller’ was the main meaning of the term, from which all other uses derive.
17
Cf. the way in which the same news is reported in Liv. Per. 55: ‘conscendenti deinde nauem,
ut in Hispaniam proficisceretur, accidit uox: “Mane, Mancine” ’, Iul. Obseq. 24 (‘uox improuiso
audita’); [Aur. Vict.] Vir. ill. 59 (‘nescio qua uoce reuocante profectus’).
130 Word of Mouth

The concept of auctor always refers to the origin of the action or process
being discussed. Some passages demonstrate this unequivocally. Among the
many possible examples, those where the attention of the reader is directed to
the spatial dimension of the description are particularly clear, as in the
following passage of the Thebaid (9.281–3). Here, Statius describes the battle
that occurs in the flooding waters of the River Ismenus:
induit a tergo Mycalesia cuspis Agyrten;
respexit: nusquam auctor erat, sed concita tractu
gurgitis effugiens inuenerat hasta cruorem.
A Mycalesian spearhead from behind buries itself in Agyrtes’ back. He looked
round; no thrower was to be seen. Impelled by the force of the torrent, the spear
had escaped and found blood.18 (trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey)
To explain the meaning of this Statian description, which is convoluted to the
point of absurdity, we may refer to the commentary on it by pseudo-Lactantius
Placidus: the invisible auctor can be no other than the one who inflicted the
wound (qui uulnus inflixerat nusquam apparebat), the person at the source of
the movement that caused the weapon to end up in Agyrtes’s back.19
In short, the auctor can be considered the starting point from which
something sets off or begins. It is no coincidence that this term sometimes
forms a synonymic pair with words like fons or caput.20 Therefore, when
describing the news born by fama or rumores as statements that are com-
pletely bereft of an auctor, or that lack a clearly defined and reliable (certus)
auctor, the Romans were referring to the impossibility of identifying a precise
and trustworthy source to which the initial creation of such information could
be connected.21

18
Cf. Stat. Theb. 8.717: ‘teli non eminet auctor’.
19
To give credence to this interpretation, ps.-Lactantius Placidus quotes Verg. Aen. 9.748:
‘neque enim is teli nec uulneris auctor’. Also see Servius’s note ad Aen. 12.815 (‘non enim certus
auctor uulneris fuerat’).
20
See Cic. Cael. 31: ‘Horum duorum criminum uideo auctorem, uideo fontem, uideo certum
nomen et caput’, Planc. 57: ‘si quid sine capite manabit, aut si quid erit eius modi ut non exstet
auctor’. See Servius’s note to Aen. 11.361 (‘caput principium. et est antiquum’) and Serv. auct. on
the same passage: ‘quia qui auctor et princeps rei gestae fuerat, “caput” a ueteribus dicebatur’
(also see the comments by Serv. auct. on Aen. 12.600 and Georg. 4.319). Cicero uses the term in
combination with princeps several times (Prou. cons. 25: ‘meorum omnium consiliorum auctor et
princeps’, Sull. 34, Dom. 10, Balb. 61, Phil. 4.16: ‘me auctore et principe ad spem libertatis
exarsimus’, Rep. 2.46, De or. 3.122, Orat. 177: ‘Quoniam igitur habemus aptae orationis eos
principes auctoresque quos diximus et origo inuenta est, causa quaeratur’, Fam. 10.6.3).
21
The way in which Bögel 1903, coll. 1199–201 recorded these meanings of auctor, inter-
preting the term as ‘testis veritatis’, is misleading. As we will see further on, it is true that in such
cases the function of the auctor is also to furnish guarantees that allow the verification of the
information: but this is only one consequence of the position that the source occupies within the
communicative mechanism. It is highly unlikely that, in all these cases, auctor means something
other than ‘source’.
 Authority 131

Let us look at another example of this approach to presenting hearsay

of uncertain reliability. In a letter to Cassius, written in the second half of
June 43 BCE, Cicero criticizes the lack of credible information from the Asian
war front, which leaked nothing but untrustworthy hearsay (Fam. 12.9.1):
Tamquam enim clausa sit Asia, sic nihil perfertur ad nos praeter rumores de
oppresso Dolabella, satis illos quidem constantis, sed adhuc sine auctore.
Just as though Asia were under a blockade, nothing reaches us except rumours
about the crushing of Dolabella, which are certainly quite consistent, but still lack
sources. (trans. W. Glynn Williams, modified)
Cicero reiterates this idea in another letter to Cassius, from just a few days
later, which I have already cited (12.10.1):
Nos de Dolabella cotidie quae uolumus audimus, sed adhuc sine capite, sine
auctore, rumore nuntio.
The daily news about Dolabella is all we could desire; but it is still without
a definite source, unvouched for, and only announced by rumour.22 (trans.
W. Glynn Williams, modified)
To some degree rumour plays the part of nuntius, but it reveals itself to be
untrustworthy in this role precisely because it has no source (caput, auctor).23

5.1.4. Reliable Sources

Information transmitted through rumours and hearsay is not always said to be

wholly without an auctor. On the contrary, there is often reference to the
presence of one or more auctores within the circuit that disseminates this type
of news: it is just that these are never certi auctores. We have already encoun-
tered a similar way of describing fama and rumores in the passage that
Quintilian devotes to probationes (Inst. 5.3), where it is said that according
to many people, rumours are simply discourses (sermo) put into circulation
(dispersus) without a clearly determined source (sine ullo certo auctore).24

22
See Ch. 4, sec. 4.4.3. Also see Fam. 12.8.2: ‘Nos hic de Dolabella audiebamus quae uellemus,
sed certos auctores non habebamus.’
23
For examples of similar expressions, also see Liv. 34.16.9: ‘fama deinde uolgatur consulem
in Turdetaniam exercitum ducturum, et ad deuios montanos “profectum etiam” falso perlatum
est. Ad hunc uanum et sine auctore ullo rumorem Bergistanorum ciuitatis septem castella
defecerunt’, Curt. 6.2.15: ‘Itaque rumor, otiosi militis uitium, sine auctore percrebruit regem
contentum rebus, quas gessisset, in Macedoniam protinus redire statuisse’, Lucan 1.484–7: ‘Sic
quisque pauendo / dat uires famae, nulloque auctore malorum / quae finxere timent. Nec solum
uolgus inani / percussum terrore pauet’, etc.
24
See Ch. 3, sec. 3.1.1. See e.g. Liv. 33.41.1 (‘rumor sine ullo satis certo auctore allatus de
morte Ptolomaei regis’), Mart. 7.6.3–4 (‘Certus abest auctor sed uox hoc nuntiat omnis: / credo
tibi, uerum dicere, Fama, soles’), Tac. Ann. 4.11.1 (‘haec uulgo iactata super id, quod nullo
auctore certo firmantur, prompte refutaueris’), Seru. auct. ad Aen. 4.177 (‘famae incertus
132 Word of Mouth

The vagueness of such information is commonly contrasted with ‘certain’

news, which may refer to accredited messengers and official (typically written)
documentation: it is only these types of sources that qualify as certi auctores.
Such disparity becomes apparent in a passage by Livy (37.51.8) concerning the
defeat of Antiochus:
Fama dein de rebus in Asia gestis temere uulgata sine auctore, et post dies paucos
nuntii certi litteraeque imperatoris Romam adlatae, etc.
Then there was a rumour idly circulated with no definite source about events in
Asia, and a few days later trustworthy messengers and the despatches of the
consul reached Rome. (trans. Evan T. Sage, modified)
Until a guarantee of reliability in its transmission can be produced, the
information remains vague and provisory, and occasionally may even
disappear.25
To overcome the instability of fama and rumores, it is necessary to have
confirmation, made possible by the presence of truly credible sources. This
dynamic can be implicitly understood through the passage of the Aeneid
where, soon after the death of Pallas, Aeneas is informed of the Trojans’
predicament in no uncertain terms (10.510–12):
Nec iam fama mali tanti, sed certior auctor
aduolat Aeneae tenui discrimine leti
esse suos, tempus uersis succurrere Teucris.
And now not mere rumour of the bitter blow, but a surer messenger, flies to
Aeneas—that his men are but a hair’s-breadth removed from death, that ’tis time
to succour the routed Teucrians. (trans. H. Rushton Fairclough)
What comes to Aeneas is not an unknown voice that leaves room for doubts
and hopes about the situation, but a certain announcement that demands
immediate intervention. To explain the meaning of these lines, Servius (ad
loc.) glosses certior auctor as nuntius uerus, in this way implying a close
relationship between the trustworthiness of the source and the certainty of
the information.26

auctor’). Also see the way in which Cicero indicates the impermanent nature of a piece of
information, founded on rumours, that has yet to be confirmed in Att. 11.25.2 (‘Illum discessisse
Alexandria rumor est non firmus ortus ex Sulpici litteris; quas cuncti postea nuntii
confirmarunt’).
25
See Liv. 45.1.3–4: ‘postremo clamor, plausus<que> uelut certo nuntio uictoriae allato est
exortus. Mirari magistratus et quaerere auctorem repentinae laetitiae; qui postquam nullus erat,
euanuit quidem tamquam certae rei gaudium, omen tamen laetum insidebat animis’ (see also
Ch. 1, sec. 1.6.1).
26
We could cite many similar passages, including Caes. BCiu. 2.18.3 (‘haec se certis nuntiis,
certis auctoribus comperisse’) and 2.37.3 (‘certis auctoribus comperit’), Cic. Att. 14.8.1 (‘se id
certis auctoribus comperisse’), Fam. 15.1.1 (‘certissimis auctoribus, legatis, nuntiis, litteris sum
certior factus’), Liv. 28.25.3 (‘stupente ita seditione cum uiuere primo, mox etiam ualere
 Authority 133

In ancient texts, as in this case, it is common to see the credibility of a piece

of news—assured by the certus auctor—directly associated with its actual
validity, as if these were two sides of the same coin. All the same, there are
also many examples that suggest the necessity of keeping the two levels
distinct. If it is indeed true that the possibility of calling on an authoritative
source is often considered enough to make otherwise untrustworthy news
credible, this does not make such pieces of information true.27 In other words,
we must distinguish the reliability of an account from its foundation in reality:
it is in fact the reliability that depends primarily on the source and its capacity
to inspire trust. By no means coincidentally, writers of historical or technical
and scientific texts tend to focus their own rhetorical strategies on this very
point, when relying on prior literary documentation to legitimize the various
accounts they present to their readers.28 One of many possible examples is the
passage where Valerius Maximus introduces the extraordinary proofs of
fortitudo of Lucius Siccius Dentatus, enlisting the authority of certi auctores,
among whom Varro’s undisputed reliability stands out (3.2.24):
cuius opera honoresque operum ultra fidem ueri excedere iudicari possent, nisi ea
certi auctores, inter quos M. Varro, monumentis suis testata esse uoluissent.
His deeds and the honours they brought him might be thought to go beyond the
credible had not reliable sources, M. Varro among them, chosen to attest them in
their works. (trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey)
However, even when it has authoritative features, a source may also reveal
itself unable to guarantee the truth of a piece of information. In some cases, we
might even say that the very trust inspired by the presence of a respected
guarantor of information risks obfuscating reality and the truth of the facts.
Curtius Rufus observed this while discussing the division of Alexander the
Great’s empire among the Diadochi (10.10.5):
Credidere quidam testamento Alexandri distributas esse prouincias sed famam
eius rei, quamquam ab auctoribus tradita est, uanam fuisse comperimus.
Some have believed that the distribution of the provinces was prescribed by
Alexander’s will, but I have ascertained that this report, though transmitted by
our sources, is without foundation. (trans. J. C. Yardley)

Scipionem certi auctores adferrent’), 40.57.3 (‘haud procul Amphipoli fama, in<de> certi nuntii
occurrerunt mortuum esse regem’).
27
Not all auctores can aspire to authority. The seriousness of the auctor grauis (e.g. Cic. Leg.
Man. 68, Liv. 33.45.1) is contrasted with the unreliability of the auctor leuis (e.g. Liv. 5.15.12:
‘auctorem leuem nec satis fidum’; Curt. 6.7.33: ‘tam leui auctore nihil credidisse’) or the falsity of
the auctor uanus (e.g. Liv. 29.32.10: ‘uanus auctor absumpti Masinissae’).
28
See e.g. Liv. 22.7.3: ‘Multiplex caedes utrimque facta traditur ab aliis; ego praeterquam quod
nihil auctum ex uano uelim, quo nimis inclinant ferme scribentium animi, Fabium, aequalem
temporibus huiusce belli, potissimum auctorem habui’, Suet. Iul. 81.2: ‘cuius rei, ne quis
fabulosam aut commenticiam putet, auctor est Cornelius Balbus, familiarissimus Caesaris.’
134 Word of Mouth

Curtius Rufus’s statement captures an essential point: in the presence of

adequate guarantors it is possible to trust (credere) in false news, but the
truth of a piece of information is only ascertained when the knowledge process
has been completed (comperisse). In other words, trust, or the disposition to
believe, is one thing; but complete verification of how things are is another.
From this point of view, the presence of an authoritative source may even
prove a deceptive lure for the credulous, as Pliny the Elder stated ironically
about the presumed ease with which, according to noble and equestrian
sources, the Romans had cleared the path in the Atlas Mountains region of
Mauritania (HN 5.12):
peruiumque famae uideri potest, sed id plerumque fallacissimum experimento
deprehenditur, quia dignitates, si indagare uera pigeat, ignorantiae pudore mentiri
non piget, haut alio fidei proniore lapsu quam ubi falsae rei grauis auctor existit.
to judge by common report, the place might well be thought to be easily
accessible; but upon trial this criterion is discovered to be for the most part
exceedingly fallacious, because persons of high position, although not inclined to
search for the truth, are ashamed of ignorance and consequently are not reluctant
to tell falsehoods, as credulity is never more easily let down than when a false
statement is attested by an authority of weight. (trans. H. Rackham)
Ultimately, a serious source validates the credibility of a piece of information, but
does not necessarily guarantee its truth: in other words, its authority may
automatically predispose others to be trusting. However, due to the characteristic
vagueness of their sources, fama and rumores do not have this ability. On the
other hand, paradoxically, the fact that they are separate from the plane of
reliability does not necessarily render rumours estranged from truth. Herein lies
their curious informative nature: although they are possible vehicles for truthful
information, rumours are condemned to remain objects of uncertainty. The
extraordinary efficiency of fama does not imply the ability to attract confidence.29
In contrast, the auctor seems to possess such an ability by virtue of the fact
that its identifiability can be the foundation of the procedures for the verifi-
cation of information. We will analyse these procedures in the following pages.

5.2 . B EL I E V I N G S O M EO N E’ S WORDS

5.2.1. Identity and Guarantee

In a genealogical tree, the space of an individual’s identity as well as that of

his or her descendants is defined with respect to the position of whoever

29
Cf. Ch. 1, sec. 1.6.
 Authority 135

generated them. In a similar way, during the production and dissemination of

information, the source is an indispensable factor that helps delineate the
characteristics of what is being communicated. Within the processes that
regulate the transmission of information, the source is the place we must
revisit to find the starting point where news takes shape and comes to life. If we
wish to ‘account’ for the authenticity of a statement or a piece of information,
it is necessary to return there in search of confirmation. The delicate process
by which we attempt to ‘identify’ information, guaranteeing its origin and
reliability, unfolds around the figure of the auctor.30
Were we simply to draw an analogy, we could limit ourselves to likening
this role to that of a parent, to whom our society still grants the task of
guaranteeing the identity of his or her children (and their behaviour, as long
as they remain under his or her protection). However, going beyond first
impressions, the attention given to this topic by philosophical investigation
allows us to reflect more perceptively on the communicative mechanisms that
allow the attribution of credibility to testimony.

5.2.2. Second-hand Knowledge

Information put into circulation by hearsay, rumours, and gossip is usually

transmitted during conversations between people who are unconcerned with
rigorously examining what they hear (and who often repeat it themselves later).
As in any type of informal conversation, the communicative exchange is founded
on a relationship between the giver of information and a receiver who is inclined
towards trust, or it occurs in conditions where it is unnecessary to subject what is
said to a judgment of credibility—unless there are clear causes for doubt or
particular reasons that make verifications and checks appropriate.31
Due to the limited relevance of the topics discussed in such informal
conversations, participants often feel disinclined to verify the information’s
reliability. For these reasons, it is rare for specific examination filters to slow
down and obstruct the propagation of ‘second-hand’ news, which generally
travels along a more or less long chain of private and informal conversations.
But when it is necessary to ascertain the reliability of what is learned in such
circumstances, it soon becomes clear that to turn a piece of gossip into a

30
See e.g. Cic. Diu. 2.136: ‘Sed haec externa ob eamque causam ignota nobis sunt, non nulla
etiam ficta fortasse. Quis enim auctor istorum?’ Severi 2008, 95–7 writes that ‘l’attribution d’une
forme d’autorité à une proposition, à travers la description de sa source, n’appartient nullement
aux seules traditions écrites’ (although the process obviously assumes particular forms in
societies that do not make use of writing).
31
See Austin 1946, 154: ‘Believing persons, accepting testimony, is the, or one main, point of
talking . . . So we don’t talk with people (descriptively) except in the faith that they are trying to
convey information.’ On this subject, see more generally Weiner 2003.
136 Word of Mouth

reliable testimony, it is first essential to have available at least one enunciator

who is able to fully assume responsibility for the transmitted information.32
As we have seen, even in a case where we find ourselves before true
information, the foundation of testimony that consists of hearsay or a rumour
is quickly revealed to be elusive, making it unworthy of belief; the barber of
Piraeus described by Plutarch experienced this in person.33 The unreliability
of this kind of information does not depend so much on the personal
untrustworthiness of whoever is reporting what s/he heard as on the trans-
mission mechanism itself, where s/he is only an ‘intermediate’ witness on the
chain of hearsay and almost never able to summon his or her sources to
assume responsibility for what s/he was told.34
The operation of this mechanism, founded on the construction of testimonial
chains, has recently been treated in a monograph by Benjamin McMyler.35
Studying, more generally, the process of learning from testimony, McMyler
elaborates on the structure of ‘testimonial chains’: vehicles of ‘second-hand
knowledge’ that consist of a series of passages where the information is trans-
mitted by a speaker to an audience at each stage, in a direct exchange based on an
implicit pact of sincerity and goodwill on the part of the former, and trust on the
part of the latter (it is what McMyler describes as a ‘second-personal model’). In
this setting, the speaker transmits the information that s/he claims to ‘know’ and
is generally taken ‘at his/her word’ without any particular reservation, in the
wake of the confidence inspired by the very nature of the exchange.36

32
Even during a typical exchange of gossip, an echo of this requirement emerges in the
frequent citations of intermediary sources (‘I learned P from X’): in this way, the speaker is
liberated from the responsibility for what s/he reports, transferring it to the last parts of the chain
on which s/he depends. For a definition of ‘knowing at second hand’, see Austin 1946, 153–4 and
McMyler 2011, 45–76. Also see Wilson 1983 (esp. 3–37) for a treatment of the theme of ‘second-
hand knowledge’ from a sociological perspective.
33
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.5.1.
34
A situation perhaps aptly described in the words of Moran 2005, 11: ‘the speaker, in
presenting his utterance as an assertion, one with the force of telling the audience something,
presents himself as accountable for the truth of what he says, and in doing so he offers a kind of
guarantee for this truth. This shows up in the fact that if we are inclined to believe what the
speaker says, but then learn that he is not, in fact, presenting his utterance as an assertion whose
truth he stands behind, then what remains are just words, not a reason to believe anything.’
35
McMyler’s position constitutes a notable implementation of several theories on what
Jennifer Lackey defined as the ‘Interpersonal View of Testimony’ (IVT), while expressing her
reservations about it (Lackey 2008, 220–50 and 2011, 79–83). Using arguments that are only
partially convincing, Lackey objects to the proponents of IVT for having ‘conflated psycho-
logical, moral, or pragmatic significance with epistemic significance’ (Lackey 2008, 249). There is
no need to discuss this here, given the instrumental use I will make of McMyler’s arguments.
Precisely because it is framed with a view to the psychological, moral, and pragmatic aspects of
the matter, the communicative process described by the IVT is particularly suited to illustrating
the point that we are discussing; but the substance of what I want to show would not change if
I adopted Lackey’s point of view.
36
See McMyler 2011, 91–4. With respect to the position of the IVT, that of epistemologists
like Jennifer Lackey does not consider the role of the flux of interpersonal trust to be pertinent:
 Authority 137

In fact, the speaker, with respect to the contents of the transmitted infor-
mation, possesses an ‘epistemic responsibility’ that is implicitly accepted by
the audience. For the latter, in other words, the reliability of the information
transmitted by the speaker in these kinds of exchanges depends almost
exclusively on his or her authority.37 If for some reason it becomes essential
to verify one or more aspects of this information, it is therefore the speaker
who is asked to produce the necessary proof (this type of request belongs to a
set of what McMyler calls ‘epistemic challenges’). Usually, however, the
current of trust that links the speaker to the audience in this kind of exchange
flows undisturbed.
When this speaker is in turn dependent on information passed down to him
or her by another speaker, matters obviously become more complicated. In
this kind of scenario, speakers and audience tend to found their relationships
on a systematic application of what McMyler refers to as the ‘epistemic right
of deferral’: ‘Testimonial knowledge and belief is distinctively epistemically
mediated in such a way that an audience is entitled to defer challenges to its
belief back to the original speaker.’38 We may consider the role of that ‘original
speaker’ in many ways indistinguishable from the one played by the character
who is systematically defined auctor of the information in the ancient sources
previously mentioned. The ‘source’ is, so to speak, the place towards which the
search for the responsibility of a piece of news is directed, the issuer who must
ultimately be established as trustworthy or not.39 Following the path of the
testimonial chain, the requests to produce proofs of the information’s reliabil-
ity must be systematically returned by each audience to the speaker (who in
turn is the audience of a prior speaker), until it is no longer possible to identify
a clear auctor who can personally assume responsibility for that information.
In theory, only the full assumption of responsibility by an original speaker
can provide a solid basis for audience trust and remove it from its earlier
state of precariousness. But for many reasons, this type of communication,
which transmits information of all kinds, proceeds along the impetus of a

‘in order to acquire testimonial knowledge, both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive
epistemic contribution to the knowledge in question, the former through the reliability of her
statement and the latter through her positive reasons’ (Lackey 2008, 2: also see 25–36, 72–7,
124–9, and 176–88).
37
See McMyler 2011, 52: ‘When an audience’s belief is justified by the authority of a speaker,
the audience is entitled to defer responsibility for meeting certain epistemic challenges to its
belief, to pass the epistemic buck back to the testimonial speaker’ (also see pp. 54–5 and 59). We
might further specify, to borrow another apt statement from McMyler (2011, 12), that in cases of
this kind: ‘I am not blindly adopting the conclusion of someone else, but neither am I relying
solely on my own cognitive resources. Instead, I am utilizing a cognitive capacity that is
essentially cooperative.’
38
McMyler 2011, 65 (and in general 61–4 on the ‘epistemic right of deferral’).
39
This is kept distinct from what McMyler 2011, 118 defines as the ‘locus of trust role’, which
is occupied by the person in an interpersonal relationship who is given trust.
138 Word of Mouth

mechanical, or what we might call provisionally granting, trust. In the critical

situations when the reliability of the transmitted information must be checked,
the retrograde process of searching for certain proof is intended—through the
transfer of responsibility—to overcome the undetermined state in which the
bonds of mutual trust active in the various links of the testimonial chain have
found themselves thus far.40
This process has wide relevance throughout the network of social relations
that tie us to the groups we are part of. McMyler’s treatise has, among other
qualities, the merit of drawing our attention to the pervasiveness of this form
of knowledge transmission in any individual’s life. We learn a great deal in this
way, relying more on a mechanical trust in our immediate sources than on a
meditated and controlled acquisition of information (which is successfully
verified only in a rather limited number of cases).41
This way of exchanging news, most often founded on the informal inter-
action of people on familiar terms, is radically different from the one where
information is acquired by chance: for example, when overhearing someone
else’s conversation, when something ‘is heard’ in the middle of a crowd of
unknown interlocutors.42 Indeed, in such cases it is rare to be able to request
proof from the speaker whose audience we more or less randomly become; it
seems there is no possibility of discovering the ‘place of responsibility’ where
we must put our trust in order to deem the received news certain. Conse-
quently, as it is impossible to build on the relationship of goodwill between
speaker and audience, the communication mechanism can only be supported
by an even more generic and precarious form of trust: the kind that is given to
any information ‘until proven otherwise’, for a variety of reasons (because we
want to believe in something, because we fear something, because we are
curious, etc.).43
For this reason, during the chance acquisition of information, the audience
depends on the authority of the speaker in a way that we might say lacks solid
guarantees.44 Given that, in order to verify the reliability of the acquired

40
While discussing Grice’s theory on ‘non-natural meaning’, Moran 2005, 16 states: ‘the
speaker’s knowledge and trustworthiness are epistemically inert for the audience until the
question of the particular speech-act or illocution is settled. Determining his utterance as an
assertion is what gets the speaker’s words into the realm of epistemic assessment in the first place
(or at least epistemic assessment of the sort that is relevant to testimony . . . ) . . . . The speaker
intends not just that the recognition of his intention play a role in producing belief that P, but
that the particular role this recognition should play is that of showing the speaker to be assuming
responsibility for the status of his utterance as a reason to believe P.’
41
See Coady 1992, 6–13.
42
See McMyler 2011, 66–7. In these cases, the relationship of goodwill between speaker and
audience and the resulting trust is not active: see McMyler 2011, 102–12.
43
The same reasons that commonly push a collective group to believe rumours: see Kapferer
1987, 121–4.
44
That is, in a way that does not require particular trust in one person, founded on goodwill,
according to McMyler’s ‘second-personal’ model (see McMyler 2011, 127–41).
 Authority 139

information, the retrograde mechanism of assigning epistemic responsibility

and the need to reconstruct the testimonial sequence remain unchanged, the
impossibility of citing a ‘final’ authority of the chain (who may be charged with
responsibility for the information) ends up becoming a structural condition of
the process. The fact that there is no ‘second-personal’ relationship between
audience and speaker obstructs the road to the ‘epistemic right of deferral’,
which in principle would be able to initiate an efficient verification process.
Within the streams of communication that we are studying, in the critical
moments where ascertaining the reliability of what has been reported is
essential (for whatever reason), the nature of the chain of transmission—
which otherwise represents nothing more than a normal channel for
information—suddenly acquires a crucial relevance, often in an embarrassing
fashion. For example, in the case of the barber of Piraeus recounted by
Plutarch, the witness cannot assume direct responsibility for making the
information (gathered by chance in his shop and then relayed to the Athenian
assembly) fully credible: in fact, he is not even able to give the name of the
person who could support the veracity of the news. When the assembly’s
request for him to identify his source is not met, the chain of information is
interrupted and the provisory trust given to the barber by the audience
collapses. Consequently, the transmission process of the knowledge fails and
the news stays mired in doubt. To borrow an apt statement of Moran’s, ‘what
remains are just words, not a reason to believe anything’.45
This is why fama and rumores, so difficult to connect to precise and easily
identifiable sources, are generally described as words or hearsay almost gifted
with a life of their own and the power to move autonomously. We might
define fama as the mechanism that transmits testimonial knowledge that is
intrinsically provisory and precarious, founded as it is on an undefined
authority.46 In fact, if we go back along the testimonial chain, after a certain
point the possibility of referring to sure sources is usually lost; we are conse-
quently unable to complete a systematic reconstruction of this path. The
information that runs along these circuits continues to exist in the absence
of a concrete possibility of verification or any assumption of responsibility, so
long as it stays part of the communicative chain, whatever its nature may be.
As soon as this chain ends, the information vanishes—or, as Plutarch said so
eloquently, ‘sinks into a bottomless sea’—because there is no longer a way to

45
See n. 34.
46
In this respect, the mechanism of fama is not so different from those simply based on an
unspecified authority. See McMyler 2011, 57: ‘Such knowledge looks to be based on appeal to
authority, even though there is no particular authority that I am in a position to cite.’ As I have
said already, the informality of the transmission process for this kind of information also adds to
its uncertainty: the news itself suffers from distortion during the course of its transfer from one
link to another on the chain.
140 Word of Mouth

continue to report it; or because it is replaced with an ‘authentic’ version of the

information (as Tertullian explained).47

5.2.3. Fides penes auctores

The verification process that I have just outlined according to the interpretive
framework proposed by McMyler is essentially based on the identification
of an origin of the communicative process, which is necessary to establish
the criteria for the assignment of epistemic responsibilities. This way of
conceiving the verification of information by drawing upon an original
source was also active in antiquity. In Latin literary texts, it is possible
to find clear, continuous documentation of the attribution of ‘epistemic’
responsibility to the auctor figure.48
To indicate this assignment of responsibility to the source (whether written
or oral), there is a recurring expression in Latin texts that may be useful to
mention. When they had to substantiate a piece of information (in some cases
diffused through none other than fama) that is difficult to verify, some writers
made recourse to a rhetorical trick that allowed them to shift responsibility to
their sources: fides penes auctorem (auctores), ‘guarantee (of the news) is the
responsibility of the source(s)’.
Seneca dedicated some attention to this expression, using it as a starting-
point for offering several sarcastic observations about the reliability of
historical and scientific texts.49 The first of these passages is found in the

47
See Ch. 3, sec. 3.3.2.
48
In general, on the limited consideration that was given to second-hand testimonies in
Roman courts, see Guérin 2015, 36–40. Verification processes are not necessarily active in all
cultures: for example, Firth 1956, 123 stated that ‘the Tikopia make no clear-cut categorical
distinction between news of verified, accurate type and rumour, unverified and often inaccurate’.
In the pages that follow I will not consider the problem of the qualities that the ancients deemed
necessary to assign an auctoritas worthy of trust to a testimony (a topic widely discussed by Cic.
Top. 73–8): in the absence of such qualities, obviously the eventual auctor would have been
unable to generate fides. However, we should remember that in antiquity the diffusion of
rumours was regularly attributed to figures who were marginal or considered unreliable: for
example, merchants and sailors, who were traditionally discredited as untrustworthy (though
autoptic) witnesses (see Jacob 1983, 57–8 and Lee 1993, 161–3).
49
See also Sall. Iug. 17.7: ‘Sed qui mortales initio Africam habuerint quique postea adcesserint
aut quo modo inter se permixti sint, quamquam ab ea fama quae plerosque obtinet diuersum est,
tamen, uti ex libris Punicis qui regis Hiempsalis dicebantur interpretatum nobis est, utique rem
sese habere cultores eius terrae putant, quam paucissumis dicam. Ceterum fides eius rei penes
auctores erit’ (on this passage, see Oniga 1995, 55–6), Plin. HN 17.93: ‘non alia maior in Baetica
arbor, in Africa uero—fides penes auctores erit—miliarias uocari multas narrant a pondere olei,
quod ferant annuo prouentu’. Cf. also Serv. auct. ad Aen. 9.78 (‘prisca fides facto sed fama
perennis’): ‘Alii sic intellegunt: fabulosum est quidem, sed fides eius rei penes priscos est: eius
enim rei, cuius auctorem facere noluit, sic ordinem protulit. Alii: iam quidem euanuit fides, hoc
est nemo credit factum, adhuc tamen fama uiuit et dicitur. “Prisca” autem “fides” ἀξιοπιστία,
quasi non sit facta historia.’ On the model of historiographic authority, programmatically
 Authority 141

Apocolocyntosis, right where Seneca introduces the imagined account of the

‘reverse’ apotheosis experienced by the emperor Claudius immediately after
his death (5.1):
Quae in terris postea sint acta, supervacuum est referre. Scitis enim optime, nec
periculum est ne excidant quae memoriae gaudium publicum impresserunt:
nemo felicitatis suae obliuiscitur. In caelo quae acta sint, audite: fides penes
auctorem erit.
It is superfluous to report the subsequent proceedings on earth, for you know
them perfectly well, and there is no danger of the events which imprinted the
people’s joy on the memory being forgotten: nobody forgets his own good
fortune. Listen to the proceedings in heaven: their trustworthiness will rest with
the source. (trans. P.T. Eden, modified)
Here, Seneca is referring to a senator50 who, a few years before, after lavish
compensation, swore he had seen the emperor Caligula’s deceased sister
Drusilla ascend to heaven, thus paving the way for her deification. He has
already invoked this episode at the beginning of the libel (1.1–3), even before
addressing the fantastical tale of Claudius’s unfortunate otherworldly career.
From the first page, Seneca makes ironic comments about the reliability of
the historians, who never give any precise guarantee of the facts that they
narrate.51 The preamble concludes with the comment that, were it truly
necessary to cite a source (si necesse fuerit auctorem producere), one could
surely turn to that man who swore he saw Drusilla ascend to heaven; he would
certainly say he had also seen Claudius hobbling along in the same direction.
The passage that we have cited refers to this same auctor once more, charging
him with responsibility for a highly implausible tale: in manifestly ironic
fashion, the source’s dubious fides is invoked to validate additional unconvin-
cing testimony.
Seneca returns to this theme in even more explicit terms in a passage of the
Naturales quaestiones. In the section dedicated to the formation of hail, he
does not dare offer the explanation that ice would form in the clouds in the
same way that it does on earth because, he says, it would be too temerarious. It
is better to advance the theory by assigning himself the position of one of the
secondary witnesses, who cannot claim to have witnessed the facts they are

founded on inquiry and on the primacy of autopsy, see Marincola 1997, 63–86 (see also 95–108
and 117–27 on the problems created for the historiographer by the usage of oral and mythic
tradition).
50
A certain Livius Geminius (or Geminus): the name is vouched for by Cass. Dio 59.11.4.
51
It is tempting to say that Seneca considered the authority of the historians to be a form of
trickery, not all that differently from Roland Barthes: ‘on peut dire que le discours historique est
un discours performatif truqué, dans lequel le constatif (le descriptif) apparent n’est en fait que le
signifiant de l’acte de parole comme acte d’autorité’ (Barthes 1993, 175).
142 Word of Mouth

relaying—better yet to adopt the unscrupulous, hypocritical attitude of the

historians (4.3.1):
Aut, quod historici faciunt, et ipse faciam; illi, cum multa mentiti sunt ad arbi-
trium suum, unam aliquam rem nolunt spondere sed adiciunt: ‘Penes auctores
fides erit’. Ergo si mihi parum credis, Posidonius tibi auctoritatem promittit tam in
illo quod praeteriit, quam in hoc quod secuturum est: grandinem enim fieri ex nube
aquosa iam et in umorem uersa sic affirmabit tamquam interfuerit.
Or I may do as historians do. After they have lied to their own satisfaction about a
lot of things, they are unwilling to guarantee some one point and toss out: ‘The
verification will be found among my sources.’ So, if you have too little confidence
in me, Posidonius guarantees you his authority both on the point he omitted and
on what follows: for he will assure you, just as though he had been present at the
process, that hail is formed in a cloud that is not only full of water but has already
changed into water. (trans. Thomas H. Corcoran)
In other words, Seneca declares himself ready to comfortably unload the
responsibility that he cannot (and does not want to) assume on Posidonius.
He does this while making clear allusions to a rhetorical tool that his readers
would have encountered many times in the glib writing of various writers,
particularly historians.
In these cases, we are dealing with brief processes of control of testimonies
that are closely related to, among other things, the practice of writing. How-
ever, the mechanism in action is the same one that we see in operation during
the oral transmission of information; the transfer of responsibility to a source
(one or more auctores) gifted with a precise and clearly defined identity. The
requests for guarantees necessary to ascertain the veracity of a piece of news
are directed towards this ‘place of responsibility’.52
The process is described very clearly in a passage of Plautus’s Trinummus.
Old Callicles is trying to discreetly remedy the extravagance of Lesbonicus, son
of Charmides, a friend of his who is currently occupied trading abroad. From
the outside, it is difficult to understand the purpose of the actions that Callicles
takes in order to protect Charmides’s assets. Even his close friend Megaronides
accepts the hostile rumours circulating about Callicles and becomes
convinced the latter is only speculating about Lesbonicus’s vices (and may
also be leading him into ruin).53 For this reason, Megaronides decides to
reproach Callicles however, once confronted with his friend’s explanations

52
In the event of a multitude of sources, it is necessary to judge which of these, if there is
dissent, is most reliable: otherwise the information remains mired in uncertainty. See e.g. Liv.
4.55.8: ‘consules ambo profecti sint ad arcem Caruentanam, an alter ad comitia habenda
substiterit, incertum diuersi auctores faciunt; illa pro certo habenda, in quibus non dissentiunt’,
etc., 22.36.1: ‘quantae autem copiae peditum equitumque additae sint adeo et numero et genere
copiarum uariant auctores, ut uix quicquam satis certum adfirmare ausus sim’.
53
ll. 98–9: ‘primumdum omnium / male dictitatur tibi uolgo in sermonibus’.
 Authority 143

he changes his mind and feels ashamed for having believed the gossip. In an
entertaining monologue (199–222), he laments his own credulity and describes
the malice of gossipers (famigeratores), who pretend to know everything but in
reality are only capable of putting false news into circulation (217–22):
quod si exquiratur usque ab stirpe auctoritas,
unde quidquid auditum dicant, nisi id appareat,
famigeratori res sit cum damno et malo,
hoc ita si fiat, publico fiat bono, 220
pauci sint faxim qui sciant quod nesciunt,
occlusioremque habeant stultiloquentiam.
But if the authority for the claim were examined down to its very roots, from
where they say they’ve heard everything, and if it were a matter of fine and
punishment for the gossip if he couldn’t produce his source, well, if it were like
that, it would be for the public benefit, I’d bet there would be few people who
know what they don’t know, and that they’d keep their foolish talk more to
themselves. (trans. Wolfgang de Melo)
The mechanism described by Plautus’s character is always the same: a path
back towards the auctor; if there is none, it is hoped that there is a possibility of
directly asking the presumed witness to assume responsibility for what is said.
In the case of fama, obviously, the intricate network of steps that allows the
transmission of information frustrates the research for that auctor, who still
remains incertus (or even nullus), and in any case cannot be identified by
name. The voices of fama continue to branch out progressively in a differentiated
but also increasingly more intricate series of testimonial chains, in this way
‘infecting’ an increasing number of people.54 In other words, it is difficult to
untangle this jumbled mass of threads in a way that allows us to revisit the original
auctor (or auctores), using the retrograde method that we have described, save in a
few lucky cases. Cicero stated this clearly while addressing the judges of the trial
for the election fraud attempted against his client Gnaeus Plancius (Planc. 56–7):
Illud unum uos magnopere oro atque obsecro, iudices, cum huius quem defendo,
tum communis periculi causa, ne fictis auditionibus, ne disseminato dispersoque
sermoni fortunas innocentium subiciendas putetis. Multi amici accusatoris, non-
nulli etiam nostri iniqui, multi communes obtrectatores atque omnium inuidi
multa finxerunt. Nihil est autem tam uolucre quam maledictum, nihil facilius
emittitur, nihil citius excipitur, latius dissipatur. Neque ego, si fontem maledicti

54
The procedure is described well in the passage that Titus Livius dedicates to Scipio
Africanus the Elder’s speech to his troops in Spain, after an attempt at mutiny following the
false news of his death (28.27.9–11): ‘fama mortis meae non accepta solum sed etiam exspectata
est . . . Sed multitudo omnis sicut natura maris per se immobilis est, [et] uenti et aurae cient; ita
aut tranquillum aut procellae in uobis sunt; et causa atque origo omnis furoris penes auctores est,
uos contagione insanistis.’ The auctores that Scipio refers to here are those of the revolt: but it is
clear that the diffusion of rumours follows an analogous path.
144 Word of Mouth
reperietis, ut neglegatis aut dissimuletis umquam postulabo. Sed si quid sine capite
manabit aut si quid erit eiusmodi ut non exstet auctor, qui audierit, <autem> aut
ita neglegens uobis esse uidebitur, ut unde audierit oblitus sit, aut ita leuem habebit
auctorem, ut memoria dignum non putarit, huius illa uox uolgaris ‘audiui’ ne quid
innocenti reo noceat oramus.
One thing I do most earnestly beg of you, gentlemen, in view of the peril which
threatens, not my client merely, but every one of us; do not consider it right that
the fate of the guiltless should lie at the mercy of fictitious rumours and idle gossip
which has been sown broadcast and passed from mouth to mouth. The inven-
tions against my client have been multitudinous as their inventors; often they
have been the work of the prosecutor’s friends, sometimes of our own ill-wishers,
often of those who make it their business to backbite and look askance upon
all and sundry without respect of persons. But there is nothing which is so
volatile as slander, nothing which slips abroad so readily, is caught up so greedily,
or disseminated so widely. If you should trace these slanders to their source
(fontem), I would not have you esteem their author lightly, nor shelter his guilt;
but if no head-waters (sine capite) can be found for some trickling rumour, and if
it cannot from the nature of things be brought home to anyone (ut non exstet
auctor), and if it shall appear to you that he who heard it was so careless as to have
forgotten from whom he heard it, or that it sprang from a source so insignificant
(leuem auctorem) that he who heard it thought it not worth his while to
remember, then we do beg you not to allow the trite phrase ‘I heard it said,’ in
the mouth of such a man, to be detrimental to my innocent client. (trans.
N. H. Watts)

5.2.4. Too Many auctores, No auctor

Fama therefore amounts to a process that structurally can almost never be

retraced along its stages back to the original source, in order to answer the
question that the Athenian assembly addressed to the barber of Piraeus (‘who
said it?’). Most of the time, it is the very number of participants implicated in
the network of diffusion that makes an investigation of this kind impossible.
As we have seen previously, Plutarch was already showing how an excess
in linguistic production tends to obscure and make the verifiability of infor-
mation unfeasible;55 and the diffusion process of rumours functions by
disproportionately multiplying the intermediary auctores. In fact, as Françoise
Reumaux observed, ‘the trademark particular to news circulated by rumour is
repetition’. During this type of communicative process, we might even say that
repetition ‘takes the place of verification’, that is to say ‘validates facts by
repeating them—which is an invitation to “go and see” while simultaneously

55
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.5.2.
 Authority 145

forbidding it’.56 In other words, repetition submerges the paths along which
the verification procedures of information are usually performed.
In such conditions, both the multiplication of the rings in the testimonial
chain and their nonlinear, net-like arrangement make the journey back to the
‘place of responsibility’ (which would be found in a specific source) an arduous
one. This even happens on the few occasions when hearsay’s life is brief
and its area of diffusion limited. Research like Edmund Lauf ’s shows how
complicated it is to reconstruct, or even just briefly outline, the labyrinthine
and net-like path of a single rumour. This is also true when we have adequate
tracking and recording technology available, something unimaginable in
earlier times. In one way or another, the original source of a rumour or
piece of gossip ends up being too remote.57
In these situations, only the impersonal or collective nature of the process that
produced the information (‘it is said that’, ‘everyone says that’) can be used to
sustain the credibility of what is said. The impossibility of reaching (or even
simply localizing) the source of the news consequently tends to be interpreted as
a sign of the mysterious or possibly polycentric nature of the information, at
whose origin a divine agent or abstract entity like Aeschines’s ‘crowd of citizens’
should be imagined. In this way, the very process that results in such uncertainty
is considered proof of the miraculous nature of the information. Obviously,
such imagined circumstances are unverifiable: none of these sources could ever
step forward and claim responsibility for that information.
The dubious origin of the news disseminated by fama also finds exceptional
nourishment in the ambiguous role carried out by the ‘intermediary sources’
on the chain of transmission. It is no exaggeration to speak of ‘intermediary
sources’, because in the oral dissemination of this type of hearsay, whoever
reports what he or she has heard from others reformulates the news, adding
and eliminating a series of details and altering the account being reproduced in
various ways.
What happens in the chainlike propagation of fama and rumores is de-
scribed very effectively in a passage of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, to which I will
return later on. In his brilliant description of Fama’s house, the poet intro-
duces the changeable crowd that fills the palace hall, intent on producing and
spreading an infinite series of rumours (Ov. Met. 12.56–8):
e quibus hi uacuas inplent sermonibus aures,
hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti
crescit, et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor.
Some of them fill vacant ears with talk, others bring what they have heard
elsewhere, and what is invented grows in size, new sources add things to what
they hear.

56 57
Reumaux 1990, 154–5. See Ch. 4, sec. 4.3.
146 Word of Mouth
While realistically describing a common occurrence during the circulation of
hearsay brought about by fama, Ovid assigns the role of auctor not only to
whoever produces the information, but also to whoever contributes ‘creatively’
to its reproduction each time (nouus).
Ovid was not the only ancient author to put the diffusion of rumores
in these terms. To cite just one possible example, Julius Caesar had also
previously described the accrual of intermediary sources in the diffusion of
rumours with great precision, in a passage of De bello ciuili (2.29):
At in castris Curionis magnus omnium incessit timor animis. Is uariis hominum
sermonibus celeriter augetur. Unusquisque enim opiniones fingebat et ad id, quod
ab alio audierat, sui aliquid timoris addebat. Hoc ubi uno auctore ad plures
permanauerat, atque alius alii tradiderat, plures auctores eius rei uidebantur.
But in Curio’s camp great alarm took possession of the minds of all, and this
alarm is quickly increased by various popular rumours. For each person invented
imaginary views and added something of his own fear to whatever he had heard
from another. When the story had spread from the first who vouched for it (ab
uno auctore) to a number of others, each handing it on to his fellow, there
appeared at last to be several who could vouch for its truth (plures auctores).
(trans. A. G. Peskett)
The features of the communicative process illustrated in this passage by Caesar
have not changed over the course of the centuries that separate us from his era.
In fact, when we speak of hearsay and gossip, we often observe that whoever
reproduces what s/he has heard said inevitably rephrases it, often adding
something to what s/he has been told and thereby carrying out the function
of an ‘additional source’ (nouus auctor) in the chain of transmission.58
It is reasonable to say that in this way the sources that deliver the rumours
are multiplied, and information consequently takes shape progressively,
undergoing a wide range of variations. Obviously the various participants in
this labyrinthine transmission turn out to be untrustworthy for various
reasons: whether because of the precarious and provisory reliability of each
of the additional speakers that diffuse the rumours, or because of the excessive
number of intermediary stages in their transmission. During this process, the
initial input is integrated and increasingly altered by the various ‘new’ sources
that are included in the reproduction of the information, which as a result
ends up primarily reflecting the expectations and anxieties of the community
involved in circulating it.59

58
The same expression, with the same meaning, also appears in one of the Disticha Catonis
(1.12): ‘Rumores fuge, ne incipias nouus auctor haberi: / nam nulli tacuisse nocet, nocet esse
locutum.’
59
An incisive statement by Lucan (1.484–6) perfectly captures this interaction between the
circulation of fama and the way in which a community invests it with its fears: ‘sic quisque
pauendo / dat uires famae, nulloque auctore malorum / quae finxere timent.’
 Authority 147

Herein lies the paradox that characterizes the communicative process that
interests us: it is inadvisable to trust this uncontrollable network of testimonial
chains, which progressively modifies the information and loses sight of the
original sources from whence it came, unless we do so in a completely
provisory manner.60

5.3. A CURIOUS MESSENGER

5.3.1. Transferring Information

The image of fama-rumour moving autonomously through space was not only
successful in antiquity. To describe this singular phenomenon, we still say
‘rumour has it that’ (or sometimes that there is ‘rumour afoot’), as if the word
were an independent being, with the power to move on its own, choosing its
paths among people.61 Giving this linguistic process the name fama, and
presenting it as something autonomous from a specific source, allows focus
on the rapid movement of the information; in contrast, the human partici-
pants that produce, hear, and reproduce this word remain in the background
(if not entirely out of the picture). The complex and indecipherable network of
transmission that puts this kind of information in motion is as if obliterated,
leaving the communicative act in plain sight. It then becomes, so to speak, an
actor—the main or even the only one—in the communicative process. In the
next chapter, we will see how this idea of a self-diffusing voice produced
personifications of fama, but first we must analyse the functions attributed
to this ‘talk’ that moves through space in more detail.
As I have stated since the beginning of this book, the ancients’ communi-
cation system was largely founded on orality. We have also seen how until
almost the mid-nineteenth century, the remote transmission of information
remained linked to the movement of human agents charged with physically
transferring the messages in oral or written form from one place to another;
and how only with the invention of the telegraph did it become possible to
separate these messages—in particular the text of the messages—from the
figure of the messenger or from the chain of messengers.
No matter how the oral and/or the written information were transferred
from one place to another, the message–messenger–path relationship is therefore

60
See Cicero’s quip, cited in Quint. Inst. 6.3.68: ‘Metaphora quoque Cicero lusit, cum Vatini
morte nuntiata, cuius parum certus dicebatur auctor: “interim” inquit “usura fruar”.’
61
See the French la rumeur court que, the Italian corre voce che, where the verbs courir and
correre correspond to the English ‘to run/flow’ (cf. also the Spanish corre la voz de que, and the
Catalan corre la veu que).
148 Word of Mouth

the background on which we must also project the metaphorical movement of

fama through space, to understand how the ancients thought of it. In such
contexts, there was usually a sender who dispatched information to one or
more receivers by way of a messenger (who safeguarded it, or preserved it
orally in his/her memory or in textual form on a written document).62 During
this process, the messengers, if acting without written aid, acted as the
guardians of the content of the message that was entrusted to them by whoever
was sending it (the auctor of that same message) and that they offered to the
receiver, giving it a form appropriate to the communicative context. Other-
wise, they acted as the guardians of the document, on which the sender had
given definitive textual form to the message s/he was sending.
It is certainly no coincidence that the movement of fama (or rumor)
through space tended to be imagined in a way analogous to that of a messen-
ger. In fact, we have already been able to see how in literary Latin texts, fama
was defined as a messenger (nuntia) several times or described in the act of
nuntiare.63 As such, she was often presented together with agents or other
instruments of remote communication (messengers, witnesses, letters, etc.). It
was also frequently remarked that she anticipated all other carriers of news, as
the flight she was imagined to be capable of ensured her immense advantage
over the human mediators who were obliged to traverse the land or the sea.64
However, she was an unusual messenger whose information remained app-
roximate and provisory, due to the lack of a clearly identified sender.65 One way

62
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.4.1. A simple variation on the second case was represented by messages
of fixed form, which were memorized and then reproduced ‘verbatim’.
63
Fama as nuntia appears many times in poetic texts: see Verg. Aen. 9.473–4 (‘interea pauidam
uolitans pennata per urbem / nuntia Fama ruit’), Ov. Her. 9.143–4 (‘scribenti nuntia uenit / fama’),
16.38 (‘nuntia fama tui’), Met. 14.726 (‘nec tibi fama mei uentura est nuntia leti’), 15.3–4
(‘praenuntia ueri / fama’), Pont. 4.4.15–6 (‘En ego laetarum uenio tibi nuntia rerum / Fama, per
inmensas aere lapsa uias’), Stat. Theb. 6.1–2 (‘Nuntia multiuago Danaas perlabitur urbes / Fama
gradu’), Val. Flac. 1.46–7 (‘non nuntia tantum / fama refert’). For the verb nuntiare predicated of
fama, see Cic. Clu. 28 (‘hominum rumor . . . nuntiauit’), Fam. 12.4.2 (‘fama nuntiabat’), Plin. HN
8.149 (‘nuntiauit hoc fama regi’), Serv. ad Aen. 4.298, 7.195 (‘fama, quae eos uenire nuntiauerat’),
8.90, Serv. auct. ad Aen. 9.471 (‘quidam uolunt ideo hic Famam pinnatam a poeta inductam, quia
tumultum et res aduersas nuntiet, ut illud tangere uideretur, quod qui bellum nuntiaret pinnatas
litteras diceretur adferre’), Tac. Hist. 1.85 (‘ut quemque nuntium fama attulisset’).
64
See e.g. Caes. BGall. 6.30.2 (‘fama ac nuntius’), 7.8.4 (‘fama ac nuntiis’), Cic. Lege Man. 25
(‘non ex proelio nuntius sed ex sermone rumor’), Prou. Cons. 22 (‘litteris fama nuntiis’), Fam.
2.8.1 (‘scribent alii, multi nuntiabunt, perferet multa etiam ipse rumor’), 3.11.1 (‘certior factus
eram litteris, nuntiis, fama denique ipsa’), Att. 1.15.1 (‘non enim dubito quin celerius tibi hoc
rumor quam ullius nostrum litterae nuntiarint’), Liv. 5.37.6 (‘antecedente fama nuntiisque
Clusinorum, deinceps inde aliorum populorum’), 24.21.5 (‘ceterum praeuenerat non fama
solum, qua nihil in talibus rebus est celerius, sed nuntius etiam ex regiis seruis’), Tac. Ann.
11.32 (‘non rumor interea, sed undique nuntii incedunt’), Hist. 2.46 (‘maesta primum fama, dein
profugi e proelio perditas res patefaciunt’).
65
See e.g. the previously quoted Cic. Fam. 12.10.2: ‘Nos de Dolabella cotidie quae uolumus
audimus, sed adhuc sine capite, sine auctore, rumore nuntio’, Mart. 7.6.1–4: ‘Ecquid Hyperboreis
ad nos conuersus ab oris / Ausonias Caesar iam parat ire uias? / Certus abest auctor, sed uox hoc
 Authority 149

of showing the unreliability of this process was to attribute the very role of source
(auctor) to fama (or to rumor) herself. See, for instance, the way in which Servius
Danielis commented on the Virgilian remark si uera est fama (Aen. 3.551):
et haec consuetudo poetae est, ut ubi de incertis dubitat, famam faciat auctorem.
and this is the habit of the poet: when he doubts uncertain news, he makes fama
his source.
Tiberius Claudius Donatus used a similar statement to explain the way in
which Virgil illustrated the genealogy of Fama (Aen. 4.178–9) when he
specified that ‘from what is said’ (ut perhibent) she would have been the last
daughter of the Earth:
quod ait ‘ut perhibent’, morem proprium tenuit; in fabulosis quippe et incredibi-
libus non se facit auctorem.
in stating ‘as they say’, he uses his typical approach; indeed, in the event of
extraordinary and unbelievable news, he does not assume responsibility (non se
facit auctorem).66
In describing the diffusion of rumours—that is, a process during which the
functions of the source and the messenger are at least ambiguous—a writer
like Virgil would therefore have shown a certain tendency to assign fama and
rumor the very roles whose definition proves problematic in some of the
communicative circuits dominated by oral/aural transmission.67
This is easily understood from the phrasing of an Ovidian passage in the
Metamorphoses. After the death of Ceyx, the divine messenger Iris is sent by
Juno to the house of Sleep: she must ask him to send Alcyone the vision of the
shipwreck in which her lover lost his life. Morpheus then takes on the aspect of
Ceyx and appears in a dream to the girl, recounting the event and asking her
for burial (11.666–8):
non haec tibi nuntiat auctor
ambiguus, non ista uagis rumoribus audis:
ipse ego fata tibi praesens mea naufragus edo.

nuntiat omnis: / Credo tibi, uerum dicere, Fama, soles.’ On the brevity with which fama performs
her duty as messenger, see Plin. Ep. 4.11.15: ‘Et sane putabam te, quia tunc afuisti, nihil aliud de
Liciniano audisse quam relegatum ob incestum. Summam enim rerum nuntiat fama non ordinem.’
66
Interpretationes vergilianae 1.378 Georges. Cf. Serv. auct. ad Aen. 9.81 (‘ipsa deum fertur
genetrix Berecyntia magnum / uocibus his adfata Iouem’): ‘sane quidam “fertur” reprehendunt,
quod dicendo auctoritatem rei detraxerit. Alii laudant, quod dicendo “fertur” incredibili rei auctor-
itatem dare noluerit.’ Clément-Tarantino 2006, 554–628 devoted an extensive and detailed discussion
to the use of the ‘on dit’ in the Roman epic, and to the notes on it by Virgilian commentators.
67
While fama and rumor are often assigned the functions of ‘saying’, ‘narrating’ or ‘referring’,
their beneficiaries are often assigned that of ‘listening’ (audire). A prime example of this is Verg.
Ecl. 9.11: ‘audieras, et fama fuit’. It is possible to glean an idea of the range of expressions used in
this way from the synthesis offered in Greenwood 1998, 307–9, on the way that Martial presents
the activity of rumours.
150 Word of Mouth

And this tale no uncertain messenger brings to you, nor do you hear it in the
words of vague report; but I myself, wrecked as you see me, tell you of my fate.
(trans. F. J. Miller)
In these lines, the unreliability of information is associated with both uagi
rumores and an auctor ambiguus and is contrasted with the direct and
immediate (praesens) testimony of the person who had the experience.
Fama (or rumor) is thus considered in the same way as an imperfect auctor,
or an uncertain source.68 Cicero also expressed himself in a similar way in his
second actio against Verres, contrasting his own well-documented arguments
about the embezzlements in which the accused was involved with the rapid
hearsay that had already spread (3.49):
Haec uos antea, iudices, audistis, uerum fortasse ita audistis ut auctorem rumorem
haberetis sermonemque omnium.
You, gentlemen, have already heard these facts. But you may have heard them
only on the authority of rumour and popular talk. (trans. L. H. G. Greenwood)

5.3.2. A Tangle of Communicative Functions

The news propagated, the messenger charged with its circulation, and the
source issuing it seem merged together in many ancient descriptions of fama.
Fama ‘flies’ here and there, in more or less the same way as divine messengers
like Hermes. However, even when reporting something that she has heard
from others, this paradoxical messenger does not speak ‘on behalf of some-
one’. In fact, there is no precise sender who set her in motion; on the contrary,
as we have seen, in many ways she seems to have set forth ‘by herself ’ (to use
the words of authors like Aeschines or Plutarch). While a messenger like
Hermes ‘carries’ a message, fama herself is the information that is spread: the
content of this information almost coincides with its being ‘spoken’ of.
Ultimately, fama does not even seem to have a clearly determined receiver;
instead, she passes from one interlocutor to another along an erratic and, all in
all, random trajectory.

68
We could obviously cite many other instances in which a similar juxtaposition appears (see
e.g. Verg. Aen. 10.510–12, cited in sec. 5.1.4. One of the most interesting examples is once again
from Ovid, in the Iphis episode of book 14 of the Metamorphoses. Just before hanging himself in
front of his beloved’s door, Iphis says that it will not be fama who inform her of his death, but the
sight of his cadaver (726–8: ‘nec tibi fama mei uentura est nuntia leti: / ipse ego, ne dubites, adero
praesensque uidebor, / corpore ut exanimi crudelia lumina pascas’). Obviously, when we wish to
retrace events far in the past, such an uncertain and unreliable auctor is often all that is available,
and therefore we must content ourselves with it. Historiographers clearly paid particular
attention to the evaluation of these kinds of sources. From the very first page of his preface,
Livy voices his concern about pointing out such situations (cf. e.g. 7.6.6: ‘nunc fama rerum
standum est, ubi certam derogat uetustas fidem’).
 Authority 151

Distinctive features specific to other forms of communication are thus

often projected onto fama, and onto the labyrinthine path that she follows
while disseminating her ‘open’ and approximate messages. These features
are typical of a well-defined testimonial chain, with clear distinction between
the roles of senders, intermediaries, and receivers of the transmitted infor-
mation, and a consequent distribution of responsibility with respect to its
content. In this way, incongruous attributes are transferred to a rather
peculiar communicative mechanism, that of rumours. As we have seen
before while examining the introduction to Shibutani’s monograph, the
information circulated by the fama mechanism does not consist of fairly
‘closed off ’ messages to which the categories original or variation can be
applied. It should rather be seen as a process of collaborative production,
which is moulded as it proceeds, acquiring characteristic overtones of the
environments where it is diffused.69
In addition, the participants in the communicative process tend to blur into
an anonymous community, thus obscuring the fundamental elements of the
linguistic process. If we use the classic diagram of Jakobsonian functions (see
Fig. 5.1), we can immediately see how the balance between the poles of this
frame of reference becomes decidedly altered.70
In the diagram, the grey zone identifies the operational area that becomes
deformed and uncertain during the propagation of hearsay, and it also proves
useful for indicating the wide-reaching activity typical of fama. Indeed, it is
fama herself who seems to encompass the roles of sender, message, and
receiver within the indistinct mass of people engaged in distributing the
information. In addition, she is the one who assumes the role of messenger,
that is to say the management of the ‘contact’ between the various participants
of the communicative process.
To describe this state of things, the ancients dreamt up a message that is born
of its own initiative and practically circulates on its own, along unforeseen

CONTEXT

ADDRESSER MESSAGE ADDRESSEE

CONTACT

CODE

Fig. 5.1. Diagram of Jakobsonian communication functions.

69 70
Shibutani 1966, 3–17. See Ch. 4, sec. 4.3.1. Here I refer to Jakobson 1960.
152 Word of Mouth

paths and at an extraordinary velocity. Fama lives on the process that con-
structs the information, and reworks it as she is sent from one interlocutor to
another. Perhaps no other communicative phenomenon so readily merits
association with McLuhan’s famous motto ‘the medium is the message’ (and
much more, we might add . . . ).
 6

Giving Rumour a Body

6 .1 . H O M E R , H E S I O D

6.1.1. Words, Omens

The inexplicable movement through space of hearsay, a force apparently gifted

with autonomy, contributed to the theory that an extraordinary power—in
some way linked to the divine sphere—was guiding it. But it took centuries
before this imagined communicative phenomenon was represented as an
actual figure with supernatural characteristics in Virgil’s Aeneid. Before then,
talk was still described generically, in literary texts, as an entity gifted with
portentous features; and in a few cases Φήμη was even explicitly assigned a
divine nature. In all the cases discussed here and in the next paragraphs, we
shall be dealing with genuine personifications; that is, with episodes where an
abstract concept takes on the features of an actual being to whom specific
actantial roles are attributed.
Such ways of conceiving the mysterious qualities of the word are already
common in Homeric epics, starting with a famous passage from book 2 of the
Iliad: here we find a description of the soldiers who come to hear Agamemnon’s
speech after the dissolution of the leaders’ assembly, where the attack on Troy
was decided. The soldiers are compared to a swarm of bees, and the spread of a
sort of rumour (ὄσσα) plays a central role in their tumult (91–4):
ὣς τῶν ἔθνεα πολλὰ νεῶν ἄπο καὶ κλισιάων
ἠϊόνος προπάροιθε βαθείης ἐστιχόωντο
ἰλαδὸν εἰς ἀγορήν· μετὰ δέ σφισιν ὄσσα δεδήει
ὀτρύνουσ’ ἰέναι Διὸς ἄγγελος· οἳ δ’ ἀγέροντο.
even so from the ships and huts before the low sea-beach marched forth in
companies their many tribes to the place of gathering. And in their midst blazed
forth Rumour, messenger of Zeus, urging them to go; and they were gathered.
(trans. A. T. Murray)

ˇσσα, the message circulating among the soldiers, receives its function from
Zeus and performs it before the mobilized troops, who are about to gather
154 Word of Mouth

before their leader.1 There is no identifiable enunciator at the origin of the

orders that the troops hasten to follow, nor is any human or divine agent
described in the act of formulating a specific command and/or assigning
someone the task of transmitting it and ensuring it is followed: the message
is directly shown to be carrying out a ‘messenger’ role. Given that the effects of
its presence are similar to those provoked by a real person, the editors tend to
assign it this special status, printing the noun with a capital letter. But such a
statute of personification remains at least ambiguous, because no movements
or specific actions of this phenomenon are described: it is only said that its
‘blaze’ compels the soldiers to move. No ‘body’ is given to the words that burn
and spur others on.2
Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize the attribute of ‘messenger of
Zeus’ assigned to the anonymous call that winds its way through the Greek
assembly: this is not the only time we see it in the Homeric poems.3 In the
Odyssey (1.282–3 and 2.216–17), it is said that the hearsay (ὄσσα) Telemachus
might pick up about his father’s fate comes from Zeus (ἐκ Διός), and that it has
the ability to diffuse information among men (μάλιστα φέρει κλέος
ἀνθρώποισι).4
In short, these and other Homeric passages seem to reveal a process during
which hearsay embodied, the concept that we are discussing, autonomously
performs the function of transferring the κλέος, the information that circulates
about something or someone.5 The sender of these words is generically
identified as the ruler of the Olympian gods, but the extremely concise form
of this indication prevents us from further specifying the connections between
ὄσσα and the divine world.

1
Later, this figure will be described as a ‘Φήμη with divine character’ in the first book of
Porphyry’s Quaestiones homericae: ἐπεὶ γὰρ ὄσσα ἡ θεία φήμη, ἣν καὶ Διὸς ἄγγελον ἔφη (p. 96
Sodano). Cf. also Scholia Vetera in Homeri Il. ad 93 c1 (Erbse 1.196): ἐν αὐτοῖς δὲ θεία τις φήμη
ἐξῆπτο καὶ διηγείρετο παρορμῶσα τὸν λαὸν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀγοράν. For the meaning and etymology of
ὄσσα (a term that refers us back to the root of ἔπος), see Chantraine 1999, 845, s.v. ὄψ. On the
general characteristics of this personification see also Gruber 1963, 31 and D’Avino 1980–1,
102–3.
2
See Wassermann 1920, 7–8.
3
At other times, the simple role of messenger is assigned to talk, without any reference to the
divine nature of this function: see e.g. the lines from the last book of the Odyssey, where the news
about the death of the suitors rapidly spreads throughout Ithaca (24.413–14): ὄσσα δ’ ἄρ’ ἄγγελος
ὦκα κατὰ πτόλιν ᾤχετο πάντῃ / μνηστήρων στυγερὸν θάνατον καὶ κῆρ’ ἐνέπουσα. Also see Larran
2011, 26–8.
4
In similar passages, we can also find other terms in place of ὄσσα, like κληηδών (or κλεηδών):
for example see e.g. Od. 4.317. This is an action noun derived from κλέος (see Chantraine 1999,
540, s.v. κλέος): on its meaning see Greindl 1938, 10. For the relationship between this termin-
ology and the divine sphere, see Apollon. Lex. Hom. 123.23 Bekker: ὄσσα κληδών, φήμη ἐκ θεοῦ·
ὅθεν καὶ οἱ Ἀττικοὶ ὀττεύεσθαι λέγουσι τὸ κληδονίζειν. ὀττευομένη, ἥτις ἐστὶν κληδονιζομένη.
5
For the meaning of κλέος (a term in many ways similar to fama) and an overview of the epic
and lyric uses of the semantic family to which it belongs, see Greindl 1938, 5–30 and 94–7, West
2007, 397–8, Larran 2011, 11–15 and passim.
 Giving Rumour a Body 155

To better understand the significance of conceiving the relationship

between these voices and Zeus in this way, it is useful to consider other
excerpts from the Homeric poems where the term φήμη appears.6 Particularly
instructive is an episode found in book 20 of the Odyssey (100–21). Odysseus
has just had an auspicious vision, and begs Zeus to vouch for the correct
interpretation of its exact meaning by sending him two signs of confirmation,
one human and one divine:
φήμην τίς μοι φάσθω ἐγειρομένων ἀνθρώπων
ἔνδοθεν, ἔκτοσθεν δὲ Διὸς τέρας ἄλλο φανήτω.
let some one of those who are awaking utter a word of omen for me within, and
without let a sign from Zeus be shown besides. (trans. A. T. Murray)
The word of omen (φήμη), fortuitous but laden with meaning, that is request-
ed from Zeus by Odysseus, must find support and confirmation in a miracle
directly carried out by the god.7 He obliges the hero, and the miracle imme-
diately occurs (Od. 20.102–6):
ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος· τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε μητίετα Ζεύς,
αὐτίκα δ’ ἐβρόντησεν ἀπ’ αἰγλήεντος Ὀλύμπου,
ὑψόθεν ἐκ νεφέων· γήθησε δὲ δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς.
φήμην δ’ ἐξ οἴκοιο γυνὴ προέηκεν ἀλετρὶς
πλησίον, ἔνθ’ ἄρα οἱ μύλαι εἵατο ποιμένι λαῶν.
So he spoke in prayer, and Zeus the counsellor heard him. Straightway he
thundered from gleaming Olympus, from on high from out the clouds; and
goodly Odysseus was glad. And a woman, grinding at the mill, uttered a word of
omen from within the house hard by, where the mills of the shepherd of the
people were set. (trans. A. T. Murray)
After hearing thunder in a calm sky, a servant in the house sends the desired
sign to her master without realizing it (111: ἥ ῥα μύλην στήσασα ἔπος φάτο,
σῆμα ἄνακτι, ‘she now stopped her mill and spoke a word, a sign for her
master’). In fact, she exclaims that Zeus must be sending someone a sign and
hopes that her wish—for the suitors to finally be expelled from Odysseus’s
house—will also be realized.8 The hero registers this exact fulfilment of his
requests with joy (120–1):
ὣς ἄρ’ ἔφη, χαῖρεν δὲ κλεηδόνι δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
Ζηνός τε βροντῇ· φάτο γὰρ τείσασθαι ἀλείτας.

6
This discussion could include the terms that share the same root with φήμη (beginning with
φῆμις or φάτις). To have an idea of the semantic nuances that distinguish the various elements of
this terminology, at least in the context of the epic and of Greek theatre, the material discussed
by Ogle 1924, 95–105 is still of some use.
7
Also see Od. 2.35, where Telemachus welcomes the auspicious words of Aegyptius as a
positive omen (ὣς φάτο, χαῖρε δὲ φήμῃ Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱός).
8
114: τέρας νύ τεῳ τόδε φαίνεις.
156 Word of Mouth

So she spoke, and goodly Odysseus was glad at the word of omen and at the
thunder of Zeus, for he thought he had gotten vengeance on the guilty. (trans.
A. T. Murray)
Odysseus rejoices when his servant unintentionally offers him a piece of
information (κλεηδών); information that only he is able to decode and that
goes over the oblivious servant’s head because it is destined for the hero by the
god himself.9 In this case, too, it is the ruler of the gods who acts as the sender
of the message dispatched to the hero: but once again, it is impossible to say
anything precise about a voice directed to men by Zeus through a chance and
mysterious process. In contrast to what we have seen happen with ὄσσα, these
words (φήμη, ἔπος) have no autonomy: they constitute a simple announce-
ment that leaves the mouth of a human agent, although it does acquire a
specific (and ‘divine’) value in the hero’s eyes.
This manner of considering chance words as oracular signs has a long and
complex history in Greek culture that is not possible to fully address here. To
give just one entertaining example, centuries later Aristophanes makes a
mockery of it at the end of the parabasis of The Birds, when the chorus
engages in untranslatable wordplay. It reproaches mankind for considering
almost anything an omen with divinatory purposes: and to say ‘omen’ it uses
the term ὄρνις, in a reference to the process of decoding divine signs that the
ancients often based on the flight of birds (719–21):10
ὄρνιν τε νομίζετε πάνθ’ ὅσαπερ περὶ μαντείας διακρίνει·
φήμη γ’ ὑμῖν ὄρνις ἐστί, πταρμόν τ’ ὄρνιθα καλεῖτε,
ξύμβολον ὄρνιν, φωνὴν ὄρνιν, θεράποντ’ ὄρνιν, ὄνον ὄρνιν.
And everything that has decisive significance in relation to divination you classify
as a ‘bird’ (ὄρνιν): an ominous utterance (φήμη) is a ‘bird’ in your terms, and you

9
On the meaning of κλεηδών in this excerpt, see Hirvonen 1969, 9 (who observes how this
kind of omen is isolated in Homeric poems, although the term κλεηδών, κληηδών appears with
the meanings ‘good omen’ and ‘news’) and the note ad 18.117 in Russo 1993, 53–4: ‘ “He rejoiced at
the verbal omen” is the nearest translation, but κλεηδών / κληηδών has no exact equivalent . . . The
specialized meaning “verbal omen, presage” follows the habit of nouns in -δών, -ηδών. . . . It has
long been noted . . . that κλεηδών and φήμη largely overlap in meaning.’ On κληδονισμός (the form
of divination that drew its answers from randomly gathered information), see Bettini 2011, 4–6.
We also see this way of perceiving φήμη later on in Greek literature. There is a noteworthy example
in a passage by Sophocles. At the beginning of Oedipus Rex, the priest of Zeus asks the king for help
on behalf of the citizens (40–3): νῦν δ’, ὦ κράτιστον πᾶσιν Οἰδίπου κάρα, / ἱκετεύομέν σε πάντες οἵδε
πρόστροποι / ἀλκήν τιν’ εὑρεῖν ἡμίν, εἴτε του θεῶν / φήμην ἀκούσας εἴτ’ ἀπ’ ἀνδρὸς οἶσθά που. The
human φήμη might also serve as an omen in this case, as already suggested in the Moschopoulos
scholia ad loc. (p. 7 Longo): φήμην] χρησμόν . . . εἴτ’ ἀπ’ ἀνδρός τινος ἀκούσας, μαντείαν δηλονότι,
οἶσθα. ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν θεῶν ἀπαντᾷ ὁ χρησμὸς οἰκείως· ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς προσυπακούεται ἡ μαντεία
οἰκείως κατ’ ἀναλογίαν.
10
This lexical choice will be used later for giving ‘solid’ foundation to the proposal that the
birds make to the men about becoming their new gods.
 Giving Rumour a Body 157

call a sneeze a ‘bird’, a chance encounter a ‘bird’, a sound a ‘bird’, a servant a

‘bird’, a donkey a ‘bird’.11 (trans. Alan H. Sommerstein)
Out of all the potentially miraculous events that receive the definition ‘birds/
omens’, φήμη, with its indeterminate origin, its flight, and its vague, divine
features, seems to be the most apt recipient of such a name. The chorus’s
wordplay deliberately confuses the planes of reference: φήμη seems almost
suspended, ready to take on the traits of an animate being after only slightly
pushing the limits of the rhetorical ploy used.

6.1.2. Φήμη is a God

How should we imagine the features of the hearsay that passes through the air
of the ancients’ imagination? Its movements, its divine origin, and its role as
messenger are not represented by a well-defined image in the Homeric poems
(or, more generally, in archaic texts). In the past, while commenting on
passages like those we have just examined, scholars have often highlighted
how impossible it is to establish with certainty when talk can be considered a
genuine personification and when it cannot. In addition, it remains unclear
whether or not—and to what degree—these messages were conferred with a
divine nature.
It is no different when we move on from the Homeric texts to examine the
famous passage in which Hesiod warns Perses to escape the terrible power of
evil φήμη. In these lines, the divine nature of Φήμη is clearly affirmed, and yet
it is still impossible to bring the features of its form into focus (Op. 760–4):
ὧδ’ ἔρδειν· δειλὴν δὲ βροτῶν ὑπαλεύεο φήμην·
φήμη γάρ τε κακὴ πέλεται κούφη μὲν ἀεῖραι
ῥεῖα μάλ’, ἀργαλέη δὲ φέρειν, χαλεπὴ δ’ ἀποθέσθαι.
φήμη δ’ οὔ τις πάμπαν ἀπόλλυται, ἥντινα πολλοὶ
λαοὶ φημίξουσι· θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή.
Act this way. Avoid the wretched talk of mortals. For talk is evil: it is light to raise
up quite easily, but it is difficult to bear, and hard to put down. No talk is ever
entirely gotten rid of, once many people talk it up: it too is some god. (trans.
Glenn W. Most)

11
See Dunbar 1995, 456–8 and Imperio 2004, 377–81 (on this passage, and on the import-
ance of the birds in divination as ‘divine messengers’, see also Wackernagel 1874, 205–12). For
the valuation of the terminology used here by Aristophanes, see the two fragments of Philo-
chorus preserved in the Scholia vetera to Pindar. Ol. 12.10d (Φιλόχορος δὲ τὰς ἐκ φήμης μαντείας,
τουτέστι κληδόνας καὶ πταρμοὺς σύμβολόν φησι λέγεσθαι· χρήσασθαι δὲ αὐτοῖς πρώτην
Δήμητραν) and in Hesych. s.v. ξυμβόλους.
158 Word of Mouth

Here, Hesiod refers to ‘what is said about someone’; and in this case, hearsay is
described as having decidedly evil and hostile connotations (κακὴ).12 It is a
menacing presence, described with metaphorical expressions that imply it has
an unstable mass, which changes over time. Once again, we cannot call this a
genuine personification. Even the divine nature of the talk mentioned, rather
than being a specific attribute, seems to depend more on a vague suggestion.13
Nor does Hesiod’s final assertion that φήμη too is a god explicitly relate her
divinity to the supernatural power that is generally attributed to what is said
about someone; the φήμη in question possesses neither the traits of the
messenger we have seen appear with regard to the Homeric ὄσσα, nor those
of the chance message that is able to transmit a meaningful omen. Its origin is
clearly linked to human activity. This time, the target of discussion includes
those who produce the words: but it is an indistinct entity, consisting of a large
number of people (πολλοὶ λαοί ). We might say that the ‘divinity’ of Hesiod’s
‘talk’ no longer comes from Zeus or the gods but from men: its multiplied,
vast, and undifferentiated production seems to provide this φήμη with the
ability to survive over time, giving it a kind of obstinate durability, if not
exactly immortality.14
It is not necessary to linger over this passage, which offers us a concise
vision of φήμη that is in many respects an isolated case among the surviving
creations of archaic Greece. It is genuinely difficult to fully understand the
Hesiodic interpretation of φήμη based on such a brief and isolated reference.
Nor is it a coincidence that, in later tradition, an excerpt with such rich
polysemic potential was often used to support very different (and very biased)
perspectives on the mysterious nature of this phenomenon. We have already
seen this with Aeschines, who used Hesiod’s lines as the basis for his specious
arguments in support of the alleged veracity that should be attributed to
popular hearsay. For the purposes of our discussion, it is more important to

12
To express the same idea, Homer always uses the form φῆμις. Homeric expressions that
refer back to an idea of talk that spreads among people, similar to what we can find in these lines
by Hesiod, appear in Od. 14.239 (χαλεπὴ . . . δήμου φῆμις), 6.273–4, 15.468, 16.75, 19.527 (see also
24.201 and Il. 10.207). In contrast, in his classification of the lexicon related to the parole in
Hesiod, Leclerc 1993, 35 translates the term φήμη as ‘réputation’ and the verb φημίζω as
‘répandre une réputation’.
13
See Stafford 2000, 10–11: ‘The circumlocution suggests this is a poetic way of emphasizing
rumour’s power rather than a reference to a deity already recognized by Hesiod’s audience.’ Also
see Wassermann 1920, 12–13, Péron 1976, 288, Burkert 2005, 15, Gödde 2005, 159–60.
14
I see no reason to deny that inextinguishability and multiple transmission are indicated to
be the core of φήμη’s divine nature. The statements in West 1978, 345 (‘it is not her imperish-
ability that makes it worth dubbing her a goddess so much as her influence on life’) have no
foundation in Hesiod’s text; nor does the one in Lewis 1996, 12 (‘Hesiod characterises φήμη as
divine because it cannot be stopped by human means once sent abroad, emphasizing its self-
generating nature’: auto-generation is a trait that explicitly appears only in later texts that
comment on these Hesiodic lines).
 Giving Rumour a Body 159

highlight that we have just seen the oldest known literary testimony of φήμη
being explicitly introduced as a ‘deity’ (θεός).15

6. 2 . THE CULT OF Φήμη

6.2.1. If Φήμη is a Goddess

Ἄ[ϊξον, ὦ] σεμνοδότειρα Φήμα,

ἐς Κ[έον ἱ]εράν, χαριτώ-
νυμ[ον] φέρουσ’ ἀγγελίαν,
ὅτι μ[ά]χας θρασύχειρ<ος> Ἀρ-
γεῖο[ς ἄ]ρατο νίκαν.
Fame, whose gifts are revered, speed to holy Ceos bringing the gracious message:
that Argeius won the victory in the battle of bold hands.16 (trans. Diane Arnson
Svarlien)
The second of the epinician odes of Bacchylides opens with this call to Φήμα.
The poet addresses the voice that brings news of the victory of Argeios at the
Isthmian games, invoking it as if it were a divine messenger ready to take flight
towards Ceos. Judging by the verbs used to indicate its movements, this seems
to be an instance of a genuine personification of the ‘word’ that announces
success: Φήμα takes flight and brings news, and consequently the editors signal
its possible status as a character with an initial capital letter.17 This time, we
are not dealing with the malicious rumours and resulting poor reputation that
Hesiod wanted to warn his brother against, but rather a benevolent harbinger
of victory. As usual, in this case it is also difficult to determine whether the
poet truly intended to describe an animate being or whether he was simply
using metaphorical language: in fact, it is impossible to detail the imagined
character’s appearance. In any case, a certain individuality—supernatural, of

15
See Ch. 3, sec. 3.1.1, and sec. 6.2.2. For other citations of this passage, see Arist. Eth. Nic.
7.13 (1153b 25–30), Plut. Quaest. conu. 737C and Mor. Fr. 99 Sandbach, Dio Chrys. Or. 37.47,
Aristid. Or. 46, 150 Jebb, Procop. Gaz. Ep. 40 (cf. sec. 6.2.2).
16
I cite this text according to the Irigoin 1993 and Maehler 2003 editions. Previously, other
editors had constructed it differently: Jebb 1905, 250 printed Ἄ[ϊξεν, ἁ]. In all likelihood, the
tenth of the epinician odes also began with an analogous invocation to the Φήμα, but it has
reached us in too fragmentary a state. Instead of beginning with an invocation to this messenger
of victory, the eleventh ode opens with an invocation to ‘Victory, giver of sweet gifts’ (Νίκα
γλυκύδωρε). Explaining the adjective χαριτώνυμ[ον] as ‘a message “of gracious import”; lit.
“fraught with a gracious name,” i.e. speaking of “victory” (l. 5)’, Jebb 1905, 250–1 suggested
that it was also possible to glimpse an implicit reference to the personified Victory in the
invocation of Φήμη.
17
See Greindl 1938, 85 and Nünlist 1998, 79.
160 Word of Mouth

course—is being assigned to an abstract concept, just like the one we are
contemplating.18
Throughout antiquity, poets have often spoken similarly of Φήμη/Fama,
harbinger of victory, describing it as a supernatural entity—it is not even
possible to determine whether it is a genuine deity. We almost always come
across expressions that are equally ambiguous in their generality. We have an
eloquent testimony from a text far removed from the time of Bacchylides, on
the difficulty of establishing what the true nature of this alleged character is.19
I refer to an epigram by Palladas, who insinuates that the news brought by
Φήμη is accurate only when it concerns disgrace and defeat (Anth. Pal. 10.89):
Εἰ θεὸς ἡ Φήμη, κεχολωμένη ἐστὶ καὶ αὐτὴ
Ἕλλησι, σφαλεροῖς ἐξαπατῶσα λόγοις.
Φήμη δ’, ἄν τι πάθῃς, ἀναφαίνεται εὐθὺς ἀληθής·
πολλάκι καὶ Φήμην ἔφθασεν ἡ ταχυτής.
If Rumour be a goddess, she too as well as the other gods is wroth with the Greeks and
cozens them with deceptive words. Rumour, if any evil befall thee, at once is proved
to be true, and often the rapidity of events anticipates her. (trans. W. R. Paton)
These lines seem to allude to a false announcement of victory, which must
have tricked the Hellenes (that is, the non-Christians): what appeared to be
propitious news was then revealed to be a lie. The poet implies that, in
contrast, when news is negative, it is immediately revealed to be true. In this
highly ironic introduction, Φήμη is therefore associated with the group of
traditional deities that, following the triumph of Christianity, were abandon-
ing the Greeks.20
In any case, even in a late epigram like this one, the divine nature of Φήμη—
who harbours decidedly ‘human’ feelings towards mortals—is still spoken of
hesitantly. Is Φήμη a goddess or not? If so, what kind of deity is she? And
finally, what form does she have? It is impossible to give an answer that
definitively answers such questions. Subject to the few exceptions we address
later on, the appearance of this character, even when introduced as a genuine
deity, generally remains indefinable in the texts of antiquity.

18
This same discussion is also relevant to the hints of analogous personification that recur in
the oldest texts of the Greek literature that have reached us (examined in Wassermann 1920,
6–34).
19
The reference to a φάτις νικηφόρος was also speculatively restored to the laudatory elegiac
fragment Suppl. Hell. 969, l. 1: see most recently Barbantani 2001, 73, 95–7, 116, and 225–6.
20
The identification of the events referred to here depends on the dating of the piece by
Palladas. The dominant theory tended to identify the episode as one of the defeats of the usurper
Eugenius, which marked the end of all hope for the pagans. A few years ago Wilkinson 2009,
53–4, in the context of a new reconstruction of the chronology of Palladas (traditionally placed
between the last decade of the fourth century and the end of the first quarter of the fifth century
CE), proposed moving the epigram’s date to a period immediately following the civil war waged
between Licinius and Constantine in 324 CE (also see Wilkinson 2012, 54–6).
 Giving Rumour a Body 161

6.2.2. The Altar of Φήμη

If we then examine the treatment our character has received on the specifically
religious plane, we find few witnesses that document with certainty a form of
cult dedicated to Φήμη. In addition, they are all related to a single case that
dates back to fifth-century BCE Athens. We first hear about this from Aeschi-
nes, in his speech Against Timarchus, which we examined earlier.21 The orator
affirmed that Φήμη is divine and truthful, so much so that it even ‘prophesies
what is about to be’ (μαντεύεται περὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἔσεσθαι). In order to
support this affirmation, he added (128):
Καὶ οὕτως ἐναργές ἐστι καὶ οὐ πεπλασμένον ὃ λέγω ὥσθ’ εὑρήσετε καὶ τὴν πόλιν
ἡμῶν καὶ τοὺς προγόνους φήμης ὡς θεοῦ μεγίστης βωμὸν ἱδρυμένους.
So clear is this point which I am making, and far from contrivance, that you will
find that our city and our ancestors have established an altar to Report as to one
of the greatest gods. (trans. Nick Fisher)
In Athens there was, at least, an altar of Φήμη, which was honoured with
some form of devotional practice. The same orator reiterates this in De falsa
legatione (145), insisting on the fact that public sacrifices are offered to
Φήμη the way they are to a goddess (Καὶ τῇ μὲν φήμῃ δημοσίᾳ θύομεν ὡς
θεῷ). We consequently find ourselves facing one of those paradigmatic cases
where divinization is associated with the personification of an abstract
concept, demonstrated by the existence of a form of genuine public cult.
But once again, we are missing further details that would allow us to better
understand what kind of figure our character was imagined to be in the
ancient world.
Among the scholia on the oration Against Timarchus, we find a note about
section 128 that also allows us to put a date on the cult’s foundation, placing it
between the early and mid-460s. The altar of Φήμη would in fact have been a
complete novelty, installed just after the battle of the Eurymedon, of which
news arrived to Athens at a miraculous speed:22
Φήμης] Ἀθήνησίν ἐστι βωμὸς Φήμης. Ἄλλως. Κίμωνος ἐν Παμφυλίᾳ νικήσαντος
ναυμαχίαν καὶ πεζομαχίαν αὐθημερὸν ἔγνωσαν Ἀθηναῖοι, ὡς ὕστερον αὐτοῦ διὰ
γραμμάτων τὴν νίκην σημήναντος· ὅθεν πρῶτον καὶ βωμὸν τῇ Φήμῃ ὡς θεῷ
ἀνιδρύσαντο.

21
Cf. Ch. 3, sec. 3.1.1.
22
Procopius of Gaza (Ep. 40), however, connects the erection of the altar to the incident of
the miraculous announcement of the victory at Plataea. It is likely he was confusing two events
that were both related via ‘miraculous’ communications attributed to Φήμη (see sec. 6.1.2): Νῦν
ὄντως ἔγνων ὡς οὐκ ἦν ἄρα λόγος ἀλλ’ ἔργον ἡ φήμη, καὶ θαυμάζω τάχα τὸν νόμον τὸν Ἀττικόν,
ὃς ἐν θεοῖς καὶ ταύτην ἱδρύσατο. οὐ γὰρ δὴ μόνον Ἡσίοδος θεὸν αὐτὴν ἀνυμνεῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι
οἱ τὴν ἐν Μυκάλῃ μάχην αὐθημερὸν ἐγνωκότες οὐκ ἀνεκτὸν ἔφασαν εἰ μὴ θεὸν ἡγοῖντο τὴν
Φήμην.
162 Word of Mouth
Phemes: at Athens there is an altar of Pheme. And again: when Cimon won both
the sea- and land-battles in Pamphylia the Athenians learned this the same day,
whereas he subsequently announced the victory in writing. This is why for the
first time they also raised an altar to Pheme, as if for a goddess.
If we are to believe this news and we follow the reasoning of Aeschines, we
must conclude that the Athenians dedicated a genuine cult to the ‘divine’
entity capable of miraculously spreading the most disparate information—
whether propitious news like Cimon’s victory or the unfortunate gossip about
the behaviour of Timarchus. With evident bias, Aeschines associated Hesiod’s
obscure and onerous deity with the Φήμη venerated by the Athenians, whom
we can imagine more or less as like the messenger of victory invoked by
Bacchylides. His decision to connect the presumed divine nature of Φήμη to
such different informative functions seems rather daring; however it proves
very interesting for the sake of our discussion. The Athenian community was
in fact invited to contemplate a common supernatural entity that incorporated
these two different communicative functions, the only one capable of justify-
ing the inexplicable and extraordinary ability to produce and propagate news
of all kinds everywhere.23 The outcome of the trial of Timarchus suggests that
the Athenians could find reasoning of this kind acceptable.
The presence in Athens of an altar and devotional forms dedicated to Φήμη
must have held a certain importance, as three centuries later Pausanias,
in his description of the Athenian ἀγορά, cited the altar of Φήμη (along with
those of Respect, Αἰδώς, and Ardour, ῾Ορμή) as evidence of an extraordinary
religiousness.24
However, despite the long persistence in the Athenian environment of this
devotion to Φήμη, the contours of the divine figure and the cult dedicated to it
remain wholly indeterminable. We do not know of other similar cases of
devotion dedicated to an entity of this kind. In addition, such little informa-
tion about the altar of the ἀγορά gives us no more than a generic demonstra-
tion of recognition on the part of the Athenians of an equally generic
supernatural power that had brought (and who they hoped would continue

23
This is probably one of the oldest personifications around which a genuine cult developed:
see Shapiro 1993, 12–13.
24
Paus. 1.17.1: Ἀθηναίοις δὲ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ καὶ ἄλλα ἐστὶν οὐκ ἐς ἅπαντας ἐπίσημα καὶ Ἐλέου
βωμός, ᾧ μάλιστα θεῶν ἐς ἀνθρώπινον βίον καὶ μεταβολὰς πραγμάτων ὄντι ὠφελίμῳ μόνοι τιμὰς
Ἑλλήνων νέμουσιν Ἀθηναῖοι. τούτοις δὲ οὐ τὰ ἐς φιλανθρωπίαν μόνον καθέστηκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ θεοὺς
εὐσεβοῦσιν ἄλλων πλέον, καὶ γὰρ Αἰδοῦς σφισι βωμός ἐστι καὶ Φήμης καὶ Ὁρμῆς· δῆλά τε ἐναργῶς,
ὅσοις πλέον τι ἑτέρων εὐσεβείας μέτεστιν, ἴσον σφίσι παρὸν τύχης χρηστῆς (‘In the Athenian
market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar to Mercy, of all divinities the
most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes of fortune, but honoured by the
Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous not only for their humanity but
also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one
to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good
fortune’; trans. W. H. S. Jones).
 Giving Rumour a Body 163

to bring) them joy and victory. With testimonies like these, it is not even
possible to clarify the possible relationships between the figure of Νίκη and
that of Φήμη, assuming that the latter, in the eyes of the Athenians, really did
have its own aspect.25

6.2.3. Aius Locutius

If we move on to discuss the Roman environment, we do not find analogous

forms of devotion reserved for a character like the Greek Φήμη. Still, it is
possible to observe analogous cultic initiatives dedicated to other entities with
vaguely similar characteristics to those of the figure we are examining.
Particularly interesting for this discussion is a form of cult established—by
an initiative not unlike the one at the source of the Athenian Φήμη that
Aeschines describes—to commemorate a supernatural event that might have
been particularly joyful had it been correctly interpreted. In this case, too, we
could speak of a devotional form given to a miraculous voice.26 I refer to an
episode that occurred in 390 in Rome, prior to and after the Gallic invasion.
The protagonist of this story is a certain Marcus Caedicius. In the account of
the facts furnished by Livy in book 5 of his historical work, this man, of
plebeian origin, presented himself to the tribunes to report that at night, while
going down the Noua uia, near the temple of Vesta, he heard a supernatural
voice (uocem . . . clariorem humana) that commanded him to inform the
magistrates about the imminent arrive of the Gauls. But the low social ranking
of the individual providing this testimony (propter auctoris humilitatem) and
the improbability of the suggested threat—despite its divine origin (deorum . . .
monita)—was disregarded (spretum), to the detriment of the city.27
After the decisive intervention of Furius Camillus and the definitive defeat
of the Gauls, it was considered necessary to set right the error committed,
erecting a sacellum to the unknown Voice, which had tried in vain to warn the

25
Parker 1996, 233–7 proposed envisaging the Athenian cult of Φήμη as associated with
those of Hermes and Eukleia, but there is no solid documentary evidence to support this
hypothesis.
26
It would be useful to gather possible clues of similar operations from sources like votive
inscriptions. The following (unfortunately not datable) from Tusculum appears to be one such
text: Φήμῃ εὐαγγέλῳ (IG XIV, 1120).
27
Liv. 5.32.6–7: ‘Eodem anno M. Caedicius de plebe nuntiauit tribunis se in Noua uia, ubi
nunc sacellum est supra aedem Vestae, uocem noctis silentio audisse clariorem humana, quae
magistratibus dici iuberet Gallos aduentare. Id ut fit propter auctoris humilitatem spretum et
quod longinqua eoque ignotior gens erat. Neque deorum modo monita ingruente fato spreta, sed
humanam quoque opem, quae una erat, M. Furium ab urbe amouere.’ The episode was also
recounted by Cassius Dio in book 7 of his Roman History (in Zonar, 7.23c). For the essential
information and the bibliography related to this victory see Engels 2007, 374–5 and n. 191 (also
see Gall 2008, 31–2). The entire episode exhibits some clear similarities with the one regarding
the announcement of the victory of Pydna by the Dioscuri: see Ch. 1, sec. 1.6.2.
164 Word of Mouth

Romans of the imminent danger. This voice was given the name Aius Locutius
(5.50.5):
Expiandae etiam uocis nocturnae quae nuntia cladis ante bellum Gallicum audita
neglectaque esset mentio inlata, iussumque templum in Noua uia Aio Locutio fieri.
A proposal was made, too, for propitiating the voice which was heard in the night
to foretell disaster before the Gallic War, and was disregarded, and a temple was
ordered to be built in the Nova Via to Aius Locutius.28 (trans. B. O. Foster)
In this case, too, we are dealing with a supernatural voice that was the basis for
a minor cult built around a specific occasion. In this instance, the Roman
people did not intend to thank the mysterious voice for services rendered to
the community, but to atone for not having recognized the divine nature of the
message received at the time; particularly given that the information was not a
communication of a victory that had already been achieved, but a warning of
an impending threat, which was then promptly confirmed.
An episode like this one could not be absent from the gallery of presumed
divine phenomena discussed in the Ciceronian treatise on divination. In fact,
in book 1, in the section specifically dedicated to the premonitory voices of the
gods, heard by men in the event of battles or during uprisings (in proeliis . . . et
in rebus turbidis), Cicero’s brother Quintus chooses this very event as the main
example for the entire category.29
Like all Quintus’s arguments, this one, related to the existence of divine
prophetic voices, is then torn apart by Cicero himself in book 2 of the same
work (2.69):
‘At paulo post audita uox est monentis ut prouiderent ne a Gallis Roma caperetur;
ex eo Aio Loquenti aram in noua uia consecratam.’ Quid ergo? Aius iste Loquens,
quom eum nemo norat, et aiebat et loquebatur et ex eo nomen inuenit; postea-
quam et sedem et aram et nomen inuenit, obmutuit!
‘And, not long after this occurred, a voice was heard’, you say, ‘warning the people
to take steps to prevent the capture of Rome by the Gauls. Therefore an altar was
erected on the Nova Via in honour of Aius the Speaker.’ But why? Did your ‘Aius
the Speaker’, before anybody knew who he was, both speak (aiebat) and talk
(loquebatur) and from that fact receive his name? And after he had secured a seat,
an altar, and a name did he become mute? (trans. William Armistead Falconer)

28
Also see 5.52.11: ‘Aio Locutio templum propter caelestem uocem exauditam in Noua uia
iussimus fieri.’
29
Cic. Diu. 1.101: ‘Nam non multo ante urbem captam exaudita uox est a luco Vestae, qui a
Palati radice in nouam uiam deuexus est, ut muri et portae reficerentur; futurum esse, nisi
prouisum esset, ut Roma caperetur. Quod neglectum cum caueri poterat, post acceptam illam
maximam cladem expiatum est; ara enim Aio Loquenti, quam saeptam uidemus, exaduersus
eum locum consecrata est.’ See the notes on this passage in Pease 1920–3, 279–81. Among the
differences from the Livian version the omission of the name Marcus Caedicius and the slightly
modified form of the name (Aius Loquens instead of Aius Locutius) are noteworthy.
 Giving Rumour a Body 165

This sound Ciceronian irony truly exposes the process of creation of the divine
person who was designed expressly to give shape to an unexplainable phe-
nomenon. A name based on the root of the verbs meaning ‘to say’ (aio and
loquor) was forged, with the intent to identify the unknown sender of the
message; a place and cult were also consecrated to it so as to establish a
religious relationship, founded on the fear of having been disrespectful to
a divine entity. However, there is practically nothing else behind this oper-
ation. It is not so much an anthropomorphic figure that is being divinized as a
communicative prophetic act, attributed to a mysterious voice.30
It is important to highlight how also in the case of Aius Locutius (or
Loquens), the name of the deity ‘that spoke’ was built on two different roots
of verbs meaning ‘to say’. In this case, we are not simply dealing with the
divinization of an abstract and generic term in common use, which indicates a
collective, unexplainable phenomenon, as is the case with the Athenian Φήμη:
it is an individuality that was designed ad hoc to evoke the preternatural being
(of masculine gender) who had communicated the mysterious prophecy to a
very specific person.31
Plutarch also recalled the same event in his biography of Furius Camillus.
According to the biographer, right after celebrating the triumph over the
Gauls, Camillus was occupied with (among other things) some practical
matters necessary for re-establishing the religious order upset by the conflict
(Cam. 30.4):32
θύσας δὲ τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ καθάρας τὴν πόλιν ἐξηγουμένων τῶν περὶ ταῦτα δεινῶν, τὰ
μὲν ὄντα τῶν ἱερῶν κατέστησεν, αὐτὸς δ’ ἱδρύσατο νεὼν Φήμης καὶ Κληδόνος,
ἀνευρὼν ἐκεῖνον τὸν τόπον ἐν ᾧ νύκτωρ ἡ καταγγέλλουσα τὴν τῶν βαρβάρων
στρατείαν ἐκ θεοῦ τῷ Καιδικίῳ φωνὴ προσέπεσε.

30
Also see the way in which Varro reconstructed the etymology of the name Aius Locutius (in
Gell. 16.17.2, on the origin of the name given to the god Vaticanus) in the Rerum diuinarum libri:
‘Nam sicut Aius, inquit, deus appellatus araque ei statuta est, quae est infima noua uia, quod eo in
loco diuinitus uox edita erat, ita Vaticanus deus nominatus, penes quem essent uocis humanae
initia, quoniam pueri, simul atque parti sunt, eam primam uocem edunt, quae prima in Vaticano
syllabast idcircoque “uagire” dicitur exprimente uerbo sonum uocis recentis.’ Varro implicitly
connects the root of aius to the action uocem edere.
31
Tertullian may also have been referencing this in Ad nat. 2.11.7 (but the text is very
corrupted). Because of how its name was formed, Peter 1890–4, 191–2 even managed to add Aius
Locutius to the Indigitamenta. Also see Perfigli 2004, 36–8 on the minor deities linked to the
sphere of fari and loqui.
32
The episode of the mysterious message, pronounced by the supernatural and unknown
voice that Caedicius heard in the night, had previously been narrated by Plutarch in the same
biography (14.2–4): . . . ἀνὴρ οὐκ ἐπιφανὴς μὲν οὐδ’ ἐκ τῆς βουλῆς, ἐπιεικὴς δὲ καὶ χρηστὸς εἶναι
δοκῶν, Μᾶρκος Καιδίκιος, ἀνήνεγκε πρὸς τοὺς χιλιάρχους πρᾶγμα φροντίδος ἄξιον. ἔφη γὰρ ἐν τῇ
παρῳχημένῃ νυκτὶ καθ’ ὁδὸν βαδίζων ἣν Καινὴν ὀνομάζουσι, κληθεὶς ὑπό τινος φθεγξαμένου
μεταστραφῆναι, καὶ θεάσασθαι μὲν οὐδένα, φωνῆς δὲ μείζονος ἢ κατ’ ἀνθρωπίνην ἀκοῦσαι τάδε
λεγούσης· ‘ἄγε Μᾶρκε Καιδίκιε, λέγε πρὸς τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἕωθεν ἐλθὼν ὀλίγου χρόνου Γαλάτας
προσδέχεσθαι.’ ταῦτ’ ἀκούσαντες οἱ χιλίαρχοι γέλωτα καὶ παιδιὰν ἐποιοῦντο, καὶ μετ’ ὀλίγον
συνέβη τὰ περὶ Κάμιλλον.
166 Word of Mouth
After Camillus had made sacrifices to the gods and purified the city, in the
manner prescribed by those who were versed in such rites, he restored the
existing temples, and erected a new one to Rumour and Voice, having sought
out carefully the spot where by night the voice from Heaven, announcing the
coming of the Barbarian host, had fallen upon the ears of [Marcus] Caedicius.
(trans. Bernadotte Perrin)
Plutarch does not translate the Latin name Aius Locutius (or Loquens), instead
preferring to relate this little-known figure to two other personifications of
divine characters with minor cults in Greece: Φήμη, which the author from
Chaeronea has described with such acuity, and the Κληδών, the fortuitous
prophetic voice.33 Whereas modern scholars have long struggled with the
problem of gendered personifications, an ancient author like Plutarch has
little difficulty in replacing the male character to whom the Romans had
erected an altar with two different entities, both female.
How can we explain such a glib equation of these figures? It is not easy,
given the scant information at our disposal. Livy and the other sources do not
specify if the presumed supernatural voice heard by Marcus Caedicius was of a
man or a woman. It is probable, however, that the prophetic power to which
this message was attributed to was linked to a masculine figure, like the one
that Cicero speaks of when he describes the episode. In this case, it is not a
generic fama or uox but the specific sender of the message that is being
divinized. In the case of the two ‘divine’ entities named by Plutarch, however,
we are dealing with personifications of them, which—as was almost always the
case in antiquity—have the same gender as the noun around which their
identity was constructed.34
The two different religious creations, however, seem to be linked by a
common theme. Indeed, both the Athenians and the Romans bestowed

33
On Κληδών see Usener 1896, 166–7 and Bettini 2011, 4–5. Also in the case of the Κληδόνες,
Pausanias (9.11.7) attests the existence of a temple at Smryna. The name Aius Locutius is also
translated in the same way by Plutarch in De fort. Rom. 319A: καὶ μὴν καὶ Φούριος Κάμιλλος, ὅτε
τὸ Κελτικὸν ἔσβεσε πῦρ καὶ τὴν Ῥώμην ἀντίρροπον χρυσῷ κεκλιμένην ἀπὸ τοῦ ζυγοῦ καὶ τῆς
πλάστιγγος καθεῖλεν, οὔτ’ Εὐβουλίας οὔτ’ Ἀνδρείας, ἀλλὰ Φήμης ἱδρύσατο καὶ Κληδόνος ἕδη παρὰ
τὴν Καινὴν ὁδόν, ὅπου φασὶ πρὸ τοῦ πολέμου Μάρκῳ Καιδικίῳ βαδίζοντι νύκτωρ φωνὴν γενέσθαι
κελεύουσαν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ Γαλατικὸν πόλεμον προσδέχεσθαι.
34
I will not attempt to take on the complex question of the gender of the personifications. It is
enough to state my opinion on it. Despite the efforts made to problematize the question (see esp.
Paxson 1998 and Stafford 1998), to me it seems clear that in antiquity and during a large part of
the medieval period a banal transfer process remained active: the gender of the term based on
which a personification was created was also passed on to the invented figure. This is a verifiable
process, one might say, without exceptions. A particularly perceptive discussion of this question,
as far as the Latin language is concerned, is now in Corbeill 2015, 72–103 (see also 65). To me it
seems that the case we are discussing is further evidence of this mechanism. Due to the fact that,
for the most part, abstract terms—which normally are of feminine gender in Indo-European
languages—were used for the construction of the personifications, the vast majority of ancient
personifications were of this gender (even in their excessive schematicism, the arguments in
Bloomfield 1963 remain strong to this day: also see Sauzeau 2004, 102–6).
 Giving Rumour a Body 167

divine status upon an extraordinary ‘voice’, a messenger of victory and a

premonition of danger, respectively. Albeit in different ways, the names of
both figures are simple labels that refer to the single action of ‘saying’ or
‘speaking’, vaguely personified in order to create a possible object of devo-
tion. It is exactly this that Cicero was emphasizing. The identity of these
figures is reduced de facto to little more than an abstract idea of speech, of
voice coming from an unknown dimension, which is presumed to have a
supernatural character.

6. 3 . FAMA EMBODIED

6.3.1. The Personification of Fama and its Form

Brief invocations like those by Bacchylides do not let us gather an idea of how
a personified figure of φήμη or fama might have been imagined in the ancient
world. It is very likely that she was envisioned as a winged being, given her
messenger qualities, able to transfer propitious and malevolent news in any
direction. Sometimes this trait surfaces in a slightly clearer way, as in the
second ode from book 2 of Horace’s Carmina, which celebrates the generosity
of Proculeius towards his brothers (5–8):
Viuet extento Proculeius aeuo,
notus in fratres animi paterni;
illum aget pinna metuente solvi
Fama superstes
Proculeius will live beyond the mortal span, well-known, as he is, for his fatherly
affection for his brothers; enduring Fame will bear him along on wings that scorn
to droop. (trans. Niall Rudd)
In these lines we just glimpse a stable and prolonged flight, nothing more. The
features of the figure that interest us are not really focused on. It is only with
the famous Virgilian invention that Fama acquires a body: and this time, it is a
decidedly formidable one.
Quintilian authoritatively affirms that it was Virgil who created the char-
acter of Fama, in the section of the Institutio oratoria dedicated to fictiones
personarum, that is, to πæοσωποποιία (9.2.36):
Sed formas quoque fingimus saepe, ut Famam Vergilius, ut Voluptatem ac Virtutem,
quem ad modum a Xenophonte traditur, Prodicus, ut Mortem ac Vitam, quas
contendentes in satura tradit, Ennius.
We also invent Personifications, as Vergil invented Rumour, Prodicus (accord-
ing to Xenophon’s report) Pleasure and Virtue, and Ennius Death and Life,
168 Word of Mouth
whom he represents in a Satire as debating with each other.35 (trans. Donald
A. Russell)
We might doubt the reliability of such an assertion, or imagine that Quintilian
simply wished to make a generic reference to the most famous personification
of Fama known at the time.36 But if we judge by the ancient documentation at
our disposal, this is a useful starting-point for those who want to study the
tradition of the character, who experienced diverse metamorphoses in both
aspect and cultural meaning throughout the medieval and Renaissance
periods. We do not know of any other Fama figure before Virgil’s; this one
also firmly remains the main (if not the only) model of reference for all later
tradition. With this highly effective invention, among other things, Virgil was
able to synthesize many of the features that we have found regularly attributed
to φήμη/fama in literary texts that appeared before him.

6.3.2. Talk about Dido

Once Dido and Aeneas become lovers, they make no secret of their relationship.
The queen in particular does not try to hide her bond with the Trojan hero. She
does not care about being seen with him or speaking openly about their relation-
ship, which she considers a proper coniugium (Aen. 4.169–72):
Ille dies primus leti primusque malorum
causa fuit; neque enim specie famaue mouetur
nec iam furtiuum Dido meditatur amorem:
coniugium uocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam.
That day the first of death, the first of calamity was cause. For no more is Dido
swayed by fair show or fair fame, no more does she dream of a secret love: she
calls it marriage and with that name veils her sin. (trans. H. R. Fairclough)
By violating the customary rules of pudicitia, the queen of Carthage exposes
herself to highly malicious comments. Openly revealing the nature of her
connection to Aeneas subjects her to criticism from those who see her person
and behaviour (specie), as well as those who hear talk of her and comment on
her conduct (fama).37

35
Also see Don. Int. Verg. I, 377–8 Georges: ‘ueteres omnes multis incorporalibus et nomina
dederunt et formas et nonnulla pro numinibus habuerunt, Victoriam scilicet, Concordiam, Dis-
cordiam, Furorem, Somnum et cetera similia: ita et Famam corporalem esse uoluerunt et deam, ut
ipse Vergilius hoc loco ait haec passim dea foeda uirum diffundit in ora. Huic addidit et corpus et
corporis incredibilem mobilitatem et loquacitatem satis effusam nihilque occultantem . . . ’
36
See Hardie 2012, 112.
37
Servius ad 170 offers the following interpretation of the passage: ‘praesentium est, quod
quasi aspicitur, fama autem rerum absentium. Hoc ergo dicit: non eam mouet nec praesens
deformitas, quod non in thalamo, sed in specu concubuerat: nec futura mox fama . . . ’ Servius
 Giving Rumour a Body 169

It is precisely this progressive increase of chatter generated by this relation-

ship that Virgil ‘personifies’ in the lines immediately following (173–97):
Extemplo Libyae magnas it Fama per urbes,
Fama, malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum:
mobilitate uiget uiresque adquirit eundo, 175
parua metu primo,38 mox sese attollit in auras
ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit.
Illam Terra parens, ira inritata deorum,
extremam, ut perhibent, Coeo Enceladoque sororem
progenuit pedibus celerem et pernicibus alis, 180
monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui quot sunt corpore plumae,
tot uigiles oculi subter (mirabile dictu),
tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit auris.
Nocte uolat caeli medio terraeque per umbram
stridens, nec dulci declinat lumina somno; 185
luce sedet custos aut summi culmine tecti
turribus aut altis, et magnas territat urbes,
tam ficti prauique tenax quam nuntia ueri.
Haec tum multiplici populos sermone replebat
gaudens, et pariter facta atque infecta canebat: 190
uenisse Aenean Troiano sanguine cretum,
cui se pulchra uiro dignetur iungere Dido;
nunc hiemem inter se luxu, quam longa, fouere
regnorum immemores turpique cupidine captos.
Haec passim dea foeda uirum diffundit in ora. 195
Protinus ad regem cursus detorquet Iarban
incenditque animum dictis atque aggerat iras.

Danielis reads it another way: ‘Adeo illam nec Tyriorum pudebat, uidentium talia, nec aliarum
gentium, quae audiebant. Ergo fama deest mala.’ As is well known, in Republican Rome it was
believed that respectable women should not give others occasion to speak about them, as Sen.
Controu. 2.7.9 said: ‘unus pudicitiae fructus est pudicam credi, et aduersus omnes inlecebras
atque omnia delenimenta muliebribus ingeniis est ueluti solum firmamentum in nullam incidisse
fabulam.’ Later on, still in book 4 of the Aeneid, it is initially stated that neither of the lovers were
concerned about how people speak of them (221: ‘oblitos famae melioris amantis’); then, when
Aeneas is about to leave her, Dido is resentful of the fact that she lost her dignity for him when
she renounced the irreproachable fama that she once enjoyed (321–3): ‘te propter eundem /
exstinctus pudor et, qua sola sidera adibam, / fama prior.’
38
The expression metu primo is not easy to interpret. Servius Danielis proposed a convoluted
solution ad 176: ‘Non “primo metu”, sed “primum”, quod initio cautius loquatur, id est in
principio: cum enim quis ueretur, ne auctor sit, quod audit continet; aut ubi sit uulgatum, passim
loquitur. Et modo “primo” aduerbium est, non nomen.’ Don. Int. Verg. I, 378 Georges thought
that metus referred to the fear that is initially had when speaking about powerful people (‘tunc
metus est, cum de personis potioribus incipit loqui’): a fear that would then be dissolved as
hearsay grows. It has also been supposed that the text is corrupt here: Baehrens, using a Lucretian
parallel, proposed reading initu instead of metu; Gian Biagio Conte cautiously makes a different
suggestion (gradu) in his recent edition.
170 Word of Mouth

Suddenly, Fama goes through the great cities of Libya, Fama, a misfortune faster
than any other; her strength is in her movement, and as she proceeds she gains
vigour: at first small and timid, she then raises herself into the air. Walking on the
earth, she hides her head among the clouds. They say that Mother Earth, angry at
the gods, brought her forth last, sister of Coeus and Enceladus—of swift foot and
rapid wing, a horrendous, enormous monster. She has as many feathers on her
body as opened eyes beneath them (extraordinary to tell), and as many tongues,
and just as many chattering mouths and pricked-up ears. By night, she flies
screeching through the darkness between the sky and earth, and does not close
her eyes to sweet sleep; by day she lies in wait on a rooftop or on lofty towers; she
spreads terror through great cities, a determined messenger of both distorted
inventions and truths. So she took pleasure in sowing manifold talk among the
people, at once announcing things that had and had not happened: ‘Aeneas, born
of Trojan blood, has arrived, and fair Dido deigned to join herself to him; for the
whole winter, they wantonly keep each other warm, forgetting their sovereignty,
in the grip of shameful passion.’ The foul goddess goes everywhere spreading
these things on the lips of men. And forthwith she directs her path to King Iarbas,
and with her words, she sets alight his soul and heaps anger on anger.
The gossip about the queen that is unleashed by Fama quickly reaches Iarbas,
the king whom Dido tricked and rejected as a suitor.39 He invokes his father
Jupiter, and his remonstrations will change the course of destiny, soon causing
the separation of the lovers.
Where does the Fama that Virgil describes come from? Who sent her, and
where is she heading? As usual, her origins are unclear. The rumour that Fama
embodies seems to be a simple result of the exposure to other people’s gaze
(species) that Dido’s lack of concern for what ‘is said’ about her (fama)
permits. During the early production of the rumour that relays ‘the facts of
Dido’, both everyone and no one seem involved. Suddenly born, Fama sets
forth down what is initially an unpredictable path, but at a certain point in the
narration she directs herself resolutely towards someone who, as Virgil tells it,
acts as the privileged receiver of the news: Iarbas (196: ‘protinus ad regem
cursus detorquet Iarban’). It is upon her arrival that she, to paraphrase
Tertullian, ‘exhausts her role as messenger, and reports the facts’. Tertullian
was actually saying that this happens when fama proves (probat) something.
Here Fama does no such thing; instead she finishes by carrying out a function
as any other messenger would, ensuring that a piece of information (which
will have a critical impact on the outcome of the affair) reaches a specific
receiver. This information is synthesized on lines 191–4: ‘Dido was united
with Aeneas the Trojan and consumed winter with him, no longer tending to
her own kingdom.’

39
See 211–14: ‘femina, quae nostris errans in finibus urbem / exiguam pretio posuit, cui litus
arandum / cuique loci leges dedimus, conubia nostra / reppulit ac dominum Aenean in regna
recepit.’
 Giving Rumour a Body 171

In short, Iarbas is what we might call the ‘narrative’ receiver of the process
put in motion by fama—a process that does not ordinarily appear to be
directed at a clearly identified user. Virgil has ambiguously invested Fama
with the task of acting as a genuine messenger in a way that, as usual, makes it
unclear who sent her. In contrast, it is obvious where she ends up going. Iarbas
is the focal point of Virgil’s narration, as the African king must address his
prayer to Jupiter, his father, for Aeneas’s voyage to be redirected to its
predetermined destination.
Who notified Iarbas? No one in particular. What is important is that he learned
what was happening in Carthage: the gossip reached his ears. If this were only
a matter of informing Iarbas, Virgil would have obtained more or less the
same result by describing the arrival of a traditional messenger, either human
or divine—as he does soon after when Mercury, at Jupiter’s command, reaches
Aeneas to order him to leave Carthage.40 But Virgil wished to do something
different: he also wanted to show us the tragic effects that the talk (fama) about
Dido had on her reputation (a reputation originally established with such
talk). The gossip that the Virgilian Fama embodies has left a clear mark on the
information itself, and presents the relationship between the queen and the Trojan
stranger as an immoral union that is unconcerned about a ruler’s responsibilities.41
The invention of this monstrous being allows us to closely examine the
process of hearsay, which takes on the task of circulating scandalous news.
Next, we will examine the main characteristics of this singular entity.

6.3.3. A Quick, Mobile, and Receptive Body

Who is Fama? Virgil speaks of a dea foeda (195), and calls her a horrendous
monster, after rapidly outlining her genealogy (178–81).42 So we are once

40
On the similarities and contrasts between the figures of Fama and Mercury, see Hardie
1986, 276–9, and 2012, 92–4 (also see Syson 2013, 168–9). Hardie does not adequately emphasize
what is perhaps the most important fact, though, which is that Mercury acts as intermediary for a
message coming from a specific source (here, Iuppiter), while Fama is the very message that is
circulating. The word that the character of Fama bears is always impersonal or indirect, as most
perceptively observed in Laird 1999, 101: ‘Fama or “Rumour” though she is personified by Virgil,
Statius, and Valerius Flaccus, is never given direct discourse’ (also see pp. 237–8). Laird 1999,
265–74 notes, among other things, that in book 4 of the Aeneid, while Mercury uses direct speech
and the typical conventions of a messenger, the message borne by Fama can only be referenced
indirectly, because in contrast to the messenger of the gods, ‘Fama does not have a direct source
for her message’.
41
Clément-Tarantino 2006, 228–32 rightly observes that the information transmitted is
fundamentally true, but reaches Iarbas laden down with interpretations and distortions with a
moralistic bent.
42
In the Aeneid, Fama shares monstrous traits with characters like Tisiphone (Aen. 10.767:
‘ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit’) and Polyphemus (Aen. 3.658: ‘monstrum
horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum’).
172 Word of Mouth

again brought to a divine setting, and a character of repugnant appearance is

introduced to us. Fama does not have typically human features, although she
shares certain movements and perceptual properties with humans. Instead,
she seems to be a mythological creature from a primordial universe, like the
one to which the chthonic figures in Hesiod’s Theogony might belong.
The first thing revealed about Fama is that she suddenly (extemplo) moves
(it), due to an impulse that has all semblance of being autonomous.43 As for all
personifications of abstract concepts, an action typical of animate beings is
also attributed to the diffusion of hearsay. Fama’s ability to move appears
unequivocally several times in the first lines of the passage (mobilitate, eundo,
ingrediturque).44 A character of this kind is not seen in the act of speaking so
much as in the act of disseminating the information that she represents: it is
with the very manifestation of this phenomenon and its progress through
space that the propagation of the news about Dido is described.45
The second characteristic that is emphatically attributed to this sinister
phenomenon (malum) is her extraordinary speed on land and in the air
(‘pedibus celerem et pernicibus alis’).46 Clearly associated with this trait are
her wings and ability to fly, which help suggest the character’s resemblance to
a monstrous bird.47 These features collectively give body and figure to the idea
of a winged word, capable of moving autonomously and rapidly through
space, which appeared as far back as the Homeric poems. From Virgil
onwards, Fama’s body continues to exhibit this distinguishing characteristic.
No definitively human qualities are outlined during the description of this
figure; instead she has the features of a terrifying beast. Nor do the verbs used
to indicate her main actions (in particular, it, ingreditur, uolat, stridens, sedet,
canebat) refer to specifically human activities. Notably, she is not given the
ability to speak. But although she does not talk, this bizarre winged creature

43
Cf. the words Odyseus uses to address Penelope in Od. 23.362 (αὐτίκα γὰρ φάτις εἶσιν ἅμ’
ἠελίῳ ἀνιόντι / ἀνδρῶν μνηστήρων) and the way in which the sudden movement of φήμη/fama is
described, as we have seen, by writers like Plutarch and Livy (ἐξαίφνης, ἄφνω, repente): cf. Ch. 1,
secs. 1.5.1 and 1.5.2.
44
The idea of sudden movement is enriched by an interesting range of nuances, thanks to the
intertextual relationships between ll. 174–5 and the analogous Lucretian description of lightning
(6.177): see Clément-Tarantino 2006, 194–203 and Hardie 2009, 71–2, who even sees the
character of Fama as ‘a figurative embodiment of thunderbolt’ (p. 78) and ‘an embodiment of
the epic sublime’ (p. 82).
45
See Fauth 1965, 232: ‘Sie bringt—sich selbst, eben Kunde (fama).’ Lowe 2008, 425 rightly
notes that Fama ‘operates in the human world by “going from city to city . . . ,” but without
actually being seen or spoken to, i.e. she is not antropomorphised to the level of interaction with
humans’.
46
This is another attribute commonly given to fama and rumours. See e.g. Plaut. fr. inc.
X Monda (VII Leo): ‘nullam ego rem citiorem apud homines esse quam famam reor’, Cic. Q. fr.
1.1 ‘fama . . . ipsa sua celeritate’, Liv. 24.21.5: ‘fama . . . qua nihil in talibus rebus est celerius.’ See
Tosi 1991, 4–5.
47
For the attribute of wings, there is quite an extensive gallery of textual parallels in Pease
1935, 218–20.
 Giving Rumour a Body 173

represents a decidedly human form of communication that occurs within a

huge crowd of people (‘multiplici populos sermone replebat’). In fact, this
monster performs the specific role of becoming the messenger (nuntia, 188) of
a specific piece of news (synthesized, as we have seen, in lines 191–4).
Some of the physical features attributed to Fama might also remind us of
the typical winged figures of divine messengers—like Hermes, Iris, and Nike
herself—who populated Greek and Roman mythology. In this case, however,
the function of the messenger predictably has rather paradoxical connotations.
On the one hand, the information disseminated is a strange mix of true,
invented, and defamatory news (‘tam ficti prauique tenax quam nuntia
ueri’). On the other, as usual, it is not said who ‘sent’ such an announcement.48
Virgil does not even indirectly mention the cause that would have put Fama in
motion: message, messenger, and sender all seem wrapped up in the same
figure, which moves rapidly through space, spreading information that takes
on diverse forms everywhere on people’s lips (‘passim . . . uirum diffundit in
ora’). In other words, Fama is herself at the origin of the message that is
carried by word of mouth: and in a way she incarnates the very message she
diffuses around her.
Possibly the most noteworthy feature of Virgil’s monster is how her body
is strewn with a disconcerting number of organs for the reception and
replication of discourse: instruments that Fama needs in order to gather and
disseminate true or false news to men.49 By endowing her with such an
abundance of eyes, ears, tongues, and mouths, Virgil brilliantly makes his
character a genuine, mobile organism that is equipped with an enormous
number of channels for the acquisition and reproduction of information. The
ability to draw upon all possible news—taking it and putting it quickly into
circulation while advancing through space along an unstoppable trajectory—
had long been associated with fama; and in the ancient world it would have
been difficult to represent this capacity in a more hyperbolical fashion. It is no
coincidence that, throughout medieval and later iconographic tradition, this

48
Ficti prauique could also be understood as a hendiadys (‘evil inventions’), as it would seem
from the phrasing of Servius Danielis’s note ad 188: ‘tam in enuntiandis falsis rebus, quam in
ueris.’ On the peculiarities of fama as messenger, see Ch. 5, sec. 5.3.
49
This proliferation of mouths and tongues represents a transfer to Fama’s body of the
analogous multiplication of these organs that, ever since the Homeric poems, had been evoked
by a successful epic topos (a paradigmatic example can be found in the invocation to the Muses
that precedes the listing of ships in book 2 of the Iliad); on the evolution of this topos in Latin
texts, see Clément-Tarantino 2006, 260–70. The attempt of Dyer 1989 to interpret ‘tot uigiles
oculi subter’ in l. 182 as related to ‘the eyes [sc. of those] which watch below her’ is ingenious but
untenable. Dyer seems to have attempted this explanation based on the unclear notes by Servius
ad 181–3 (esp. 182: ‘oculi subter aduerbium est, ac si diceret: non sub plumis, sed sub ipsa.’
Servius Danielis adds: ‘Et mire “subter”, quasi quae non uideatur, et omnia uideat’). But these
organs must belong to the body of the monstrum, as all later commentators maintained in their
interpretations of this passage.
174 Word of Mouth

singular proliferation of communicative organs on Fama’s body was the

feature that most frequently captured artists’ imaginations.

6.3.4. Daughter of the Earth

Virgil’s personification lacks any ‘positive’ features. We are far from the
luminous atmosphere that surrounded both the Φήμα invoked by Bacchylides
and the figure that Horace tasked with ensuring the survival of Proculeius’s
generosity. Here, we are not dealing with the Fama-Glory who diffuses an
individual’s renown through space and time: a dense spider’s web is being
woven by a genuine evil (malum), Fama-Rumour, who hastens to spread
terror and disgrace everywhere.50
The Virgilian Fama clearly represents the restless hearsay born in the realm
of Carthage around the relationship between Dido and Aeneas: a relationship
that obviously suggests the possibility of the Trojan stranger’s involvement
in the management of power. The chorus of rumours, which Dido fed by
exposing herself to the gazes and chatter of her people, is progressively taking
shape. This errant ‘bubble’ of anxiety and disapproval would have brought
news of Aeneas’s success with the Carthaginian queen to Iarbas.51 Once again
using Shibutani’s effective phrase, we could say that a ‘collective excitement’
generated Fama.52 Resulting from a progressively mounting tension among
Dido’s subjects,53 the circulation of conjectures and gossip would have ultim-
ately gone beyond Carthage’s walls, spreading suspicion and apprehension
throughout the cities of Libya. Virgil chooses not to focus on this collective
anxiety, and instead concentrates only on the message generated by it, show-
ing us how it takes shape and assumes increasingly monstrous proportions.
With her horrifying features, this character vaguely resembles a mysterious
nocturnal bird whose chthonic nature is made to rest upon an appropriate
theogonic pedigree, which would make Fama the last-born child of Earth.54 In

50
That this is a rumour becomes clear on l. 203, where the news that reaches Iarbas is defined
rumor (‘isque amens animi et rumore accensus amaro’).
51
See Iarba’s complaint in his prayer to Jupiter (215–17): ‘et nunc ille Paris cum semiuiro
comitatu, / Maeonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem / subnexus, rapto potitur.’
52
Shibutani 1966, 97: ‘The term collective excitement does not refer merely to an aggregate of
separately excited individuals but to a condition that emerges in social interaction. . . . As a result
there develops a common mood, which is experienced by the participants as something that is
“in the air”.’
53
The problematic ‘parua metu primo’ in l. 176 could be referring to such an anxious
environment (see Ch. 4, secs. 4.1.1–2).
54
On the ‘monstrous’ traits that Virgil’s Fama shares with other mythical characters, see
Clément-Tarantino 2006, 208–18. Braun 1991, 118 rightly calls her ‘Ein unheimlicher Nacht-
vogel’ (see also Eitrem 1927). In the Greek tradition there is a vast number of mythological
beings imagined as bird-women, endowed with monstrous characteristics similar to those that
Virgil assigns Fama (see Tupet 1981, 88–90, Mainoldi 1995, Mancini 2005, 184–95): starting
 Giving Rumour a Body 175

all probability, she is an original invention of Virgil’s; he nonetheless used a

basic linguistic ploy to reconnect her to an indeterminable mythographic
tradition that came before him (179: ut perhibent).55
Such a genealogical connection must be considered within the frame of the
relationship that links Virgil’s creation to older epic tradition. As Macrobius
duly observed, when he gave Fama’s body the characteristic of being smaller at
first and then growing immeasurably, Virgil was inspired (incongruously, in
Macrobius’s opinion) by Homer’s Eris (Il. 4.442–3):56
ἥ τ’ ὀλίγη μὲν πρῶτα κορύσσεται, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
οὐρανῷ ἐστήριξε κάρη καὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ βαίνει.
she first rears her crest only a little, but then her head is fixed in the heavens while
her feet tread on earth. (trans. A. T. Murray)
To this reworking of the Homeric figure, we must add another literary and
mythological model present in Virgil’s poetic memory: the Hesiodic descrip-
tion of the giant Typhoeus, who among other things is also furnished with a
hyperbolical number of tongues and eyes (Theog. 820–35). According to
Hesiod, Typhoeus was the last son of Gaia who dared confront Zeus after

with the Sirens, who emit a fascinating and inarticulate voice (on the ‘chthonic’ imagined setting
connected to some of their main traits, see Mancini 2005, 23–4 and passim). Some of these
figures have never been considered possible predecessors of the Fama character: I think, for
example, of the three virgin sisters (conjecturally identified as bees by some critics) who are
mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (550–63), able to fly in all directions with their ‘rapid
wings’ and authors of both true and false prophesies.
55
Servius aptly discussed the function of such vague references to prior literary or mytho-
graphic tradition, noting among other things how Virgil chose to modify the formula fama est to
refer to a piece of news related to Fama herself (ad 179: ‘quotienscumque fabulosum aliquid dicit,
solet inferre “fama est”. Mire ergo modo, cum de ipsa fama loqueretur, ait “ut perhibent” ’; cf.
Don. Int. Verg. I.378 Georges: ‘Quod ait “ut perhibent”, morem proprium tenuit: in fabulosis
quippe et incredibilibus non se facit auctorem’). See Clément-Tarantino 2006, 203–7.
56
Macrob. Sat. 5.13.31–3: ‘Homerus Ἔριν, id est contentionem, a paruo dixit incipere et
postea in incrementum ad caelum usque succrescere. Hoc idem Maro de Fama dixit, sed
incongrue. Neque enim aequa sunt augmenta contentionis et famae, quia contentio etsi usque
ad mutuas uastationes ac bella processerit, adhuc contentio est, et manet ipsa quae creuit; fama
uero cum in inmensum prodit, fama esse iam desinit, et fit notio rei iam cognitae. Quis enim iam
famam uocet, cum res aliqua a terra in caelum nota sit? Deinde nec ipsam hyperbolen potuit
aequare. Ille caelum dixit, hic auras et nubila. Haec autem ratio fuit non aequandi omnia quae ab
auctore transcripsit, quod in omni operis sui parte alicuius Homerici loci imitationem uolebat
inserere, nec tamen humanis uiribus illam diuinitatem ubique poterat aequare, ut in illo loco
quem uolo omnium nostrum iudicio in commune pensari.’ Among the modern commentators
who have treated this intertextual link, see esp.: Pease 1935, 213, West 1978, 345, Clément 2000,
312, Dangel 2002, 93–4, Clément-Tarantino 2006, 196–203, Hardie 2009, 83. For the purposes of
my discussion, which is exclusively aimed at highlighting how the phenomenon of rumour
circulation is described, it is not useful to examine the network of later intertextual references to
Virgil’s passage and its possible metapoetic implications (a topic already amply treated by
Clément-Tarantino 2006 and 2007, and Hardie 2012).
176 Word of Mouth

the defeat of the Titans.57 It seems clear that Virgil wanted to emphasize the
disturbing character of his personification of Fama, conveniently connecting it
to one of the most ancient and well-known galleries of chthonic figures in
literary tradition.58

6.3.5. The Exemplary Virgilian Figure

The overall effect of Virgil’s personification is noteworthy. At the centre of the

depiction is a series of distinctive traits that harken back to the world of oral
communication: the fleeting volatility of the word, its ability to move in all
directions while progressively growing, its synthesis of truth and invention.
Around this core idea, Virgil constructs a sinister figure whose vague and
unstable features stimulate a wide range of fantasies.
It is hard to undervalue the exemplary importance of the Virgilian charac-
ter. Each time that Fama appears in subsequent Roman epic literature, intent
on propagating news and rumours, she exhibits at least one of the traits
brought into focus by Virgil.59 To see this, it suffices to review the various
passages where authors like Ovid, Lucan, Petronius, Valerius Flaccus, Silius
Italicus, Statius, and Claudian inserted ‘announcements’ by Fama.60 Such
authors did not attempt a particularly challenging portrayal of the figure,

57
See Corssen 1886, 245–6, Clément 2000, 313, Clément-Tarantino 2006, 209–11, Hardie
2012, 99, and 215–17 (only Tupet 1981, 86–7 rules out the possibility of a link between the
Virgilian monster and the giant). Hesiod defines Typhoeus as ὁπλότατον παῖδα of the Earth
(Theog. 821): Virgil transfers this attribute to his Fama character, which he links by way of direct
descendance (unheard-of in prior tradition) from Mother Earth. On the different relationships
that characterize the generational sequence of the Giants, the Titans, and Typhoeus, see the notes
of Pease 1935, 216–17 ad 179 and Seippel 1939, 47–106. Hardie 2009, 99–103 also refers to the
Ennian figure of Discordia (Annales 220–1 Skutsch). Another mythical model for the construc-
tion of the Fama character may have been Argos (also son of the Earth, according to several
versions of his story) ‘qui oculeus totus fuit’, as Plautus says (Aul. 555): his many eyes can be seen
scattered all over the body of the dying hero in various vascular representations from the fifth
century BCE (see Keith 1920–1, 300, Icard-Gianolio 1990, 5.1 665, 674 and 5.2, 442–3, Clément
2000, 313). It was only in Ovid’s version of the myth (Met. 1.722–3) that Juno gathered his
countless eyes after his death to place among the feathers of the peacock, her sacred bird.
58
This alleged genealogical link would later be taken seriously by Boccaccio (Genealogie
deorum gentilium 1.10.1–2; also Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante 2.89–90), who, relying on
a fabula by Paul of Perugia, also tried to construct a more articulate account of the way in which
the Earth had produced Fama, for the purpose of making the crimes of the gods known through
her (‘scelerum superum relatricem’). See Ch. 9, sec. 9.2.1.
59
Like the recurring tendency to mix the true and false: see e.g. Ov. Met. 9.137–9: ‘cum
Fama loquax praecessit ad aures / Deianira, tuas, quae ueris addere falsa / gaudet et e minimo
sua per mendacia crescit’; Sil. Pun. 6.554: ‘uera ac ficta simul spargebat Fama per Vrbem’ (see
also n. 74 below).
60
An ample list of such passages can be found in the note by Pease 1935, 211–12 to l. 173.
Also see Wassermann 1920, 57–74, Tupet 1978, 498–500. In one instance, the personification is
also called Rumor: Ov. Fast. 6.527 (‘Rumor, ut est uelox, agitatis peruolat alis’). For an in-depth
analysis of the passages where Fama personified appears in the poems of Lucan (and in
 Giving Rumour a Body 177

but even in the few slightly more detailed sketches, the presence of Virgil’s
model is vivid and clearly perceptible.61 Alluding to the by-then famous
episode from book 4 of the Aeneid was enough to conjure a figure that had
almost become canonical: a figure that concentrated all the symbols of an
elusive and menacing form of communication into a single body.
After the Aeneid, Ovid was the only author who, while still actively inter-
acting with the Virgilian hypotext,62 took an entirely original route when
constructing an imagined setting for the phenomenon of self-diffusing
rumours. In the twelfth book of the Metamorphoses, he brings us to the House
of Fama—as usual, in order to surprise us.

6.4. FAMA D IS E MBO DI E D

6.4.1. The House of Fama

The Greeks sacrifice Iphigenia and, after having finally set sail, they reach the
Trojan coast: we are at the beginning of book 12 of the Metamorphoses, and
Ovid’s ingenious epic is about to introduce us to his very unique version of the
legend, to which the origin of the story of Rome can be traced.63
A brief twenty-five-line scene suddenly opens and introduces the reader to
Fama’s palace, a curious building with great activity in the hall. The function
that this rapid excursus carries out within the immediate framework of the
narration might appear fairly marginal: at the end of the description, Ovid

Petronius’s Bellum ciuile), Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus, see Clément-Tarantino
2006, 641–709.
61
In Stat. Theb. 3.425–31, Fama appears in front of Mars’s chariot, goaded on by the god: ‘at
uigil omni / Fama sono uanos rerum succincta tumultus / anteuolat currum flatuque impulsa
gementum / alipedum trepidas denso cum murmure plumas / excutit: urguet enim stimulis
auriga cruentis / facta, infecta loqui, curruque infestus ab alto / terga comamque deae Scythica
pater increpat hasta.’ Sil. Pun. 4.1–11 shows her intent on disturbing the cities of Italy with her
rumores, spreading the news of Hannibal’s troops and their passage through the Alps: ‘Fama per
Ausoniae turbatas spargitur urbes / . . . diros canit improba motus / et gliscit gressu uolucrique
citatior Euro / terrificis quatit attonitas rumoribus arces. / Adstruit auditis docilis per inania
rerum / pascere rumorem uulgi pauor.’ Val. Flac. 2.115–25 tells us how Venus goes in search of
Fama to give her the task of spreading false news among the women of Lemnos, by taking on the
appearance of one of them: ‘quam pater omnipotens digna atque indigna canentem / spargen-
temque metus placidis regionibus arcet / aetheris; illa fremens habitat sub nubibus imis, / non
Erebi, non diua poli, terrasque fatigat, / quas datur. Audentem primi spernuntque fouentque, /
mox omnes agit et motis quatit oppida linguis. / Talem diua sibi scelerisque dolique ministram /
quaerit auens. Videt illa prior iamque aduolat ultro / impatiens iamque ora parat, iam suscitat
aures.’ On these passages, see also Hardie 2012, 196–214. It is noteworthy that both Statius and
Valerius Flaccus, in the two passages just cited, speak of Fama as a sort of messenger sollicited by
a divinity.
62 63
See Zumwalt 1977. Ov. Met. 12.35–8.
178 Word of Mouth

devotes barely two lines to saying that the Greeks were anticipated by news of
their approach, which Fama herself brought to Troas. The arrival of the
information allowed the Trojan heroes to pre-empt their enemies’ attack,
preventing them from taking immediate control of the coast.64
After this description, the narration continues without any more reference
to Fama and her activity.65 It seems almost as if Ovid wished to use this
elaborate narrative interlude for a self-contained display of skill; a sort of
miniature allegorical portrait where the mysteries of the complex workings of
fama are revealed (12.39–63):
Orbe locus medio est inter terrasque fretumque
caelestesque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi; 40
unde, quod est usquam, quamuis regionibus absit,
inspicitur, penetratque cauas uox omnis ad aures.
Fama tenet summaque domum sibi legit in arce,
innumerosque aditus ac mille foramina tectis
addidit et nullis inclusit limina portis; 45
nocte dieque patet. Tota est ex aere sonanti,
tota fremit uocesque refert iteratque quod audit.
Nulla quies intus nullaque silentia parte,
nec tamen est clamor, sed paruae murmura uocis,
qualia de pelagi, siquis procul audiat, undis 50
esse solent, qualemue sonum, cum Iuppiter atras
increpuit nubes, extrema tonitrua reddunt.
Atria turba tenet: ueniunt, leue uulgus, euntque
mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur
milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant. 55
E quibus hi uacuas inplent sermonibus aures,
hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti

64
It was in these circumstances, among other things, that Protesilaus was killed by Hector
(64–8): ‘Fecerat haec notum, Graias cum milite forti / aduentare rates, neque inexspectatus in
armis / hostis adest. Prohibent aditus litusque tuentur / Troes, et Hectorea primus fataliter
hasta, Protesilae, cadis.’ In the Narrationes of ps.-Lactantius, the episode is only remembered in
a cursory way for its informational finality: ‘Fama cum per orbem Graiorum aduentus ad
expugnandum Ilium uenisset et in Troade classes apparuissent’, etc. Obviously, much specula-
tion about the role of this curious passage is possible, as it is structured as a sort of preface to the
vast section of the Metamorphoses dedicated to the events and consequences of the Trojan War.
The vague yet appealing interpretation in Tissol 2002, 307–9 considers the representation of
Fama placed at the beginning of the group of books 12–15 (in which, in his opinion, ‘Fama
dominates’) to be ‘both a symbol and an embodiment of flux within the narrative’. Philip Hardie
touches on the possible metaliterary implications of the passage in various contributions: see esp.
Hardie 1999, 97–100; 2002, 236–8; 2002a; 2012, 150–68. In Ovid’s Fama, Hardie sees both the
personification of the Homeric epos (or, more generally, of the poetic literary tradition) and ‘the
word of the poet asserting his uniqueness and authority within a poetic tradition’. Also see
Zumwalt 1977, Clément-Tarantino 2006, 65–9 and passim, Kelly 2014.
65
See Dippel 1990, 29–30. The only other reference to fama’s action is found in the words
that Cycnus addresses to Achilles on l. 86: ‘nate dea, nam te fama praenouimus’ (but this could
just be a simple, conventional reference to the widespread fame of the Greek hero).
 Giving Rumour a Body 179

crescit, et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor.

Illic Credulitas, illic temerarius Error
uanaque Laetitia est consternatique Timores 60
Seditioque recens dubioque auctore Susurri.
Ipsa, quid in caelo rerum pelagoque geratur
et tellure uidet totumque inquirit in orbem.
At the centre of the world, there is a place between earth, sea, and heavenly
regions, the borders of the threefold universe. From there, everything everywhere
is seen, no matter how far away it is, and every voice enters hollow ears. Fama has
this place, and at its summit she chose a house for herself, and to this building she
added countless entryways and a thousand openings, not using doors to close off
the thresholds. It is open night and day and is entirely of echoing bronze, it all
reverberates and what voices it hears, it repeats and sends back out: inside there is
no sleep and silence is nowhere to be found. But there is no shouting, just the
muttering of a subdued voice like the one that comes from the waves of the sea, if
heard from afar, or like the one issued by the last rumbles of thunder when Jupiter
makes the dark clouds crackle. A throng of people fills the entrance hall: this
lightweight mass comes and goes, and wandering here and there, mixed with
truths, are thousands of invented rumours, spinning around confused words.
Some fill vacant ears with talk, others bring what they have heard elsewhere, and
what is invented grows in size, new sources add things to what they hear. Here is
Credulity, thoughtless Error, groundless Joy, prostrated Fears, recent Sedition,
Murmurs of uncertain origin. She herself sees what is done in the sky, at sea, and
on land, and she seeks information from all over the world.
Ovid begins by describing the fantastical place where the House of Fama is
situated:66 it is an imprecise area that is not only at the centre of the world
(orbe . . . medio), but also at the crossroads between the three elements where
men and words travel (‘inter terrasque fretumque / caelestesque plagas,
triplicis confinia mundi’).67 From this point, it is possible to see (inspicitur)
all that happens on Earth, and all chatter that is destined to be heard (‘penetrat

66
As during the presentation of the other three great personifications of the Metamorphoses,
the scene begins with an ‘est locus’ ekphrasis, and the habitat that surrounds the character takes
on a crucial significance (Bömer 1980, 392–3). We might even say about Fama what Bömer
rightly observed about the personification of Somnus: ‘Wie diese Gestalten, so ist auch die Gestalt
des Schlafgottes nicht eine Schöpfung Ovids, doch ist dieser Schlafgott in dieser Umgebung,
ebenso wie auch die anderen Gestalten, tantum sui similis.’ Wassermann 1920, 51–3 had already
given deserved emphasis to the role that Ovid assigned to the location of all the seats where his
personifications live.
67
Reed 2013, 385–6 notes that the ‘geographical’ situation of this place is described with the
words used for the oracle of Delphi in Met. 10.167–8. Gladhill 2013, 300–3 observed how this
positioning has significant parallels with that of Chaos, at the beginning of the poem (Met. 1.5–7):
while Fama is located, in space, at the crossroads between this dimensions (inter), Chaos would
also have preceded these in time (ante). Gladhill (2013, 305) also proposes reading the placement
of Fama’s palace as part of an equivalence: it would constitute ‘the cosmological equivalent to the
Forum Romanum’, just as the realm of Jupiter (Met. 1.168–76) would correspond to the imperial
seat. On the Forum as ‘the information centre for the city’, see also Laurence 1994.
180 Word of Mouth

cauas uox omnis ad aures’) leaves from here. Such a position seems to
emphasize the control that Fama exercises over the world’s three traversable
dimensions (land, water, air), as well as her ability to acquire information and
retransmit it in all directions.68
Ovid then moves on to illustrate, in brief and decidedly vague detail, the
main characteristics of the palace. The fact that Fama wanted it full of
openings is given particular emphasis (44–6).69 Moreover, being made of
bronze, the palace is able to pick up and echo back all sounds, all words. In
this way, the functions that Virgil had attributed to Fama when he endowed
her with multiple perceptive and communicative organs, are transferred not to
a living organism but to the ‘body’ of the building. The house itself listens to
and repeats what it hears (‘uocesque refert iteratque, quod audit’, 47). Fama’s
seat therefore becomes a place of reception, sorting, and diffusion of the
discourses. Virgil turned the body of Fama into a singular transmitting–
receiving organism; here we find ourselves before a building that seems to
have similar properties.70

6.4.2. Intangible Presence

In contrast, almost nothing is said about Fama or her person, aside from the
fact that she occupies the highest point of the palace (43). As neither her figure
nor her actions are described, it is difficult to consider this a genuine personi-
fication. Only at the end of the passage, just for a moment, is Fama shown in
the act of employing her optical and investigative abilities, facilitated by the
strategic positioning of her house (62–3). To use the terminology suggested by
Paxson in his monograph on personification,71 ‘the personified’ consists of the
process involving the circulation of hearsay and seems to lack a clear ‘person-
ifier’—that is, an animated form that carries out a function like the one
performed by Virgil’s Fama. It is tempting to say that, if there is a ‘personifier’,
it cannot be seen; but such an assertion only captures one aspect of Ovid’s
narrative device, which hides the main figure of this episode from the eyes of

68
See Bömer 1982, 25 (ad 39): ‘Der triplex . . . mundus . . . erinnert an die seit dem ho-
merischen Schild (XIII 292) bei den Dichtern geläufige Aufteilung der Welt in drei Regionen
(unter Iuppiter, Neptunus und Pluto).’ See also Fauth 1965, 235–6, Braun 1991, 117, Gödde
2005, 166–7. The allusion to the complete jurisdiction of Fama over the three elements, which
opens the passage, is brought up once again by the two final lines (62–3).
69
Commentators have observed the similarities between this passage and the way in which
Virgil describes the Cumaean Sibyl’s cave. Most recently, Reed 2013, 385–7, after referring the
reader to Aen. 6.42–4 (the cave of 100 openings) and 127 (the entrance of the Underworld that
‘noctes atque dies patet’), concludes that ‘il linguaggio ci fa guardare dentro un oracolo apollineo
e scoprire non una Sibilla che diffonde fata, ma una grottesca sostituzione, pura e semplice fama’.
70
Also see Clément-Tarantino 2006, 644–5 and Kelly 2014, 77–9.
71
Paxson 1994, 47.
 Giving Rumour a Body 181

the reader. The mistress of the palace is not, in fact, the only person mentioned
in this scene, and the functions of fama are distributed among a variety of
subjects. To situate the mechanism that puts information into circulation, we
must take into consideration not so much the invisible sovereign as the crowd
of characters that populate the hall of her house: a house that does not know
silence, because it quivers with uninterrupted chatter, produced by the flow of
rumours that pass from one conversation to another (47–52).
As a matter of fact, even the actors of the communicative process, who put a
frenetic circulation of chatter into motion, remain undefined. We are not
introduced to any figures with distinct features, only an anonymous, intangible
crowd (‘turba, leue uulgus’, 53):72 this crowd consists of a great number of
rumours that begin to circulate a series of confused words (‘milia rumorum,
confusa uerba’, 55).73 The ambiguity of Ovid’s description systematically com-
bines the agents and content of communication: the same gossip that is being
gathered and then sent back out also seems to be the protagonist of the
communicative exchange. Within this indistinct crowd, the chain transmission
mechanism is barely delineated. Two demonstratives (hi, 56–7) suffice to
contrast the one who recounts something with the one who reports what s/he
has heard to others: a process that distorts the information with new contribu-
tions (‘mensuraque ficti / crescit’, 57–8) each time someone adds extra compo-
nents to what s/he has heard (‘et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor’, 58).74
Finally, Ovid mentions the presence of a gallery of allegorical figures, which
serve more than anything else to allude to the insidious effects that rumours have
on whoever gives credence to them: gullibility, careless blunders, unfounded joy,
crippling fears, new insurgencies, and untrustworthy murmurs.75
The confusion of words and the tangled mixture of truth and falsehood
reign throughout (54–5 and 57–8), reminding us of phrases we have already
seen in the Virgilian description.76 However, the image of flight—which since
Homer had frequently accompanied descriptions of the word’s rapid
movement—never seems to appear. Both the dense web of voices entering
and leaving the house of Fama and the leue uulgus from which they come
could suggest an aerial movement like that of the bee swarm to which the

72
See Delande 1935, 432. Reed 2013, 387 refers back to the leues populi of the Underworld in
Met. 10.14.
73
See Kelly 2014, 69–70.
74
This is not the only place where Ovid insists on the mechanism of truth distortion typical of
fama. Cf. Ov. Met. 9.137–9: ‘cum Fama loquax praecessit ad aures, / Deianira, tuas, quae ueris
addere falsa /gaudet, et e minimo sua per mendacia crescit.’ Hardie sees a reference to the
‘retelling of the Homeric epos’ in this transmission mechanism (Hardie 1999, 97: a reading then
re-proposed, with different implications, in all later contributions by the scholar, see n. 64).
Obviously, such an interpretation is not supported so much by the letter of Ovid’s text as by the
theoretical premise that supposes a metapoetic dimension at the foundation of all epic writing.
75
On this small court of minor personifications, see Bömer 1982, 29–30.
76
This topical motif returns in other Ovidian passages: cf. nn. 59 and 74.
182 Word of Mouth

Homeric warriors from book 2 of the Iliad are compared. But the fact remains
that the ‘wings’ of the word never enter Ovid’s scene.77

6.4.3. All the Chatter in the World

It is clear that Ovid imagines the diffusion of hearsay in an original and rather
different way from Virgil. He does not describe how the various pieces of
information take shape within a community that gives form to its own
anxieties or opinions using a dense conversation network. The subject here
is not, as in book 4 of the Aeneid, a unique piece of information that grows
disproportionately as it is diffused: Ovid’s description of the Palace of Fama
instead seems aimed to frame the common mechanism of collection and
transmission that supervises the circulation of an enormous quantity of
news through all human communities.
As Ludwig Braun observed twenty-five years ago, Ovid’s Fama is reduced to an
acoustic phenomenon; and while the vivid figure of her personification vanishes
from the scene, the various phases of her circulation are being animated. This is
why Ovid differentiates the figure of Fama, who presides over the reception and
distribution of all rumours circulating around the world, from individual pieces of
information. These constitute the leue uulgus that populates the palace interior—
in other words, a plurality of genuine communicative agents. Instead of being
described as what the various human individuals recount to each other, the
individual rumours take on traits of separate and animate individuals, whose
characteristics nonetheless remain decidedly indistinct. These same faceless indi-
viduals ‘first-handedly’ exchange and progressively manipulate the content that
paradoxically they should be representing. Finally, we imagine a single centralized
system that hosts the production of the rumours and distributes them throughout
the world, and functions roughly like an enormous relay station.78
Ovid has therefore created a place where we see a huge, tangled eddy of
words and rumours; and by hiding the Fama figure from his reader, he seems
determined to demonstrate her elusiveness. Using an original narrative approach,
the poet continues to highlight many of the features that we saw concentrated
in the figure from book 4 of the Aeneid: such as the instability and change-
ability of the message, the mixture of true and false, and the ability to
propagate news that has no precise source.79 But this time Fama does not
come down from her palatial summit and remains invisible, as if suspended

77
In various other works, Ovid does mention the flight of fama and rumor: see e.g. Her.
17.207 ‘uolucris praeconia Famae’; Pont. 4.4.15–6: ‘En ego laetarum uenio tibi nuntia rerum /
Fama, per inmensas aere lapsa uias’; Fast. 6.527: ‘Rumor, ut est uelox, agitatis peruolat alis.’
78
See Fauth 1965, 237, Braun 1991, 118, and Dippel 1990, 26.
79
The concept is proposed once more via the inclusion of ‘dubio . . . auctore Susurri’ (61)
among the various personifications that inhabit Fama’s palace.
 Giving Rumour a Body 183

over the vortex of hearsay that is diffused across the earth under her supervi-
sion.80 Ovid brings us to the centre of the distribution of rumores; the divinity
that presides over their redirection seems able to send them far and wide. We
are poised to see her . . . but glimpse her nowhere. Her essence is only in the life
and movement of the talk she makes circulate everywhere. Sound is the only
aspect of her that we perceive: we cannot identify her in any other form. This
seems a particularly sophisticated manner of saying, once again, that it is
difficult to know who or what is at the source of this garbled mass of chatter.
The absence of Fama is a magnificent invention of Ovid’s: a highly effective
narrative device that shows us the complex workings of the phenomenon that
we are examining in an utterly new form. The absolute originality of this scene
must have dumbfounded the ancients, who never seemed to have attempted
another version of this idea. Only Chaucer, at the end of the fourteenth
century, was able to brilliantly rework Ovid’s ideas in an equally original
way in his House of Fame.81

6.4.4. Fama’s Words

This is not the only time that Ovid describes Fama as an elusive being.82 In a
poetic epistle directed at Sextus Pompey, written during his exile in Tomis, the
poet tells us that he has even encountered her himself and heard her talk, but
was unable to see her (Pont. 4.4.11–20):83
Nam mihi cum fulua solus spatiarer harena,
uisa est a tergo penna dedisse sonum.
Respicio nec erat corpus quod cernere possem,
uerba tamen sunt haec aure recepta mea:
‘En ego laetarum uenio tibi nuntia rerum, 15

80
The men that physically listen to and produce the rumours remain even more extraneous
than in the Virgilian scene from book 4 of the Aeneid. As Clément-Tarantino (2006, 645 and
662) wrote, Ovid managed ‘à “résumer”, en un seul lieu, toutes les caractéristiques de la rumeur,
certes sans jamais décrire Rumeur, mais surtout sans jamais y faire entrer les hommes’.
81
Even in the sixteenth century, whoever presented the Ovidian description to a large
audience felt the need to supplement the text with at least a few details that linked it to more
traditional personifications of Fama. For example, in his translation in octaves, to introduce the
episode from book 12 (which in the Venetian vulgarization is part of canto XXIII), Lodovico
Dolce added an allusion to Fama’s speed, likening it to that of a fire or an arrow (‘Né così tosto ivi
l’Armata viene, / che non vi fosse pria venuto il messo: / la Fama, a cui non è fiamma né strale, /
che di velocità sen vada uguale’). Not much later, Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara (1584,
423–4), in one of his many expansions of Ovid’s tales, added three octaves (31–3) to his
convoluted rewrite of the Metamorphoses text on the Palace of Fama; there, the ruler of this
place is described as having the by-then famous Virgilian features.
82
See Wassermann 1920, 56–7. Other cases where Ovid resorts to the personification of fama
are discussed in Viarre 1980.
83
See Kelly 2014, 88–90.
184 Word of Mouth

Fama per inmensas aere lapsa uias:

consule Pompeio, quo non tibi carior alter,
candidus et felix proximus annus erit!’
Dixit et, ut laeto Pontum rumore repleuit,
ad gentes alias hinc dea uertit iter. 20
For as I strolled alone upon the yellow sand, behind me, it seemed, wings rustled.
I looked back; there was no form that I could see, but my ear caught these words,
‘Lo, I come to bear thee a message of gladness; I am Report, and I have flown
through measureless distances of air. Through the consulship of Pompey, who is
dearer to you than any other, the coming year will be bright and blessed’. She
spoke, and having filled the Pontus with the glad tidings the goddess turned her
course to other peoples. (trans. Arthur Leslie Wheeler)
Ovid is simply explaining that he ‘heard’ Sextus Pompey was named consul for
the following year: the news arrived from Rome to the shores of the Black Sea
and then spread across the entire region. The report plays with the personi-
fication of the rumour that reached the poet: but once again the ‘personifier’ is
visually inaccessible, just as in the passage from book 12 of the Metamorphoses.
In this case, too, the perception of a similar presence is limited to sound: Ovid
only has the words (uerba) that he has managed to hear (recepta) at his
disposal. The messenger is there, and in addition to her words, there is the
noise produced by the beating of her wings: however, there is no visible body
(corpus quod cernere possem). As usual, when fama is involved, it is neither
clear where the message came from nor possible to identify who transmitted it.
 7

Beyond Death

7 . 1. F A M A AND G L O R I A: CI CE RO,
BOETHIUS, AUGU STINE

7.1.1. Renown and Reputation

The mechanism of fama’s diffusion, based on talk (fari) about someone/some-

thing, is what was described by means of the personifications that we have
considered so far. This kind of diffusion, which uses ‘word of mouth’ as its
primary (but not only) medium, is the privileged mechanism through which
rumours spread. As I have already shown, this is just as true in the contempor-
ary world as it was in antiquity. The same chain of discourse and words that
extends through space (and time) also sustains the diffusion of reputation and
renown, towards which we will now direct our attention. The other major
personification of fama that we need to consider is, in fact, a figure that portrays
a particular version of renown. It was developed for the first time in Italy during
the Trecento, as a literary character. Later on, it was reused, in an iconographic
context, to represent the protagonist of Petrarch’s Triumphus Fame.
Although it shared the same name as Virgil’s personification, this figure
was created as a way to illustrate a cultural phenomenon that is decidedly
different from (and in many ways complementary to) the one embodied in the
monster from book 4 of the Aeneid and the elusive presence in book 12 of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Both Latin authors, each in his own way, focused on
the unstoppable and unsettling pervasiveness characteristic of information
exchanged through talk. The figure created by the illustrators of Petrarch’s
poem, however, was not envisioned as a way to illustrate how renown and
glory are produced and diffused by anonymous crowds of people that hand
down someone’s name over space and time. The purpose behind the devel-
opment of this character seems to have primarily been that of highlighting
renown’s ability to triumph over death, extending the existence of illustrious
men and women beyond their terrestrial lives. The figurative representation
of the concept we will now discuss is perhaps one of the most interesting
186 Word of Mouth

consequences of a thousand-year-old debate about how long after death an

individual can truly hope his or her name will be preserved by collective
memory.
Before outlining the salient features of this well-known philosophical and
literary theme, I should clarify an important point. The personification that
I will discuss at the end of this chapter and in the one that follows was initially
created in order to give shape to human glory, one of the worldly goods that
traditionally, at least since the Somnium Scipionis and Boethius’s De consola-
tione Philosophiae, was considered ephemeral and insubstantial. The reuse of
this figure in the countless illustrations of Petrarch’s Triumphus Fame, which
multiplied beginning in the second half of the fifteenth century, established it
as the modern symbol of Fama. Later on I will have the chance to explain the
reason behind the diverse classifications of the same figure, but before begin-
ning our analysis we would do well to further examine the relationship
between glory and fama.
We saw in Chapter 2 that the Latin term fama—that is to say, the fact that
someone is being talking about (fari)—also indicates what in English is
defined as ‘renown’. In the case of fama-renown, we are obviously dealing
with the impersonal production of talk about a single individual whose
character and actions have become topics of conversation among anonymous
masses of people. The larger the group talking about someone, the more his or
her fame grows (for better or for worse). Just as we have seen for rumours, it
would be impossible to verify by whom, how, and when this talk is spread, as it
grows in an unorganized fashion across an anonymous network of commu-
nicative exchanges. What matters is the simple fact that someone’s ‘name’
appears more and more frequently in the conversations about him or her. The
circulation of this name is once again imagined as an interconnected territory
whose limits and borders are impossible to define.1
Obviously, this kind of process exists at the foundation of the opinions
created about someone. All the talk about someone also generates shared
judgments of that person, which then become an essential part of what
continues to circulate about him or her.2 This is what today we call ‘reputa-
tion’, emphasizing the element of evaluation (putare) that originates from the
production of such talk. What is known and remembered about someone is
often only the product of a similar mass of words and opinions, which
continues to travel over time, well beyond the confines of the existence of
the individual in question. The scope of fama-renown is, in fact, not only

1
The importance that someone’s ‘name’ has within such processes also makes up the
etymological basis of the English term ‘renown’ (see the French renommée, the Italian rino-
manza, the Spanish renombre).
2
We saw this earlier in regard to Dido: see esp. Ch. 6, n. 37.
 Beyond Death 187

spatial but also temporal. Both the diffusion and the persistence in time of
someone’s name is what makes him or her renowned.3

7.1.2. Fama and gloria

Compared to this complex and haphazard production of talk and opinions,

what the Romans referred to with the term gloria is, to use Jean-François
Thomas’s phrasing, ‘a well-defined form of reputation’. In order to form a
concise idea of the fundamental meaning of this term, we can start by
examining the results of Thomas’s detailed semantic analysis of it. In Latin,
gloria was used to indicate a form of ‘reputation with a steep growth due to one
or more successful feats or qualities deemed remarkable, consisting of recog-
nized and fervent prestige’. Furthermore: ‘The essential elements of glory have
a superlative quality; they carry the components of reputation to a very high
and therefore singular level. Glory is an exceptional reputation.’4
Achieving this kind of renown is a typical objective of exceptional individ-
uals, who aspire to be recognized for their attributes by a great number of
people, both during their lifetimes and after their demises. Those who aspire to
this kind of distinction do not simply want others to ‘talk’ about them; they
desire the existence of a wide and established appreciation of their persons,
expressed in clear and sometimes striking ways. Those who wish to be
remembered beyond the confines of their own existence aspire to a similar
goal, given that glorious names are those that posterity continues to recognize
as great, displaying admiration for them in various ways.
Considered from this perspective, the concept of gloria is distinguished
considerably from that of fama: the former implies an exceptional nature
unassociated with the latter, which tends to refer to forms of renown that do
not necessarily have positive connotations. Both fama and gloria can therefore
be considered forms of renown capable of prolonging remembrance of some-
one beyond death, but while this could be achieved through both good and
bad fama, it is not possible to paint gloria in a negative light.
As we will see, however, throughout the medieval period there was an
increasingly pronounced tendency to use fama almost as a synonym of gloria,
in cases where someone’s renown has a positive connotation. This meant that

3
See Braudy 1997, 15, who describes what he sees to be the fundamental components of fama
as follows: ‘Fame is made up of four elements: a person and an accomplishment, their immediate
publicity, and what posterity has thought about them ever since. The difficulty in writing about
the great figures of the past is that in every age they have been reinterpreted to demonstrate the
new relevance of their greatness.’ Viewed from this perspective, writing plays a crucial role
because of the way in which it contributes to securing and consolidating the remembrance of
people, facts, and opinions, registering what ‘is said’ about famous individuals in stable forms.
4
Thomas 2002, 21–94 (quotations drawn from pp. 21 and 88–9).
188 Word of Mouth

in the end the term fama played a fundamental role during the aforemen-
tioned long and complex debate about the actual temporal confines of the
remembrance that individuals can enjoy: a discussion that revolved primarily
around the nature of earthly glory and its relation to the temporal dimension
containing mankind’s existence.
As has been said, this debate about glory was fundamental to the develop-
ment of the personification of Fama that we will now discuss. For this we do
not need to develop a theoretical reference model, as we did for the commu-
nicative mechanism that regulates the diffusion of rumour. It was, in fact,
those same intellectuals from antiquity and the medieval period who produced
an important ethical theory on this subject. This theory was studied widely in
the second half of the twentieth century and can be the starting-point of our
discussion, although it will not be necessary for us to study it in detail. It
should suffice to take into consideration a limited number of ancient and
medieval texts, which conveniently introduce the main moralistic clichés
about the ephemeral nature of human glory that were reused and redrawn
in the major works of the fourteenth century, particularly by Petrarch when he
was developing his complex reflections on glory. These clichés are also at the
basis of the iconography created to depict the Triumphus Fame.

7.1.3. Fama cum laude (bonorum)

Let us begin our discussion with a famous definition of gloria that can be
found in Cicero’s De inuentione (2.166). This definition experienced great
success during the course of the tradition, and is found cited in the texts of
later eras with such frequency that we can consider it one of the main points of
reference for the development of reflection on this concept in medieval and
modern times.5 It consists of a simple equivalency:
Gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude.
Glory is frequent talk of someone, together with praise.
In a definition like this, fama is more or less the carrier of praise, which makes
up the most significant part of glory. For the latter to exist, many people must
speak both well and much of someone.6 According to this definition, the

5
See Joukovsky-Micha 1968, 2–3, n. 3.
6
On the fama that ‘carries’ glory, see Thomas 2002, 27 (about Verg. Aen. 2.81–3: ‘Fando
aliquod si forte tuas peruenit ad auris / Belidae nomen Palamedis et incluta fama / gloria’). This
aspect of Cicero’s definition has not been adequately considered by the scholars who have dealt
with the ancient and medieval conceptions of gloria. Knoche 1934, 102–6 primarily emphasized
the collective aspect of the evaluation on which the various forms of individual distinction
depend, utterly neglecting the communicative aspect implicit in Cicero’s definition (which
Drexler 1962, 6 and 1988, 50 considered banal). Although Thomas dedicates a section of his
 Beyond Death 189

concepts of gloria and fama should not be considered interchangeable. In fact,

Cicero seems to want to keep these two planes—involving, respectively, the
production of talk (fama) and the expression of a laudatory opinion (laus)—
separate.7
Another, similar definition, which resurfaced throughout the medieval
period, appears in Cicero’s speech Pro Marcello (26):
si quidem gloria est inlustris et peruagata magnorum uel in suos ciuis uel in
patriam uel in omne genus hominum fama meritorum.
if indeed glory be the bright and widespread fame won by great services conferred
upon a man’s own fellow citizens or upon his country or upon the human race at
large. (trans. N. H. Watts, modified)
In this statement, the typical ‘word of mouth’ process behind the production
of information emerges in an even clearer fashion. Cicero refers to the
diffusion of fama with the participle of the verb peruagari, which suggests
the erratic and unpredictable (uagari), and also widespread (per-) movement
typical of the transmission process of rumours. But the informational content
that is passed along thanks to this communicative process is what represents
the most characteristic aspect of gloria. The special renown guaranteed by the
latter cannot be founded exclusively on the fact that someone is ‘talked’ about:
the evaluative element is highlighted clearly, as whoever attracts praise must
have earned it through meritorious actions.8
This ethical judgment about whoever acquires renown returns in an add-
itional reference by Cicero to glory, which adds another element to the picture
(Phil. 1.29):
Est autem gloria laus recte factorum magnorumque in rem publicam meritorum,
quae cum optimi cuiusque, tum etiam multitudinis testimonio comprobatur.
What is glory? It is the credit for laudable actions and the reputation earned by
notable public services, approved by the testimony of the best among us and also
by that of the multitude.9 (trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey)

monograph to ‘Les relations de gloria et fama’ (2002, 159–64), he only speculates about the
different types of ‘renown’ that the two terms would indicate.
7
See Haury 1974, 402–3. While the fama concept primarily remains linked to the auditory
sphere of talk, gloria recalls a visual sphere of brilliance and splendour: see Thomas 2002, 82–8
(and 230–2 on the etymological theories that would validate this association). On the meaning of
gloria and laus, see Mazzoli 2004, 65–7 and Thomas 2002 (esp. 293–358).
8
Inlustris fama is largely equivalent to the fama cum laude from the definition that appears in
De inuentione.
9
The fact that, citing this expression in Etym. 2.30.2, Isidore of Seville used the phrase: ‘Gloria
est laus recte factorum magnorumque in republica fama meritorum’, led several editors to
mistakenly insert fama in the text handed down by Ciceronian manuscripts. Leeman 1949,
155 hypothesized that a definition of this kind must also have appeared in the lost De gloria
composed by Cicero a few months after Caesar’s assassination. An analogous definition, but one
exclusively focused on the approval of many people, can be found in Off. 2.31: ‘Summa igitur et
190 Word of Mouth

This time, Cicero mentions appreciation on the part of respectable people,

leaving it understood that this is an important requirement for attaining real
gloria. This line of thought—later also important to Seneca—depicts true glory
as dependent on the opinion of others, and also insists it must be certified by
the consensus of those with most moral authority (the boni, the optimi).10
Cicero also affirms that true glory is only what is assured by the good words
that respectable people say about someone (Sest. 139: ‘bonam famam bonorum,
quae sola uere gloria nominari potest’). In a particularly radical passage of
the Tusculanae disputationes (3.3–4), there is a clear contrast between glory,
which consists of a ‘unanimous consensus on the part of respectable people’
(consentiens laus bonorum), and renown, procured from common people
(fama popularis) and simply a vulgar reflection of the former:11
Est enim gloria solida quaedam res et expressa, non adumbrata; ea est consentiens
laus bonorum, incorrupta uox bene iudicantium de excellenti uirtute, ea uirtuti
resonat tamquam imago; quae quia recte factorum plerumque comes est, non est
bonis uiris repudianda. Illa autem, quae se eius imitatricem esse uolt, temeraria
atque inconsiderata et plerumque peccatorum uitiorumque laudatrix, fama popularis,
simulatione honestatis formam eius pulchritudinemque corrumpit.
For true glory is a thing of real substance and clearly wrought, no shadowy
phantom: it is the agreed approval of good men, the unbiased verdict of judges
deciding honestly the question of pre-eminent merit; it gives back to virtue the
echo of her voice; and as it generally attends upon duties rightly performed it is
not to be disdained by good men. The other kind of glory, however, which claims
to be a copy of the true, is headstrong and thoughtless, and generally lends its
support to faults and errors; it is public reputation, and by a counterfeit mars the
fair beauty of true honour. (trans. J. E. King)
The opposition between fama popularis and laus bonorum is made up of the
same distance that separates the concepts of fama and gloria. Both cases refer
to ‘talk’ about someone, produced by an indefinable crowd of people over the

perfecta gloria constat ex tribus his: si diligit multitudo, si fidem habet, si cum admiratione
quadam honore dignos putat.’
10
In contrast to the opinion of the boni, we have the sermones uulgi: see e.g. Fam. 15.4.13: ‘si
quisquam fuit umquam remotus et natura et magis etiam, ut mihi quidem sentire uideor, ratione
atque doctrina ab inani laude et sermonibus uulgi, ego profecto is sum’ (see Knoche 1934,
117–20 and Sullivan 1941, 387). See also Sen. Ep. 102.8–19, where claritas, which is derived from
uirtus and needs nothing other than the judgment of the boni, is contrasted with gloria and fama,
which depend on the judgments and words of many people (see Leeman 1949, 54–5, primarily
focused on the passage’s possible Poseidonian matrix, and more generally Thomas 2002, 58–69,
Newman 2008, 324–6, and Li Causi 2012, 37–9).
11
Here, Cicero is talking about the corruption of aesthetic judgment. Once the common
people’s tastes have gained the upper hand, even the best men no longer search for virtue’s
superior beauty, but for an unfocused (adumbrata) image of glory. According to Philipp 1955,
57, since the archaic age, glory based only (to use Livy’s formula, 22.39.18) on fama rumoresque
hominum was considered uana gloria.
 Beyond Death 191

course of an expansive process considered in its entirety. The distance between

simple fama and gloria continues to be marked primarily by the laus that must
accompany someone’s reputation. But to this an important element is added:
the mass of those producing fama with laudatory talk is an anonymous
populus, incapable of sound judgment; while the collective ensemble of people
who (unanimously and upon reflection) praise someone’s worthy actions
consists of a group of ‘good people’ who can be considered the society’s
moral elite. This requirement moves the discourse about renown to a more
elevated and exigent level where fame alone is not sufficient for achieving
prestige: he who desires distinction must also demonstrate that he meets
specific ethical requirements. This is the origin of the systematic association
of gloria and uirtus, the latter deemed necessary if glory is assigned the
qualification ‘true’. Laudatory talk without an adequate ethical basis is nothing
more than fama, a simple imitation of the evaluative process on which true
gloria is founded, and is therefore only able to produce a false kind of glory.12
A vast philosophical debate—developed by the Stoics in particular—existed
about the relationship between glory and ethics. This debate even produced a
series of topoi like the famous formula that called gloria a genuine umbra
uirtutis. This laid the groundwork for a stark contrast between true glory,
derived from virtue, and false glory, inconsistent and ephemeral, based only
on others’ appreciation, and lacking content founded in reality.13
The contrast between true and false glory has been suggested countless
times, and well after antiquity. Various moralistic clichés, like those circulating
today about the ephemeral ‘culture of images’, are not all that different from
the attitude that intellectuals in Imperial Rome reserved for various phenom-
ena of stardom (regarding, for example, famous charioteers and pantomime
dancers), only vouched for by an anonymous crowd that, while enormous,
does not meet the ethical requirements necessary to produce judgments based
on authentic virtue. Generalizing, we might conclude that the debate about
renown continued to contribute (in ever-changing forms) reflections analo-
gous to those that the ancients had dedicated to the relationship between

12
See e.g. Cic. Pis. 57: ‘Nam ut leuitatis est inanem aucupari rumorem et omnis umbras etiam
falsae gloriae consectari, sic est animi lucem splendoremque fugientis iustam gloriam, qui est
fructus uerae uirtutis honestissimus, repudiare.’ See Leeman 1949, 86–9 (on Cicero and on the
debate that came before him) and Thomas 2002, 124–40.
13
For a schematic overview of this debate, see Newman 2008, 316–20 and Hardie 2012,
22–33. Zeno had already distinguished between righteous κλέος and empty δόξα, and his disciple
Ariston of Chios wrote ὑπομνήματα ὑπὲρ κενοδοξίας. On the topos of gloria as umbra uirtutis see
Cic. Tusc. 1.109 (‘etsi enim nihil habet in se gloria cur expetatur, tamen uirtutem tamquam
umbra sequitur’) and Sen. Ep. 79.13 (‘Gloria umbra uirtutis est: etiam inuitam comitabitur. Sed
quemadmodum aliquando umbra antecedit, aliquando sequitur uel a tergo est, ita gloria
aliquando ante nos est uisendamque se praebet, aliquando in auerso est maiorque quo serior,
ubi inuidia secessit’): see Otto 1890, 155, Tosi 1991, 767, Leeman 1949, 58–60 and 77–8,
Newman 2008, 332–3, Hardie 2012, 25–6, n. 84.
192 Word of Mouth

generic fama (primarily understood as simple popularity) and true gloria,

which is only obtained by meeting much more sophisticated requirements.14

7.1.4. Renown and Eternity: The Somnium Scipionis

Fama is consequently something that, on its own, can only guarantee a generic
renown. In any case, however, it was seen as an essential communicative
instrument for the spread of someone’s reputation: so much so that Cicero
did not hesitate to identify it as the carrier of gloria itself. As such, it was
considered capable of transporting someone’s name over great spatial and
temporal distances, and was seen in potentially positive terms. Imagined as an
impalpable, self-diffusing entity, fama-renown was thought of as something
that could elevate the name and memory of whoever earned it, so that he or
she reached heaven;15 but also as something that could envision survival after
death, a survival often directly described as eternal. This topos was so wide-
spread in antiquity that it need not be illustrated here. Fama is often described
as capable of persisting for so long that it appears neverending.16 Thanks to
fama, all individuals can expect at least part of themselves to continue beyond
death. They become famed and present in the memories of future generations
due to the prestige they acquire through their abilities, feats, literary works,
and so on.17

14
The crux of the matter could be reduced to this question: who is ethically qualified to
bestow the recognition that is the basis for an individual’s value? Clearly, the criteria for
determining this vary and are subject to debate in every society and time period. Interesting
observations about this can be found in the conclusions of Braudy’s book (1997, 584–91).
15
See e.g. Verg. Aen. 1.379: ‘fama super aethera notus’ (a passage that Servius ad loc. explains
connecting it to Hom. Od. 9.19–20, where Odysseus’s κλέος reaches the heavens: ‘Vlixes in
Homero ait suam famam ad caelum usque uenisse’) and Ov. Met. 15.875–6: ‘parte tamen meliore
mei super alta perennis / astra ferar’ (see also n. 18).
16
Examples include Verg. Aen. 9.79, Ov. Am. 1.10.62 and 1.15.7 (‘fama perennis’); Hor.
Carm. 2.2.9 and Ov. Tr. 3.7.50 (‘fama superstes’); Ap. Verg. Cul. 362 (‘fama uetus numquam
moritura’); Lucan, 10.544 (‘perpetuae . . . famae’); Curt. 9.4.21 (‘immortalitatem famae’); Laus Pis.
249, Lucan. 8.617, Plin. Pan. 55.9 (‘aeterna fama’); Sil. Pun. 11.140 (‘aeterno nomine famae’);
Tac. Ann. 11.7 (‘aeternitatem famae’); Plin. Ep. 9.19.3 (‘immortalitatem . . . uicturique nominis
famam’). We might recall the famous κλέος ἄφθιτον and other similar expressions that were
extremely common in Greek tradition (suffice it to mention Larran 2011, 57–60, and West 2007,
396–410, who offers an overview of such motifs appearing in the poetry of the entire Indo-
European area).
17
See e.g. Liv. 25.38.8: ‘uos quoque uelim, milites, non . . . tamquam extinctos prosequi—
uiuunt uigentque fama rerum gestarum’ etc., Ov. Pont. 4.8.47–8: ‘Carmine fit uiuax uirtus
expersque sepulcri / notitiam serae posteritatis habet’, Plin. Pan. 55.10: ‘non imaginibus et
statuis, sed uirtute ac meritis prorogatur’ (scil. fama bona); Quint. Decl. 253.6: ‘non enim
annorum numero nec spatio aetatis terminari certum est fortium uirorum uitam, sed laude et
fama et perpetuae posteritatis immortalitate’, Stat. Silu. 2.7.107–10 (in memory of Lucan): ‘at tu,
seu rapidum poli per axem / famae curribus arduis leuatus / qua surgunt animae potentiores, /
terras despicis et sepulcra rides.’
 Beyond Death 193

In this respect, we must remember that writers occupy what is in many ways
a crucial role at the centre of fama-renown’s universe. Thanks to the nature of
the written page, literature guarantees solid anchoring to the words that
preserve someone’s memory at length: while celebrating the feats of great
individuals from all time periods, it makes certain that these events and figures
will be spoken about well after the duration of a single generation. In addition,
literary works give whoever composed them a renown that will ensure the
survival of his name.18 This belief was commonplace in the literature of
antiquity. We can find a particularly clear formulation of it in a passage
where Pliny the Younger speaks to Titinius Capito about historical writing
(Ep. 5.8.1–2):
Suades ut historiam scribam, et suades non solus: multi hoc me saepe monuerunt et
ego uolo, non quia commode facturum esse confidam—id enim temere credas nisi
expertus—, sed quia mihi pulchrum in primis uidetur non pati occidere, quibus
aeternitas debeatur, aliorumque famam cum sua extendere. Me autem nihil aeque
ac diuturnitatis amor et cupido sollicitat, res homine dignissima, eo praesertim qui
nullius sibi conscius culpae posteritatis memoriam non reformidet.
You are not singular in the advice you give me to undertake the writing of history;
it is a work which many have frequently pressed upon me; and I strongly incline
to it. Not that I have any confidence of success (which you would think pre-
sumptuous in a tiro), but because I hold it a noble task to rescue from oblivion
those who deserve to be eternally remembered, and extend the fame of others, at
the same time as our own. Nothing, I confess, so strongly affects me as the desire
of a lasting name: a passion highly worthy of the human breast, especially of one,
who, not being conscious to himself of any ill, is not afraid of being remembered
by posterity. (trans. William Melmoth)
As Pliny explicitly says here, the urge to extend one’s own permanence in the
world through time and escape obliuio, through the power of the word (here
written), is very human, regardless of the presence of sound judgment about
the value of one’s own merits. An author like Pliny can make a modest but
unhesitant declaration of this desire.
Obviously, the desire to prolong one’s own renown beyond the confines of a
lifetime becomes a much grander aspiration if it is not generic fama (based on
the simple circulation of a name) but gloria (justified by the stable judgment of
the boni) that sustains this hope. It is no wonder that gloria’s range of action

18
In this sense, both epic and lyric poetry as well as historical writing have played a crucial
role since the oldest Greek tradition: see Goldhill 1990, 69–166 and Marincola 1997, 57–62.
A paradigmatic example of the desire for this kind of survival appears at the end of the
Metamorphoses (15.871–9), where Ovid says he has created a work destined to withstand the
test of time, thereby permanently escaping death (‘perque omnia saecula fama . . . uiuam’: cf. Am.
1.15.7–42, Tr. 3.7.50–2, 4.10.125–32, Pont. 4.16.2–3). See also Joukovsky 1969, 30–1 and Thomas
2002, 46–9.
194 Word of Mouth

was systematically projected beyond the limits of human life, so much that it
was typically associated with immortality and eternity.19
This way of imagining the possibility of overcoming the limitations of
human existence thanks to renown and glory was also subject to moralistic
devaluation.20 The most well-known and radical ancient critique of it is
found in the Somnium Scipionis, the only part of book 6 of Cicero’s De
republica that we can still read in its entirety. In this passage, Scipio Aemi-
lianus describes a dream where his adoptive grandfather, Scipio Africanus,
appeared. During the vision Scipio Africanus mentions the events awaiting
his grandson and speaks to him about the place where the lucky souls of
deserving humans enjoy eternal life after death (‘aeuo sempiterno’, 13). He
urges him to respect justice and pietas if he aspires to join the community of
those who live in that otherworldly region, once freed from their bodies
(‘corpore laxati’, 16).
Scipio Aemilianus is miraculously transported to this place, and from there
sees how small the Earth is compared to the universe. Noticing the attention
his grandson still gives to the distant earth, Scipio Africanus invites him to
look away from the world and disdain human things. Above all, he stresses the
tenuousness of the glory we erroneously believe we can obtain from human
talk (20):21
Tu enim quam celebritatem sermonis hominum aut quam expetendam consequi
gloriam potes?
For how much can men continue to speak of you, or how desirable can the glory
that you manage to achieve be?
It is easy to recognize the traits we have seen regularly attributed to fama in the
frequency and wide diffusion (celebritas) of human talk. The expression used
here is sermo hominum, and it is worth pointing out that the term fama never
appears in Cicero’s text. In this case, it is as if the process that ‘leads to’
celebrity—namely, to use the definition from De inuentione, the frequent
appearance of a laudatory fama—is included in the general meaning of the
term gloria.
The real substance of glory’s alleged value is subjected to a harsh critique in
chapters 20–5 of the Somnium. Is fame’s scope really so wide? The earth is
small and largely uninhabited: there are many desert regions and inaccessible

19
See Thomas 2002, 22–8. This idea surfaces in Cic. Rab. Perd. 30: ‘Etenim, Quirites, exiguum
nobis uitae curriculum natura circumscripsit, immensum gloriae.’
20
See Thomas 2002, 95–124 (esp. 121–2).
21
On the possibility that the cosmological setting of this assessment of terrestrial glory is
derived from an earlier discussion of the theme by Posidonius, see Leeman 1949, 106–16.
 Beyond Death 195

areas where establishing communicative relationships is unthinkable. It is

absurd to believe that any form of glory could originate there, and equally
absurd to imagine that one’s name might traverse barriers like the Cauca-
sus or the Ganges. If an individual’s name (nomen) cannot reach the outer
regions, then his glory is contained within narrow limits (‘in angustiis’,
22). The same goes for the diffusion of a nomen through time: no matter
how much an individual is acclaimed by future generations, sooner or
later, as a result of the natural events that destroy everything, this glory
will end too. It is not even long-lasting (‘ne diuturnam quidem’, 23), let
alone eternal.
Scipio Africanus concludes his entreaty by inviting his grandson to ignore
the discourse of others and look towards the place where he really could enjoy
eternal life (25):
Igitur alte spectare si uoles atque hanc sedem et aeternam domum contueri, neque
te sermonibus uulgi dederis nec in praemiis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum.
Suis te oportet inlecebris ipsa uirtus trahat ad uerum decus. Quid de te alii
loquantur, ipsi uideant. Sed loquentur tamen; sermo autem omnis ille et angustiis
cingitur iis regionum quas uides, nec umquam de ullo perennis fuit, et obruitur
hominum interitu, et obliuione posteritatis exstinguitur.
Therefore, if you will only look on high and contemplate this eternal home and
resting-place, you will no longer attend to the gossip of the vulgar herd or put
your trust in human rewards for your exploits. Virtue herself, by her own charms,
should lead you on to true glory. Let what others say of you be their own concern;
whatever it is, they will say it in any case. But all their talk is limited to those
narrow regions which you look upon, nor has any man’s reputation endured very
long, for what men say dies with them and is blotted out with the forgetfulness of
posterity.22 (trans. Clinton Walker Keyes, modified)
Cicero’s treatment of glory is effective largely because of the fascination
the dream scene exerts over the reader. The narrative framework erases the
barriers of time and space, allowing the Roman characters to communicate
outside the confines imposed by death. The story even circumvents the
constraints of space, transporting Scipio to a place beyond any imaginable
flight trajectory. From there, even the miraculous paths of fame, sustained by
the prevalence of human speech, seem insignificant. Unsurprisingly, this text
remained an essential point of reference and inspiration for discussions
about glory.

22
Cf. 23–4: ‘Quid autem interest ab iis qui postea nascentur, sermonem fore de te, cum ab iis
nullus fuerit qui ante nati sunt? qui nec pauciores et certe meliores fuerunt uiri, praesertim cum
apud eos ipsos a quibus audiri nomen nostrum potest, nemo unius anni memoriam consequi
possit’ (italics mine).
196 Word of Mouth

7.1.5. Fama, Gloria, Fortuna in Book 2 of the

De consolatione Philosophiae

Cicero’s reflections constitute an explicit reference-point for the treatment

that Boethius dedicates to the topic of renown, in a passage that exerted great
influence over what authors like Dante, and especially Petrarch, wrote about
uana gloria and fama. I refer to the section from book 2 of the De consolatione
Philosophiae where the personification of Philosophy reproaches the prisoner-
narrator for having relied excessively on Fortuna and her capricious gifts.
According to Philosophy, one of the many acquisitions that men delude
themselves they have permanently secured is the writer’s desire for glory: a
worldly value that falls within Fortune’s realm.23
Boethius defines this aspiration in openly Ciceronian terms.24 Philosophy
demonstrates the precariousness and inconsistency of the desire for gloria, for
fama obtained through ‘public’ accreditation, by drawing on the very same
arguments that appeared in the Somnium Scipionis and developing them
further.25 The Earth is a very limited (angustissima) region of the universe,
and the desire to see the fama of one’s own nomen spread over it is ludicrous,
as is the idea of its duration over time or even over eternity.26 If even the
diffusion of a nomen like Rome’s (Romani nominis . . . fama) encounters
natural and cultural barriers that prevent its advancement through space, an
individual’s gloria will certainly remain confined to a single population. Not
even literature guarantees the survival of a name over time (2.7 Pr.13–15 and
18–19):

23
This is a novelty with respect to Aristotle’s classification of external assets subject to chance
(nobility, wealth, and power): see Cioffari 1973, 231. For an incisive definition of the ‘operative
field of fortuna, the capricious and transitory power of disorder’ (a terrain contrasted with those
of deus/prouidentia, fatum, and homo) in Boethius and later tradition, see Frakes 1988, 3–5. For
our discussion, we must keep in mind the role of Fortune as ‘the personified grantor of earthly
goods’. On Fortune in Boethius’s text, see Courcelle 1967, 103–58 (see also Doren 1922–3,
77–82). The relationship between fortune and glory had already been proposed in Latin
tradition: see Knoche 1934, 114–15. It later became decidedly topical: for just one example, see
Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum ecclesie (Dominica XI, PL 172, col. 1057C: ‘Scribunt
itaque philosophi quod mulier rota innexa iugiter circumferatur; cuius caput nunc in alta
erigatur, nunc in ima demergatur. Rota haec quae uoluitur est gloria huius mundi quae iugiter
circumfertur. Mulier rotae innexa est fortuna gloriae intexta’).
24
Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Pr.2: ‘gloriae scilicet cupido et optimorum in rem publicam fama meri-
torum’ (cf. Cic. Phil. 1.29, cit. sec. 7.1.3): see Gruber 2006, 216 ad loc. (with bibliographical
notes), which refers to other passages from classical and Christian tradition
25
Boethius clearly refers to the Somnium Scipionis in 2.7 Pr.8 (‘aetate denique M. Tulli, sicut
ipse quodam loco significat’ etc.). On Boethius’s knowledge of the Somnium and Macrobius’s
commentary, see Courcelle 1967, 116–23.
26
See also Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Pr.6: ‘In hoc igitur minimo puncti quodam puncto circumsaepti
atque conclusi, de peruulganda fama, de proferendo nomine cogitatis, ut quid habeat amplum
magnificumque gloria tam angustis exiguisque limitibus artata?’
 Beyond Death 197
Sed quam multos clarissimos suis temporibus uiros scriptorum inops deleuit
obliuio! Quamquam quid ipsa scripta proficiant, quae cum suis auctoribus premit
longior atque obscura uetustas? Vos uero immortalitatem uobis propagare uide-
mini cum futuri famam temporis cogitatis. Quod si ad aeternitatis infinita spatia
pertractes, quid habes quod de nominis tui diuturnitate laeteris? . . . Ita fit, ut
quamlibet prolixi temporis fama, si cum inexhausta aeternitate cogitetur, non
parua sed plane nulla esse uideatur. Vos autem nisi ad populares auras inanesque
rumores recte facere nescitis et relicta conscientiae uirtutisque praestantia de
alienis praemia sermunculis postulatis.
But how many men, the most famous of their times, are wiped out by oblivion
because no man has written of them! And yet what advantage is there in much
that is written? For with their authors these writings are overwhelmed in the
length and dimness of age. Yet when you think upon your fame in future ages,
you seem to think that you are prolonging it to immortality. But if you think upon
the unending length of eternity, what enjoyment do you find in the long endur-
ance of your name? . . . Wherefore, however long drawn out may be the life of
your fame, it is not even small, but it is absolutely nothing when compared with
eternity. You know not how to act rightly except for the breezes of popular
opinion and for the sake of empty rumours; thus the excellence of conscience
and of virtue is left behind, and you seek rewards from the tattle of other men.
(trans. W. V. Cooper)
Eternity exposes the inconsistency of fama. Even books will be swept into
oblivion by time, which eventually dims renown’s light.27
Philosophy’s position is then powerfully summarized in the poetry section
of the same chapter (2.7 Metr.):
Quicumque solam mente praecipiti petit
summumque credit gloriam,
late patentes aetheris cernat plagas
artumque terrarum situm;
breuem replere non ualentis ambitum 5
pudebit aucti nominis.
Quid, o superbi, colla mortali iugo
frustra leuare gestiunt?
Licet remotos fama per populos means
diffusa linguas explicet 10
et magna titulis fulgeat claris domus,
mors spernit altam gloriam,

27
The phrase ‘premit longior atque obscura uetustas’ clearly echoes Hor. Epist. 2.2.118. On
the possible relationship of these arguments to those in the Macrobian commentary, see Gruber
2006, 221.
198 Word of Mouth

inuoluit humile pariter et celsum caput

aequatque summis infima.
Vbi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent, 15
quid Brutus aut rigidus Cato?
Signat superstes fama tenuis pauculis
inane nomen litteris.
Sed quod decora nouimus uocabula
num scire consumptos datur? 20
Iacetis ergo prorsus ignorabiles
nec fama notos efficit.
Quodsi putatis longius uitam trahi
mortalis aura nominis,
cum sera uobis rapiet hoc etiam dies 25
iam uos secunda mors manet.
The mind that rushes headlong in its search for fame, thinking that is its highest
good, should look upon the spreading regions of the air, and then upon the
bounded tracts that are this world: then will shame enter it; that, though fame
grow, yet can it never fill so small a circle. Proud men! why will ye try in vain to
free your necks from the yoke mortality has set thereon? Though fame may be
wide scattered and find its way through distant lands, and set the tongues there
talking; though a splendid house may draw brilliance from famous names and
tales; yet death regards not any glory, howsoever great. Alike he overwhelms the
lowly and the lofty head, and levels high with low. Where are Fabricius’s bones,
that honourable man? What now is Brutus? or unbending Cato? Their fame
survives in this: it has no more than a few slight letters shewing forth an empty
name. We see their noble names engraved, and only know thereby that they are
brought to naught. Ye lie then all unknown, and fame can give no knowledge of
you. But if you think that life can be prolonged by the breath of mortal fame, yet
when the slow time robs you of this too, then there awaits you but a second death.
(trans. W. V. Cooper)
Later on, I will have several occasions to return to this passage, which is highly
relevant for my discussion of Petrach’s conception of Fama. For now, I will
limit myself to observing the central importance in these lines of the ubi sunt?
motif, which enjoyed great success over the following centuries.28
In these pages, Boethius essentially does little more than rephrase Cicero’s
reflections, concentrating his attention on the work of fama. But in contrast
to what happens in the Somnium Scipionis, the word fama appears fairly
frequently in the Boethian text.29 This term no longer seems to denote

28
On the ubi sunt motif see Liborio 1960. Many authors were clearly influenced by the
Boethian text, but particularly important for us are the famous lines of Petrarch’s Triumphus
Temporis (ll. 112–14 and 141–5). See sec. 7.3.8.
29
Cicero mainly speaks of human talk using the term sermo (celebritas sermonis hominum,
sermones uulgi). In the quoted passage (Cons. 2.7 Pr.19), Boethius also refers to such ‘discourse’
with phrases like populares aurae inanesque rumores and alieni sermunculi. In Cons. 2.7 the term
 Beyond Death 199

the ‘carrier’ of a glorious renown, as it did in Cicero’s definition from De

inuentione, and in some places appears reduced to a simple synonymic variant
of gloria. In later discussions on the theme of glory, fama and gloria continued
to be used interchangeably as actual synonyms.30
It is also worth noting Boethius’s original description of fama as tasked with
etching the names of illustrious men in ephemeral epigraphs (‘signat superstes
fama tenuis pauculis / inane nomen litteris’, 17–18). Here, fama’s ‘word’ is
captured at the moment when it blatantly becomes writing, while still retain-
ing its irredeemably ephemeral nature.31

7.1.6. Augustine’s Views on Glory

Many Christian authors developed a different moralistic approach to the

subject of glory, describing it as part of a conflict between the divine and
human dimensions. While ancient writers did not usually consider the gods as
beneficiaries of glory, Christian culture developed an entirely original concep-
tion of glory not just as a celebration of divine majesty, but also as a privilege
that belonged solely to God.32 From this particular perspective, the aspiration
of individuals to a human glory understood as the desire to achieve some sort
of permanence over time, if not eternity, appeared both laughable and sinful.
This is not the place to analyse this complex vision of the theme as it appears
within the vast body of Christian writings. For the present discussion, all we
need do is illustrate the way in which the main points of this conception
of divine glory were used by a particular author, Saint Augustine, who
dedicated several illuminating pages of his De ciuitate Dei to the theme of

fama appears thirteen times: ten in the prose part (2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, 21) and three in the
verse section (9, 17, 22).
30
A passage from book 1 of De regimine principum by Giles of Rome (written around 1280)
gives an idea of how the semantic relationship between the two terms was viewed: ‘Nam gloria est
quedam clara noticia de aliquo. Est enim gloria claritas quedam. Hoc enim est fama, quia fama
est quedam clara cum laude noticia. Si tamen uelimus aliquo modo distinguere inter famam
et gloriam, diceremus quod fama oritur ex gloria: erit ergo hic ordo, quia gloria oritur ex
honore . . . Fama autem oritur ex gloria et honore’ (from chapter 9, ‘Quod non decet regiam
maiestatem suam felicitatem ponere in gloria et fama’). Giles attempts to differentiate the
concepts, but as he does so, he uses Cicero’s definition of gloria to define fama.
31
‘Superstes fama’ (17) echoes Hor. Carm. 2.2.8. With this image, Boethius devalues monu-
mental writing, which was deeply rooted in the Roman idea of memory (see Corbier 2006,
12–23).
32
See Thomas 2002, 93–4.
200 Word of Mouth

earthly glory. This particular development of the argument interests us due to

the fact that Petrarch presents his own unique reflections on the subject in
book 3 of the Secretum through an intense dialogue with none other than
Augustine, who speaks directly to the author as he reflects on his own
aspirations to glory.33
Like many of the ancients, the bishop of Hippo disdained the love of
popular laus and the ‘void’ it generates in the human soul. This is clear in a
passage of his Enarrationes in Psalmos (149.10):
Nemo est enim qui non amet gloriam. Sed gloria stultorum, popularis illa quae
dicitur, habet illecebram deceptionis, ut ad laudes uanorum hominum quisque
commotus, uelit sic uiuere, ut praedicetur ab hominibus quibuscumque, quomo-
documque. Hinc homines insani effecti, et inflati typho, inanes intus, foris tumidi,
etiam res suas perdere uolunt, donando scenicis, histrionibus, uenatoribus, aurigis.
For there is no one who loves not glory. But the glory of fools, popular glory as it
is called, has snares to deceive, so that a man, influenced by the praises of vain
men, shall be willing to live in such fashion as to be spoken of by men, whosoever
they be, in whatsoever way. Hence it is that men, rendered mad, and puffed up
with pride, empty within, without swollen, are willing even to ruin their fortunes
by bestowing them on stage-players, actors, men who fight with wild beasts,
charioteers. (trans. J. E. Tweed)
Compared to what we have seen in Cicero’s work, Augustine’s condemna-
tion of the love that men show for glory seems infinitely more radical,
precisely because, as we have said, it is framed within a conception of
glory as an exclusively divine right. Therefore, even when accompanied
by virtuous actions and meritorious behaviour, human glory appeared to
Augustine to be false and insubstantial when it was linked to an exclusively
terrestrial dimension rather than the divine sphere of redemption. Let us
consider a long passage from book 5 of De ciuitate Dei (5.12–20) dedicated
to this theme.34
Without wholly negating his appreciation for the Romans who acquired
glory through virtue, Augustine affirms that they only managed to approach
the truth: they still remained linked to an entirely human dimension, without

33
We could cite many other passages of Augustine’s works (starting with the Confessions) in
which research about fama and worldly glory is systematically condemned. We should also keep
in mind the fact that although Augustine’s is a position taken by other authors, it would not be
fair to generalize and extend it to the entire sphere of Christian literature (as has been done in the
past: see e.g. Knoche 1934, 123–4). Human glory is not disvalued by Christian writers like
Prudentius, for example (see Lida de Malkiel 1968, 68–75).
34
Augustine uses the term gloria regularly in this passage. Only in 5.18, p. 227, 31 Dombart/
Kalb is fama mentioned, and given the usual attribute of ‘carrier’ of glory. On the concept of
gloria in book 5 of De ciuitate Dei see Hand 1970, 16–27.
 Beyond Death 201

reaching the true virtue and glory of the divine sphere.35 Augustine’s criterion
for judging the distance between the ephemeral nature of human glory and the
long-lasting nature of divine glory is based on a tendency to relate everything
to the plan of the celestial city, where no one is born and no one dies (De ciu.
D. 5.16). According to the Gospel of John, we need not look to the glory that
comes from the judgment of other men, who can only bestow limited, time-
restricted recognition on virtue.36
Chapter 14 is entirely dedicated to showing how an individual’s love for
God must prevail over his or her love for glory (cupiditas gloriae). The glory of
God and the Church of Christ—rather than a terrestrial, personal glory—will
follow the pious and virtuous behaviour of whoever professes true faith.
Individuals must perform good deeds not to appear virtuous to other men,
but to glorify God and obtain their just rewards. To support this idea,
Augustine cites, among other things, a passage of the Gospel of Matthew
(6.1–4), which we will see was highly important for the Christian understand-
ing of vainglory:
Attendite, ne iustitiam uestram faciatis coram hominibus, ut uideamini ab eis:
alioquin mercedem non habebitis apud patrem uestrum, qui in caelis est. Cum ergo
facies eleemosynam, noli tuba canere ante te, sicut hypocritae faciunt in synagogis
et in uicis, ut honorificentur ab hominibus. Amen dico uobis, receperunt mercedem
suam. Te autem faciente eleemosynam, nesciat sinistra tua quid faciat dextera
tua, ut sit eleemosyna tua in abscondito, et pater tuus, qui uidet in abscondito,
reddet tibi.
Be careful that you don’t do your charitable giving before men, to be seen by
them, or else you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Therefore
when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from
men. Most assuredly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you do
merciful deeds, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does, so that
your merciful deeds may be in secret, then your Father who sees in secret will
reward you openly.37 (World English Bible)

35
See e.g. the passage about figures like Cato, who is introduced according to the Sallustian
description of Cat. 54.6 (‘quo minus petebat gloriam, eo illum magis sequebatur’) and distantly
compared to the Christian idea of glory, which must be founded on the awareness of one’s own
conscience (‘testimonium conscientiae nostrae’, according to the Pauline formula quoted in
De ciu. D. 5.12, p. 215, 1 Dombart/Kalb): see Hombert 1996, 537–42. In De ciu. D. 5.18, p. 227,
30–2 Dombart/Kalb, Augustine ascribes, among other things, an incentive merit to the emula-
tion of the ancients’ virtuous exploits, celebrated in literature (‘in litteris eorum’) and proclaimed
by fama (‘quando tanta fama praedicarentur’). On the Augustinian assessment of the ancient
Roman ideal of glory, see von Müller 1977, 64–71.
36
John 5.44: ‘Quomodo potestis uos credere, qui gloriam ab inuicem accipitis, et gloriam,
quae a solo est Deo, non quaeritis?’ (see also John 12.43: ‘dilexerunt enim gloriam hominum
magis quam gloriam Dei’). Here and elsewhere, I quote the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible.
37
Cf. Matt. 5.16. Augustine had directed analogous reproaches at himself in Conf. 10.38.63,
even managing to insinuate that his own disdain for vainglory risked becoming none other than
202 Word of Mouth

If glory must no longer be evaluated in regard to its relationship with the

mortal, earthly sphere (a secular and human glory), no matter how far it
deploys itself through space and time, it can only be considered empty and
lacking meaning (uana, inanis) like all ‘worldly goods’, which are normally
deemed ephemeral (power, wealth, luxury, military and athletic victories, etc.).
This is why Augustine considers glory bestowed by other men (hominum laus)
empty (uana gloria) and substantiated by meaningless words.38
It is rather by communicating with the divine dimension through faith that
one might hope to bypass the restrictions of time, thereby achieving not only
self-fulfilment but eternal life and true glory, which rests with God.39 If this
contact is not initiated, Augustine believes that glory’s reward remains linked
to dimensions limited by time and becomes an end in itself (De ciu. D. 5.14–15,
pp. 220, 7–221, 4 Dombart/Kalb):
Sed cum illi essent in ciuitate terrena, . . . quid aliud amarent quam gloriam, qua
uolebant etiam post mortem tamquam uiuere in ore laudantium? Quibus ergo non
erat daturus Deus uitam aeternam cum sanctis angelis suis in sua ciuitate caelesti,
ad cuius societatem pietas uera perducit quae non exhibet seruitutem religionis,
quam λατρείαν Graeci uocant, nisi uni uero Deo, si neque hanc eis terrenam
gloriam excellentissimi imperii concederet: non redderetur merces bonis artibus
eorum, id est uirtutibus, quibus ad tantam gloriam peruenire nitebantur. De
talibus enim, qui propter hoc boni aliquid facere uidentur, ut glorificentur ab
hominibus, etiam Dominus ait: ‘Amen dico uobis, perceperunt mercedem suam.’
But the heroes of Rome were members of an earthly city . . . what else were they to
love, then, but glory, by which they sought to find even after death a kind of life in
the mouths of those who praised them? It was not God’s purpose, then, to give to
these persons eternal life with the angels in His Heavenly City. For only true
godliness leads to that fellowship: the godliness which offers to the one true God
alone that service of religion which the Greeks call latreia. But if He had not even
granted them the merely earthly glory of supreme empire, a reward would not

an overwhelming source of pride (‘Sermo autem ore procedens et facta quae innotescunt
hominibus habent temptationem periculosissimam ab amore laudis, qui ad priuatam quandam
excellentiam contrahit emendicata suffragia. Temptat et cum a me in me arguitur, eo ipso quo
arguitur, et saepe de ipso uanae gloriae contemptu uanius gloriatur, ideoque non iam de ipso
contemptu gloriae gloriatur: non enim eam contemnit cum gloriatur’).
38
To define the limits of gloria humana, Augustine speaks of inanissimus fastus, inanes
laudes (5.17, p. 222, 19–223, 16 Dombart/Kalb), and of that same gloria, he says that ‘inflata est et
multum inanitatis habet’ (5.20, p. 232, 3–5 Dombart/Kalb). In Enarrationes in Psalmos 118,
sermo 29.1, he states more explicitly: ‘Multi enim sunt qui dicta sapientiae studiosissime
inquirunt, . . . ut . . . per sermones quos habet sapientia, perueniant ad hominum laudem, quod
est uana gloria. Non ergo sapientiam quaerunt et quando eam quaerunt, quia non quaerunt
ipsam, alioquin uiuerent secundum ipsam; sed uolunt uerbis eius inflari; et quanto magis
inflantur, tanto magis efficiuntur extra ipsam.’
39
On Augustine’s complex conception of temporality and his way of articulating human time
and supernatural dimensions, see Nightingale 2011, esp. 16–7, 20–1, 25–6, 34–6, 44–5, 50,
105–6, 131.
 Beyond Death 203
have been rendered to their good arts—that is, to the virtues by which they strove
to attain so great a glory. For it is about such men, who seem to do some good in
order that they may be glorified by men, that the Lord Himself said: ‘Verily I say
unto you, they have received their reward [= Matt. 6:2].’ (trans. R. W. Dyson,
modified)
The root of this conception of glory as almost exclusively a divine privilege is
found in sacred texts: for example, according to the teachings of St Paul,
individual achievement should be directed towards the glorification of God
alone.40 Based on these principles, the arguments used to distinguish true and
false glory during the ancient philosophical debate are reformulated. Human
glory, insubstantial and meaningless (uana), thus becomes the opposite of the
‘eternal glory’ that is solely God’s prerogative. Believers must contribute to the
realization of this divine glory that they are continuously invited to invoke
in the liturgy, where the celebration of Christ’s paradoxical triumph plays
a central role, and formulas for the glorification of God (doxologies) close a
number of rites and prayers.41
According to this ideological model, the only gloria that truly deserves to be
considered authentic (uera) is the one acquired through humility and cognizance
of the right relationship with God and his eschatological plan. St Paul taught that
men must please God and not other men, with their ultimate objective being the
actualization of the heavenly kingdom. Their conscience (conscientia), rather
than other people, should be the true judge of their merits.42
Many of the reference-points and models that had formerly characterized
the ancient understanding of glory were thus called into question. For example,
the model of heroic figures celebrated in the classical world was contrasted
with the gloria martyrum. In the manner of an athletic victory or a military

40
1 Cor. 1.31: ‘ut quemadmodum scriptum est “qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur” ’ (cf. Jer.
9.23); 2 Cor. 10.17–18: ‘ “Qui autem gloriatur, in Domino glorietur”. Non enim qui seipsum
commendat, ille probatus est, sed quem Dominus commendat.’ We might also recall the famous
‘Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam (Ps. 113.9)’ For an exemplary
reformulation of these principles, see August. Conf. 10.36.59 (cf. De ciu. D. 14.28): see also
Hombert 1996, 13–25.
41
On the Christian reformulation of the concepts δόξα and gloria, see Vermeulen 1956, 1–27,
37–52, and 108–15, Heghmans 1968, 1–27, Laurentin 1972, I, 220–53, Vermeulen 1981, 203–11
and 223–4, Hombert 1996, 25–31 (see also Boitani 1984, 24–31). Thomas 2002, 93–4 shows how
gloria lay outside the divine dimension in the Roman world.
42
See 2 Cor. 1.12: ‘Nam gloria nostra haec est, testimonium conscientiae nostrae, quod in
simplicitate cordis et sinceritate Dei, et non in sapientia carnali, sed in gratia Dei, conuersati
sumus in hoc mundo, abundantius autem ad uos.’ This idea was phrased similarly by the writers
of antiquity: see Cic. Att. 12.28.2 (‘mea mihi conscientia pluris est quam omnium sermo’) and
Macrob. In Somn. 2.10.2 (‘Virtutis fructum sapiens in conscientia ponit, minus perfectus in
gloria, unde Scipio, perfectionem cupiens infundere nepoti, auctor est ut contentus conscientiae
praemio gloriam non requirat’). On this see von Müller 1977, 41–3. The importance of divine
approval is stated in 1 Thess. 2.4: ‘sed sicut probati sumus a Deo ut crederetur nobis euangelium,
ita loquimur non quasi hominibus placentes, sed Deo, qui probat corda nostra’.
204 Word of Mouth

success, it guaranteed a paradoxical ‘crown’ to those who offered their own

lives as contributions to the realization of the heavenly kingdom and the
glorification of God.43
Martyrs thus exemplified the triumph over evil and passions that is
achieved not only through heroism, but also through ascesis, sacrifices, celi-
bacy, and so on. Such behaviour revealed a believer’s unselfish yearning to
merge his or her individual fulfilment with the divine plan. Conversely, a wish
for uana (or inanis) gloria was represented as a search for recognition without
real substance; and potentially also as an arrogant desire to seize privileges
reserved for God. In Christian tradition, the desire for earthly glory was often
described as a genuine sin.44

7 . 2 . ‘ VANA GLORIA’, ‘ GLORIA MON DANA’

7.2.1. The Glory of Men

Arguments similar to those adopted by Cicero, Boethius, and Augustine in the

passages we have just examined formed the basis of a negative conception of
human glory that was widespread throughout the Middle Ages. As I have
mentioned before, there is no point in retracing its development in detail here,
as it has already been widely studied over the last half-century.45
From a terminological point of view, Cicero’s phrasings continued to be
used as fundamental points of reference, and were re-elaborated in what were
often rather interesting ways. To give just one example, Hugutio of Pisa
recycled the one from De inuentione in his Deriuationes (C 123.15–16 Cec-
chini) before proposing an improbable etymological connection. He associ-
ated the notion of gloria with the condition of what is ‘clear, bright’ (clarus),
then linked this adjective to caelum, and thus to the verb caelare:
GLORIA -e frequens fama cum laude, et dicitur gloria quasi cloria a frequentia
claritatis, g pro c, uel gloria quasi glaurea a laurea, que datur uictoribus, et tunc
dicitur gloria quasi glaurea, idest gerens lauream, et est ethimologia . . .
Et componitur INGLORIOSUS -a -um, quia sit sine gloria idest triumphis, et ingloriosus
immemor glorie.

43
See Vermeulen 1956, 53–90; 1981, 211–14; Straw 2001. The crown of the martyr also
became a widespread iconographical element: see Vermeulen 1956, 91–6 and von Müller 1977,
83–7.
44
See sec. 7.2.2. Augustine himself defined amor laudis as a uitium (De ciu. D. 5.13, p. 217,
16–17 Dombart/Kalb): ‘nam sanius uidet, qui et amorem laudis uitium esse cognoscit’.
45
See Lida de Malkiel 1968, Joukovsky 1969, Vermeulen 1956 and 1981, von Müller 1977,
Boitani 1984, 31–71 (the current chapter owes much to his reconstruction of the motif ’s history),
Thomas 2002.
 Beyond Death 205
GLORIA, -ae: frequent laudatory talk of someone, with praise. The term gloria, as if
‘cloria’, with the g in place of c, derives from the frequency of its splendour
(claritas); or gloria, as if ‘glaurea’, comes from the laurel leaves (laurea) given to
victors; and so gloria is almost as it were ‘glaurea’, that is ‘that wears the crown of
laurel’ (laurea), and this is an authentic derivation . . .
Composed of gloria is INGLORIOSUS -a -um, because without gloria, that is,
without triumphs; and he who does not think of gloria is also inglorious.
This etymological reconstruction of gloria defines a clear constellation of
concepts that refer to a wider cultural model. We should highlight the
importance that Hugutio gives to triumph and to laurel as a symbol of victory,
obviously referring to rituals that in the medieval world survived mainly in the
form of antiquarian memories. The way the ancients imagined triumph, with
its winged Victories, laurel wreaths, chariots, and prisoners, remained an ideal
frame for the peaks of human achievement.
In updated forms like this one, the concept of gloria was also imagined as
part of a broader reflection about the legitimacy of human aspirations. In a
similar context, the observations already developed by Cicero and Boethius
about the ephemeral duration of human success were reused in such a way as
to contrast human time with an otherworldly dimension, where there is
potential for a unique and true gloria that belongs solely to God. Classic
examples of this way of thinking about the real range of human glory include
some clichés that recurred in moralistic medieval writings, which are worth
briefly reviewing before I begin to discuss the texts by Boccaccio and Petrarch
containing the first traces of the new personification of Fama that I will be
examining.

7.2.2. Pride and inanis (uana) gloria

To champion the idea of glory as a divine privilege, preachers and authors of

treatises could support their arguments with Old Testament passages like
Isaiah 42.8, where God declared he wanted it for himself alone (‘gloriam
meam alteri non dabo’). Man could only be given a very restricted form of
earthly praise, which could not risk compromising what was solely for God. In
this way, the medieval authors who presented glory as a false virtue did not
simply repeat moralistic arguments from antiquity, they established a new
limit—and crossing it meant entering the realm of pride, the cardinal sin
commonly held to be the root of all other evils.46

46
See Muzzarelli 1998, 99–105, Casagrande and Vecchio 2000, 6–10.
206 Word of Mouth

Now part of this new dominion was uana or inanis gloria, which was generally
considered one of the vices ranked immediately below pride.47 For a concise,
clear idea of the motivations that, according to this ideology, led the human
desire for glory to slip into the category of sins, we should consider a paradig-
matic passage, already singled out by Piero Boitani, which efficiently synthesizes
the relevant arguments. I refer to the Speculum morale, the section that in the
fourteenth century an unknown author added to the great encyclopedia of
Vincent de Beauvais. On the pages dedicated to uana gloria we find not only
an accurate definition of the concept, but also an extensive review of the opinions
that earlier authors had expressed about this human weakness. Particularly
interesting is the third part of book 3, which discusses the cardinal sins (begin-
ning with pride): in particular the ‘Distinctio VIII’, De peccato inanis gloriae.48
This section gives an overview of the treatment of the twelve degrees of
pride. The two starting-points are the definition of glory, as usual based on
Cicero’s formula in De inuentione, and the distinction between uera and uana
gloria. The approval of men (laus humana) is presented as something that must
not be considered desirable in and of itself, but that may prove useful in other
ways (to glorify God, to develop one’s own virtue, or to provide an example that
can foster it in others). Otherwise it is empty of merit (uana). The love of this
kind of glory is not considered an intrinsically mortal sin (as it does not go
against charity), although it can become one when the acquisition of personal
achievement becomes an end in itself, capable of leading man to defy God. But
despite this partial reduction of guilt, the author shows a clear propensity to
consider uana gloria a genuine cardinal sin: in fact, he calls it the first and main
daughter of pride (in turn seen as the behaviour at the root of all sin).49
After listing the material and spiritual objects that provoke a desire for this
‘vain’ glory, the author also wonders how it is that the glory related to the
things of this world (gloria mundialis) deserves disdain. He dedicates a careful
discussion to why lack of substance (uanitas) is associated with this form of
gloria, adding an interesting list of impalpable things to which the term is
compared: dust, wind, dream, shadow.50
These similes, which we will see later in the texts of Dante, Boccaccio, and
Petrarch, are commonplaces of the moralistic discourse systematically used to

47
Thomas 1998 (and 2002, 212–32) demonstrated how various linguistic elements of con-
vergence between glory, vanity, and pride already existed in ancient literary texts (suffice it to
think of the adjective gloriosus and the verb gloriari).
48
See Boitani 1984, 63–8. Citations drawn from Bibliotheca Mundi, seu Speculi Maioris
Vincentii Burgundi praesulis Bellouacensis . . . Tomus Tertius, qui Speculum Morale inscribitur . . .
Duaci, Ex Off. Typ. Baltazaris Belleri . . . M.DC.XXIV, 1018E–1026E (‘Distinctio IX’ is dedicated to
the various types of inanis gloria and its derivatives).
49
See Joukovsky-Micha 1968, 3–4. The most serious component of this sin would be the
attempt to take the glory reserved for God, without even showing gratitude for a gift that comes
from him (1024B–C).
50
‘Ideo comparatur pulueri, uento, somnio, et umbrae’ (1021E).
 Beyond Death 207

frame the ‘vanity’ of human glory in the medieval period: this kind of glory is
thought of as something ephemeral that lacks substance and tenacity.51
As we will see in the next section, the Middle Ages inherited this idea of
empty lightness from antiquity and reworked it within a decidedly new
moralistic dimension. However, it is also worth pointing out that the meta-
phorical territory here is different from the one examined earlier, which dealt
with the intangible, elusive quality of rumours that meander unpredictably
from mouth to mouth. Earlier we were looking at the representation of an
aerial path along which fama moves itself independently in the form of talk
that has a paradoxical autonomy, despite its being passed from one speaker to
another. In medieval texts, however, uana or inanis gloria is described as
something light and pulled along a random course. The invisible current that
produces an individual’s glory seems to spring from the talk of men like a wind
that carries away the objects found in its path.

7.2.3. The Breath of fama, the Vanity of Glory

A comparable idea of glory and the favour that comes from popular opinion
was not unheard of in the classical world. For example, some ancient authors
presented those who delighted in their own renown as puffed up and vacu-
ous.52 Servius Danielis clearly related false glory with this ‘empty swelling’
(ad Aen. 11.854):
uana tumentem : plenum falsae gloriae, quam Graeci κενοδοξίαν dicunt.
swollen with vain pride: full of a false glory that the Greeks call kenodoxia.
The opinions of the crowd, flung here and there by the wind, were considered
similarly weightless. Also interesting are the cases where this wind, primarily
imagined as the gentle breeze that in Latin is called aura, could also have been
imagined as a ‘wind of talk’, in accordance with the model that we saw
earlier.53 This movement appears in a passage by Cicero that stigmatizes the
popular fickleness at the comitia (Mur. 35):
Dies intermissus aut nox interposita saepe perturbat omnia, et totam opinionem
parua non numquam commutat aura rumoris. Saepe etiam sine ulla aperta causa

51
‘ . . . contemnenda est gloria mundialis propter breuitatem durationis; transit enim ad
modum uenti, somnii, et umbrae’ (1023A).
52
See e.g. Hor. Epist. 1.1.36 (‘laudis amore tumes’), Plin. HN 37.8 (‘tibicinum gloria tumere’),
Quint. Inst. 12.10.17 (‘Asiana gens tumidior alioqui atque iactantior uaniore etiam dicendi gloria
inflata est’), Sil. Pun. 17.429 (‘uana tumentem’), Val. Flacc. 3.677 (‘parta iam laude tumens’).
53
See e.g. Verg. Aen. 7.646 (‘ad nos uix tenuis famae perlabitur aura’) and Curt. 4.5.12
(‘incertae famae . . . auram’).
208 Word of Mouth
fit aliud atque existimaris, ut non numquam ita factum esse etiam populus
admiretur, quasi uero non ipse fecerit.
The loss of a day or the advent of a night often changes everything, and a slight
breath of rumour sometimes alters every opinion. Often even without any
apparent cause things happen so contrary to your expectation that sometimes
even the people wonder at the course of events, as if they had not themselves been
responsible. (trans. Louis E. Lord)
Descriptions like this one highlight the lightness of empty things, dragged by
faint currents of air and, so to speak, made of air themselves.54 Talk that travels
here and there in no precise direction is imagined as a current that brings
inconsistent and extremely changeable opinions with it. In accordance with
this metaphorical schema, on several occasions this same popular favour is
conceived of as an ephemeral breeze (popularis aura).55 This motif appears in
Livy’s account of the uncertain state that resulted from the conflict between
the Macedonian king and the Romans in 171 BCE. He describes the behaviour
that led the principes of several populations to view Perseus with greater
sympathy in the following way (42.30.4):
quos<dam> aes alienum et desperatio rerum suarum eodem manente statu
praecipites ad nouanda omnia agebat; quosdam uentosum ingenium, quia <ad>
Persea magis aura popularis ierat.
some, because of debt and despair of their own fortunes if no change should
occur, were driven headlong to the overturning of everything. Some were upset by
their own windy instability of character, since the breeze of popular favour turned
in Perseus’ direction. (trans. Evan T. Sage and Alfred C. Schlesinger)
The adjective uentosus, which Livy uses to indicate the superficial behaviour of
these characters, appears on several occasions where fama, gloria, and success
in general are discussed, and expresses their uncertainty and instability. In one
of his notes, Servius states that the phrase uentosa gloria should actually be
seen as an equivalent of ‘vainglory’.56

54
As Sen. QNat. 3.25.10 explains: ‘Necessario leue est quod ex uentoso inanique
concretum est.’
55
See e.g. Cic. Har. resp. 43 (‘Sulpicium . . . longius quam uoluit popularis aura prouexit’),
Verg. Aen. 6.816 (‘nimium gaudens popularibus auris’), Hor. Carm. 3.2.20 (‘arbitrio popularis
aurae’), Liv. 3.33.7 (‘plebicola . . . omnisque aurae popularis captator’), 22.26.4 (‘auram fauoris
popularis’), 29.37.17 (‘obnoxia populari aurae censura’), Lucan. 1.131–3: (‘famaeque petitor /
multa dare in uolgus, totus popularibus auris / inpelli plausuque sui gaudere theatri’), Quint. Inst.
11.1.45 (‘Quis uero nesciat quanto aliud dicendi genus poscat grauitas senatoria, aliud aura
popularis?’), Quint. Decl. 352.1 (‘incerta populi aura’), Sen. Phaed. 488 (‘non aura populi et
uulgus infidum bonis’), Serv. ad Aen. 2.385 (‘adspirat: fauet, ut “adspirant aurae in noctem”:
unde et fauor “aura” dicitur, ut “gaudens popularibus auris” ’). August., De ciu. D. 5.13, p. 218
Dombart/Kalb discusses the uentositas that characterizes the praise obtained from men (‘de studiis
talibus . . . quae utique sectanda sunt fine ueri boni, non uentositate laudis humanae’).
56
Serv. ad Aen. 11.708: ‘uentosa autem gloria est quam Graeci κενοδοξίαν uocant’. For an
analogous connection of uentosus to uanitas, see Sen. Dial. 5.8.4 (‘uentosus et mendax uanitate’),
Fulg. Expos. uirgil. contin 96 Helm: ‘uanae enim laudis tumor uentosa uoce turgescit’. For other
 Beyond Death 209

It is unsurprising that Augustine spoke of glory in this way more than once
in the part of De civitate Dei that we examined earlier. Particularly instructive
is the passage where he tries to envisage a Glory figure seated on a throne in
the midst of a court of Virtues who have been reduced to her servants (De ciu.
D. 5.20, p. 232 Dombart/Kalb):57
Licet enim ipsa gloria delicata mulier non sit, inflata est et multum inanitatis
habet. Vnde non ei digne seruit soliditas quaedam firmitasque uirtutum, ut nihil
prouideat prouidentia, nihil distribuat iustitia, nihil toleret fortitudo, nihil tem-
perantia moderetur, nisi unde placeatur hominibus et uentosae gloriae seruiatur.
For though that Glory is indeed not a voluptuous woman, she is still puffed
up and has great vanity. And so it is not worthy for her to be served by any solid
and firm virtues: for Prudence to foresee nothing, Justice to bestow nothing,
Fortitude to tolerate nothing, and Temperance to moderate nothing other than
for the sake of pleasing men and serving an inflated glory. (trans. R. W. Dyson,
modified)
This way of representing the empty inflation of men inclined to pride and
vainglory had a long medieval tradition. Here it suffices to recall the phrase
that, at the end of the twelfth century, Peter of Blois used to define worldly
success and popular favour, likening them to smoke and breath that suddenly
vanishes;58 or the one the Bolognese professor of rhetoric Guido Faba used, in
the first half of the thirteenth century, to define the superbus, or arrogant
individual, even suggesting an improbable etymology:59
Superbus quasi super uentum in altum tollitur ut lapsu grauiori debite puniatur.
Proinde est quod non turgidus incedas ut rana, uel inflatus ut uesica moreris, quia
cadit superbus, ut puluis a uento ducitur et corona eius pedibus conculcatur.
A haughty person (superbus) is raised on high, ‘above the wind’ (super uentum),
then duly punished with a heavier fall. Thus there is no reason for you to strut,
inflated like a frog, or full of air like a bladder. Indeed, the superbus falls, like the
dust transported by the wind, and his crown is trampled upon.60

uses of the adjective uentosus see Verg. Aen. 11.708 (‘uentosa . . . gloria’), Hor. Epist. 1.19.37 (‘non
ego uentosae plebis suffragia uenor’), Stat. Theb. 10.710–11 (‘ibi gloria tantum / uentosumque
decus titulique in morte latentes’), Silu. 4.4.51–2 (‘uentosaque gaudia famae / quaerimus’), Sen.
Ep. 84.11 (‘relinque ambitum, tumida res est, uana, uentosa’). Horace gives Glory a uentosus
chariot: see Ch. 8, sec. 8.1.1.
57
See also 5.13 (‘uentositate laudis humanae’). Augustine’s image of glory surrounded by the
virtues is based on the allegorical scene described by Cleanthes, with Voluptas at the centre: cf.
Cic. De finibus 2.69.
58
Petrus Blesensis, Epist. 35 (PL 207, 114 B): ‘mundi pompa et fauor populi fumus est, et aura
subito euanescens.’
59
Summa de uitiis et uirtutibus, III (Exordia et continuationes superbiae): I quote from Pini
1956, 104–5.
60
The etymological link (superbus–super uentum) that Guido Faba proposes is untranslat-
able. See also the vulgarized Italian form of the passage: ‘l’uomo superbo sopra ’l vento si leva
molto, e sta ingrusato come ranocchio e gonfiato come vescica. L’uomo superbo cade come la
polvere menata dal vento e la sua corona co li piedi fie calpestata.’
210 Word of Mouth

7.2.4. Dante and Vainglory

The elements examined so far are enough to illustrate the features of the
concept of human glory, which was the basis for the construction of the Fama
personification I will be analysing. As we draw closer in time to the texts where
the first portrayal of this figure appears, we can find a skilful fusion of all these
elements in a famous passage of the Divine Comedy that is also Dante’s most
important statement on fame and renown. For the purposes of this discussion,
Dante’s passage is the exemplary synthesis of a notion of vainglory that was
still widely diffused at the start of the fourteenth century. It is also particularly
illuminating due to the way in which it makes use of the ideas already
introduced in the passages of Cicero, Boethius, and Augustine that we con-
sidered earlier.61
On the first of Purgatory’s seven terraces we see the beginning of the
difficult path of the souls who must atone for offences corresponding to the
seven capital vices. This terrace is, of course, dedicated to pride, traditionally
the root of all other sins. The superbi are stooped under the weight of great
boulders—whose dimensions vary according to the seriousness of the sin—
and forced to direct their gaze (once arrogantly raised towards heaven) at the
ground. The manuscript illuminator Oderisi da Gubbio has been chosen by
Dante to illustrate the pride of those who aspire to obtain glory through works
of art; he explains the vanity of glory by speaking from personal experience.
Just as he was bested by Franco Bolognese (about whom we know nothing
today), so was Cimabue displaced by Giotto, and Guido Guinizelli by Guido
Cavalcanti (Purg. 11.88–117):
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio;
e ancor non sarei qui, se non fosse
che, possendo peccar, mi volsi a Dio. 90
Oh vana gloria de l’umane posse!
com’ poco verde in su la cima dura,
se non è giunta da l’etati grosse!
Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido, 95
sì che la fama di colui è scura:
così ha tolto l’uno a l’altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l’uno e l’altro caccerà del nido.
Non è il mondan romore altro ch’un fiato 100
di vento, ch’or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato.

61
For Dante’s conception of fame see Boitani 1984, 73–90 (esp. 86–8 on the passage
quoted here).
 Beyond Death 211

Che voce avrai tu più, se vecchia scindi

da te la carne, che se fossi morto
anzi che tu lasciassi il ‘pappo’ e ’l ‘dindi’, 105
pria che passin mill’anni? ch’è più corto
spazio a l’etterno, ch’un muover di ciglia
al cerchio che più tardi in cielo è torto.
Colui che del cammin sì poco piglia
dinanzi a me, Toscana sonò tutta; 110
e ora a pena in Siena sen pispiglia,
ond’era sire quando fu distrutta
la rabbia fiorentina, che superba
fu a quel tempo sì com’ora è putta.
La vostra nominanza è color d’erba, 115
che viene e va, e quei la discolora
per cui ella esce de la terra acerba.
Here we pay the price for such pride; and I would still not be here, had I not,
though able to sin, turned to God. Oh empty glory of human powers! how briefly
the green on your summit lasts, if dark times do not follow you! Cimabue believed
he led the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, thus darkening the
former’s fame: and so one Guido has seized the glory of our tongue from the
other; and maybe one is born who will chase both of them from the nest. Worldly
renown is no more than a breath of wind that goes here and there, and changes
name as it changes course. Once a thousand years have passed what more renown
will you have if old age parts you from your flesh, than if you had died before you
finished speaking childish words? Such time is shorter to eternity than the blink
of an eye is to an orbit of the slowest sphere. All Tuscany rang out with the one
who goes so slowly down the path before me; and now there is barely a whisper of
him in Siena where he was lord when they quelled the madness of Florence, as
proud then as she is now a whore. Your renown is the colour of grass that comes
and goes, and the very thing that makes it sprout green from the earth is what
then fades it.
Oderisi condemns the vainglory of those who become arrogant after obtaining
widespread popularity as a result of their talent. The illuminator’s speech
revolves around four different ideas:
1. the ‘empty’ success that someone obtains with his/her talent (‘vana gloria
de le umane posse’, 91) remains alive (‘verde . . . dura’, 92; ‘è color d’erba’,
115) for only a brief period of time and quickly withers;62
2. the resonance (‘grido’, 95) of an individual’s glory is soon bested by that
of someone else after him, and his renown (‘voce’, 103) lasts for a

62
Benvenuto da Imola glosses the expression ‘umane posse’ as ‘idest, humanarum poten-
tiarum et studiorum hominum, sicut armorum, scientiarum, artium’ (in Lacaita 1887, 312).
212 Word of Mouth

laughable amount of time, especially when compared to the length of

centuries and eternity;63
3. the luminous fame of someone is obscured (‘scura’, 96) by the arrival of a
new talent that is able to surpass it;
4. glory, worldly fame (‘mondan romore’, 100) is only a breeze (‘un fiato di
vento’, 100–1).
The elements at the basis of this conception of vainglory are still those from the
Somnium Scipionis and its revisitation in Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae.
The same Boethian passages that I discussed earlier constitute the reference model
for the words Dante gives Oderisi, as commentators since Pietro Alighieri
(who wrote a few years after the Comedy’s composition) have stressed. The
central metaphorical field is that of the populares aurae and inanes rumores
that Boethius discussed: his image of the ‘breeze’ on which the names of
men travel (mortalis aura nominis) becomes the ‘fiato di vento’ that ‘mondan
romore’ is reduced to in Purgatory, a gust of inconstant wind that easily
changes direction (and, along with it, name and identity). To this image,
Dante adds the rapid withering of an ephemeral plant.64
We thus have a description of unstoppable mutability. Cultural seasons,
colours, names—all of these change and nothing lasts, particularly when it
comes to the fate of humans over an extended time period. Considered from
the perspective of many centuries, it makes no difference whether someone
accrues esteem over the course of a long life or dies in the cradle, as ultimately
all talk (voce) fades.65
In the first version of his commentary Pietro Alighieri cited the texts of
the other authors we have considered (Cicero and Augustine) as well as
Boethius’s; but while doing so he replaced the term gloria with uana gloria.
In this way, the conception of glory delivered to the medieval period by a long
classical and Christian tradition acquired a decidedly unfavourable, moralistic
connotation.66 Analogous connotations are also projected onto terms like

63
This principle is then exemplified by another penitent soul (Provenzano Salvani of Siena:
109–14 and 121 ff.). On the cry (‘grido’) that makes renown (‘fama’) circulate, see Dante’s
response to Corrado Malaspina in Purg. 8.124–6: ‘La fama che la vostra casa onora, / grida i
segnori e grida la contrada, / sì che ne sa chi non vi fu ancora.’
64
Cf. 100–2 and Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Metr.2.24. As Pietro Alighieri already observed (in the first
edition of his commentary on 79–93, where Isa. 28.1 is quoted: ‘uae coronae superbiae ebriis
Ephraim et flori decidenti gloriae exultationis’), the motif of withering glory has existed since the
sacred texts: see e.g. 1.Pe.1.24 (‘quia omnis caro ut faenum et omnis gloria eius tamquam flos
faeni: exaruit faenum et flos decidit’—from Isa. 40.6–8).
65
Both the Ottimo Commento and Francesco da Buti gloss Dante’s ‘voce’ (103) as ‘fama’. This
idea is also closely related to the Boethian model: see Chiavacci Leonardi 1994, 340 (ad 103–8),
who refers to Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Pr.
66
Ad 79–93: ‘Per quae uerba intellige nunc ubi auctor dicit et exclamat sic contra uanam
gloriam, quae definitur per Augustinum sic: “uana gloria est judicium hominum, bene de aliquo
opinantium”. Tullius vero dicit: “uana gloria est magni dicti et magni facti frequens fama cum
 Beyond Death 213

‘fama’ and ‘romore’, which are reduced to simple synonyms of gloria in the
texts we are considering, even though close examination would allow us to
distinguish an implicit reference to human talk, which continues to be the true
carrier of renown and glory. ‘Vana gloria’, ‘mondan romore’, and ‘nominanza’
are different ways of denoting fama-renown, according to the perspective that
tended to consider desire for earthly glory a dangerous precursor to pride, if
not one of its main manifestations. This kind of fame was often relegated to
being one of the false values of a worldly culture inextricably linked to the
perishable things of the earth.

7.2.5. Glory Embodied: Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione

Some decades later, Boccaccio would create a character out of this false virtue
in the Amorosa visione. This allegorical poem, composed between 1342 and
1343, represents a fundamental stage of the creation of the modern Fama
figure.67 Like the Divine Comedy and other poems I will examine later, the
Amorosa visione is structured around a dream vision, sent by Cupid, which the
narrator protagonist relates to his beloved.
In his dream, the main character is running in the grip of an inexplicable
fear, when he encounters an extraordinarily beautiful woman holding the
symbols of royal power (the sceptre and a golden sphere). She invites him to
abandon life’s ephemeral pleasures (‘van diletti’) and follow her to a great
castle on a hill (1.49–51).
Once they have reached the castle entrance, the Guide urges the narrator to
enter via a narrow opening, beyond which, as the inscription overhead
indicates, lies a difficult path that leads to eternal rest (‘riposo etterno’, 2.67).
But sounds of celebration emanate from a large door to the left, and an
eloquent sign indicates a much more inviting setting (3.16–21):
Ricchezze, dignità, ogni tesoro,
gloria mondana copiosamente
do a color che passan nel mio coro.
Lieti li fo nel mondo, e similmente
do quella gioia che Amor promette
a’ cor che senton suo dardo pugnente.

laude” ’ (my emphasis). A similar change can also be found in a text by Thomas Aquinas, who
quoted the Augustinian definition also referred to by Pietro (De ciu. D. 5.12 p. 214, 29–30
Dombart/Kalb) in this form: ‘inanis gloria est iudicium hominum bene de aliquo opinantium’
(Quaestiones disputatae de malo, quaest. 9 [De inani gloria] art.1. arg.8, my emphasis). However,
in his response to this first ‘articulus’ of the ‘quaestio’ about vainglory, Aquinas correctly reprised
the definition from De inuentione that was modified by Pietro.
67
On Boccaccio’s conception of Fama, see Boitani 1984, 90–103 (esp. 93–5 on the Amorosa
visione).
214 Word of Mouth

I give riches, high status, treasures, and worldly glory in abundance to those who
join my chorus. I make them happy in the world, just as I grant the joy that Love
promises the hearts that feel his stinging arrow.
The narrator does not hesitate: pushing all pious thoughts aside, he chooses
the path of worldly goods, to which the mark of vanity is regularly attributed.68
We are thus brought to a splendid room whose walls are covered in frescos
so exquisite that it seems only an artist like Giotto could have painted them.69
The four scenes depicted revolve around four allegorical figures: Wisdom,
Glory, Wealth, and Love. The first two characters have regal clothing and a
dignified manner, and each is in a central, conspicuous position, with a crowd
of famous figures from myth and history at their feet.70
Wisdom (here personified as a woman) holds a sceptre in her right hand
and a book (‘libretto’, 4.25–30) in her left, and is surrounded by the Seven
Liberal Arts. To her right are philosophers and scientists (corresponding to the
arts of the Quadrivium). On her other side are poets and writers. Dante
Alighieri—the last one listed—is given particular emphasis and crowned
with laurel (5.70–6.18). At the end of the homage he pays to the author of
the Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s wish that Dante’s fame will endure allows a
smooth transition to the fresco that covers the next wall.71 In this painting,
gathered before a new sovereign, we see those who successfully managed to
extend their fame over time (‘que’ del mondan romore eredi’, 6.27).72
The fresco dedicated to ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ vividly represents
genuine triumph (6.43–75):
Odi, ché mai Natura con sua arte
forma non diede a sì bella figura:
non Citarea, allor ch’ell’amò Marte, 45
né quando Adon le piacque, con sua cura

68
See e.g. 2.38 ‘ben fallaci’ and 3.8: ‘cose vane’. The terms ‘vano’, ‘vanità’, etc. appear in the
poem many times, especially in the first cantos, clearly defining the sphere of worldly goods,
which cannot be considered part of ‘bene etterno’ (2.57; see also 3.81; ‘vere cose’).
69
4.12–17: ‘Humana man non credo che sospinta / mai fosse a tanto ingegno quanto in quella
/ mostrava ogni figura lì distinta, / eccetto se da Giotto, al qual la bella / Natura parte di
sé somigliante / non occultò nell’atto in che suggella.’ As is well known Boccaccio was the first
writer to credit Giotto with exemplary importance (see Baxandall 1971, 51–120, esp. 73–8). On
Boccaccio’s appreciation for the ‘lifelike character of Giotto’s pictures’, see Watson 1984, 50–2
and Maginnis 1996.
70
Wisdom is not actually acknowledged by name. Her identification (accepted by modern
scholars) was proposed by Girolamo Claricio, curator of the first printed edition of the poem
(1521): she is a personification of the knowledge acquired through studying, whose main
manifestations are philosophy and literature.
71
6.13–15: ‘Viva la fama tua, e ben saputa, / gloria de’ Fiorentin, da’ quali ingrati / fu la tua
vita assai mal conosciuta!’
72
‘Mondan romore’ is the very expression used by Dante in the Purgatory passage quoted
earlier (11.100).
 Beyond Death 215

si fé sì bella, quanto infra gran gente

donna pareva lì leggiadra e pura.
Tutti li soprastava veramente,
di ricche pietre coronata e d’oro, 50
nell’aspetto magnanima e possente.
Ardita sopra un carro tra costoro
grande e triunfal lieta sedea,
ornato tutto di frondi d’alloro.
Mirando questa gente in man tenea 55
una spada tagliente, con la quale
che ’l mondo minacciasse mi parea.
Il suo vestire a guisa imperiale
era, e teneva nella man sinestra
un pomo d’oro, e ’n trono alla reale, 60
vidi, sedeva; e dalla sua man destra
due cavalli eran che col petto forte
traeano il carro fra la gente alpestra.
Ed intra l’altre cose che iscorte
quivi furon da me intorno a questa 65
sovrana donna, nimica di morte
nel magnanimo aspetto, fu ch’a sesta
un cerchio si movea grande e ritondo,
da’ piè passando a lei sopra la testa.
Né credo che sia cosa in tutto ’l mondo, 70
villa, paese, dimestico o strano,
che non paresse dentro da quel tondo.
Era sopra costei, e non invano,
scritto un verso che dicea leggendo:
‘Io son la Gloria del popol mondano.’ 75
Listen, for never had Nature with her art given form to such a beautiful figure! Not
Venus when she was in love with Mars or when she was charmed by Adonis made
herself as lovely as that woman appeared there, fair and pure among so many people.
Crowned with precious stones and gold, noble and powerful in appearance, she was
superior to them all. Bold, great, triumphant, and joyful, she sat amidst them on a
chariot all adorned with laurel branches. Looking at these people, she held a sharp
sword, and to me seemed to menace the world with it. She wore imperial dress and
held a golden sphere in her left hand, and I saw she was sitting on a throne like a
queen. On her right, two strong-breasted horses pulled the chariot through the rough
crowd. One of the other things I saw around this sovereign, whose noble bearing was
hostile to death, was a perfect circle that moved, great and round, encompassing her
feet and head. I think that there is nothing in the world, town or village, domestic or
foreign, that did not appear inside that circle. Written above her, to good purpose,
was a line that read: ‘I am the Glory of the worldly people.’

The regal figure, revealed to us through a typical ekphrasis, represents worldly

(‘mondana’) Glory, thanks to whom the men populating the world manage
216 Word of Mouth

(to some extent) to conquer death.73 This personification has a clear allegorical
function. Her decidedly innovative appearance would later be subjected to a
series of variations, until the stabilization of Fama’s iconography several
decades later. We can certainly state that a figure analogous to Boccaccio’s
Glory suggested the framework that illustrators used, starting at the end of the
fourteenth century, to construct their images of Petrarch’s Fama.
This is the only of the poem’s allegorical personifications to be presented in
a triumphal stance (‘triunfal’, 53), in the midst of a victory scene. She appears
on a chariot drawn by two horses (52, 62–3) and adorned with laurel wreaths
(54). She holds a sword in her right hand and brandishes it menacingly at the
group of heroes at her feet: this hostile behaviour is not explained later, and
leaves the reader unsure whether to interpret this symbolic element as a
reference to the work of justice or to a more generic use of power.74
The throne is not the only typical imperial sign present: the woman is
holding a globe, which traditionally symbolized the exercise of power over the
entire world. This domination is later evoked by the sophisticated way in
which Boccaccio ‘frames’ Glory: a perfectly round circle moves around her,
and all the places in the world appear inside it. In this initial description of
Glory’s universe, such a detail may seem surprising and difficult to imagine
concretely, but later on in the ekphrasis its purpose becomes clearer thanks to
the movements of the other characters in the fresco.
At the feet of the regal figure that dominates the painting is an endless
crowd of characters from myth and history. Founders of peoples, sovereigns,
heroes, and warriors follow one another in a litany that puts the Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew traditions in a fairly unorganized sequence before moving onto
the Breton and Carolingian cycles, and ending with the introduction of
Charles of Anjou. Many of these characters are looking at the sovereign or
moving towards her, spurred by the desire to become famous, even trying to
touch her.75 Some lean forward to grasp the circle that surrounds Glory, and

73
The regal aspect of this figure’s traits is emphasized rather insistently: see 50 (‘di ricche
pietre coronata e d’oro’), 58 (‘vestire a guisa imperiale’), 60–1 (‘e ’n trono alla reale, / vidi,
sedeva’), 66 (‘sovrana donna’). The woman is called ‘nimica di morte’ on l. 66. Later, the narrator
comments on the overall effect of the fresco (12.4–6): ‘Parevami, nel creder, veramente / che loro
eccelsa fama gloriosi / far li dovesse sempiternamente.’
74
See Branca 1974, 317: ‘in her right hand (like Giotto’s Fortitude) the woman holds the
sword, to suggest the glory that comes from “power”.’ On the sword as an attribute of Justice in
her role as ‘punisher of wrong’, see Katzenellenbogen 1939, 55–6.
75
See 12.7–9: ‘molto disiosi / negli atti si mostravan di venire / a quella donna per esser
famosi’; 8.33 (said of Patroclus and Antenor): ‘ciascun con gli occhi ver la donna alzati’; 10.5–6
(said of Hannibal): ‘col viso alzato / inver la donna andando a suo potere’ (something similar is
said of Coriolanus and Massinissa a few lines later: 10.16–21); 8.54 (said of Theseus and
Demophon): ‘di toccar quella donna disiosi’; 11.14–15 (said of Lancelot): ‘per appressarsi alla
donna piacente, / di cui toccar pareva disioso’.
 Beyond Death 217

thereby enter what we might call her ‘range of action’, which extends across
the world. This is true of Alexander the Great (7.76–81):
Risplendea quivi ancora cavalcando
Alessandro, che ’l mondo assalì tutto
con forza lui a sé sotto recando;
il qual con fretta voleva al postutto
toccare il cerchio ove colei posava,
cui questi disiavan per lor frutto.
Next, resplendent on his horse, rode Alexander, who assailed the entire world and
subdued it with his strength; he hurriedly, at any cost, wanted to touch the circle
where she rested, which all desired for their own advantage.
Augustus, who appears immediately after the description of Caesar, seems
even more eager to touch that circle (10.43–8):76
Appresso poi parea che li corresse
volonteroso e sì forte Ottaviano,
che dentro al cerchio già parea ch’avesse
messa più che nessun la destra mano:
bello era e nello aspetto grazioso
quanto alcun altro fosse mai mondano.
After him, it seemed that Octavian came running, so keen and so strong that he
seemed to have put his right hand further inside the circle than anyone else. He
was handsome and he looked as fair as no one else in the world ever was.
As we will see in the next chapter, similar images of Glory as a triumphant
female figure on a chariot, surrounded by the heroes of the past (some of them
attempting to touch a circle that surrounds her and represents her jurisdic-
tion), would have great success in the figurative arts of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
Next, the fresco that depicts the triumph of Wealth is described. No
personification of the concept appears: only a great mass of people intent on
using any means possible to dig up a great pile of gold, silver, and precious
stones, in order to become rich (12.58–81).
The following fresco portrays another clearly defined character. The scene
surrounding the personification of Love has much richer symbolic implica-
tions than the more basic triumphal trappings that accompany Glory.77 The

76
Particular emphasis is given to the majesty of Caesar and Charlemagne (10.31–9 and
11.58–66): both are in triumphal attire.
77
15.13–33: ‘Tra’ quali, in mezzo d’esso, al mio parere, / un gran signor di mirabile aspetto /
vid’io sopra due aquile sedere; / al qual mentre io mirava con effetto, / sopra due lioncelli i piè tenea
/ ch’avean del verde prato fatto letto. / Una bella corona in capo avea / e li biondi cape’ sparti
sott’essa, / che un fil d’oro ciaschedun parea. / Il viso suo come neve mo’ messa / parea, nel qual
mescolata rossezza / aveva convenevolmente ad essa. / Sanza comparazion la sua bellezza / era, ed
aveva due grandi ali d’oro / alle sue spalle, stese inver l’altezza. / In man tenea una saetta d’oro / ed
218 Word of Mouth

visit to the hall of the chief ‘worldly goods’ is concluded with a description of a
long series of ancient love stories (largely based on Ovid’s tales), painted
around the figure.78 Noting the narrator’s delight at the sight of so many
wonderful stories, the Guide shows him that his feelings stem from a mislead-
ing impression, generated by events that never actually happened (‘falsa
oppenion’, ‘cose fallaci e fuor di vere’, 30.15 and 17). Compared to the illusion
that results from seeing these literary episodes, Glory might seem more solid,
given her ability to survive over time. However, the Guide hurriedly explains
that not even this last impression is accurate (30.19–33):
Adunque torna in te debitamente:
ricorditi che morte col dubioso 20
colpo già vinse tutta questa gente.
Ver’è ch’alcun più ch’altro valoroso
meritò fama, ma se ’l mondo dura
e’ perirà il suo nome glorioso.
È questa simigliante alla verdura 25
che vi porge Ariete, che vegnendo
poi Libra appresso seccando l’oscura.
Nullo altro ben si dee andar caendo
che quello ove ci mena la via stretta,
dove entrar non volesti qua correndo. 30
Deh, quanto quello a’ più savi diletta,
grazioso ed etterno! ed io il ti dissi
quando d’entrar pur qui avesti fretta.
So return to yourself as you should: remember that death has already vanquished
all these people with its fearsome blow. It’s true that some, more valiant than
others, earned fame, but if the world goes on they too will lose their glorious
names. Fame is like the grass that Aries thrusts towards you, that Libra then
comes to wither and fade. You must go in search of no other good than the one at
the end of the narrow path you wished not to take when you came running here.
Oh, how that gracious and eternal good delights the wisest! And I told you this
when you were in such a rush to enter here.

un’altra di piombo, alla reale / vestito, al mio parer, d’un drappo ad oro. / Orrevolmente là il vedea
cotale, / tenendo un arco nella man sinestra, / la cui virtù sentir già molti male.’ When compared to
Cupid’s traditional iconography, this figure of Love has various symbolic peculiarities (eagles,
lions) on which we need not linger (on this, see Branca 1974, 376–7). I wish to highlight only one
detail, which we will return to later: the two kinds of arrow used by the god, either to arouse love
(one of gold) or to cause its rejection (one of lead). This detail is undoubtedly a reference to an
Ovidian invention (Met. 1.468–71) that Boccaccio revisited several times: see Teseida 1.131 (with
the ‘chiosa’ ad loc.); Filoc. 3.19; Gen. deor. gent. 9.4. See Ch. 10, sec. 10.2.3, n. 64.
78
The narration of love stories that feature the characters populating the fresco takes up some
fourteen cantos, and is limited to stories from myth (beginning with the loves of Jupiter and
ending with Dido’s suicide). Only one brief allusion to Floris and Blancheflour, Lancelot, and
Tristan summarizes the countless other events that go unmentioned, which the narrator says he
no longer remembers (29.31–45).
 Beyond Death 219
Boccaccio recycles the simile of ‘fama’ and grass that Oderisi da Gubbio
uses in Dante’s Purgatory, highlighting the contrast between the false
appearance of renown (‘nome glorioso’) and the values whose fruition is
truly eternal. Moreover, the emptiness of earthly delights is not only
linked to the fact that they will, sooner or later, have to obey the inescap-
able laws of time and death: the enjoyment of worldly goods is also
subject to the whims of another, even more unpredictable figure, whom
the Guide indicates to the narrator in the images of a new painting cycle
(30.49–57):
Potrai veder colei, in cui si crede
essere ogni poter ne’ ben mondani, 50
quanto arrogante a suo mestier provede,
or dando a questo, or ritornando vani
ciò che diede a quell’altro, molestando
in cotal guisa l’intelletti umani.
Per quel potrai veder vero, pensando 55
quanto sia van quel ben che’ vostri petti
va sanza ragion nulla stimolando.
You shall be able to see how arrogantly the one said to have total power over
worldly goods performs her job, when she gives something to someone, or
renders useless what she gave to someone else, thereby vexing the minds of
men. Through this, you shall be able to see the truth, if you reflect on the vanity
of those goods that stir up your hearts to no purpose.
This is obviously Fortune, the real ruler of all that happens in the human
sphere (‘ogni mondano stato’, 31.17). She is the subject of the frescos that
cover the walls in a second room, accessed through the narrow door that the
Guide finally convinces her charge to pass through. According to what was by
then a well-established medieval cliché, Fortune is represented in the act of
turning her proverbial wheel at random, her eyes covered by a cloth, deaf to
the requests of men.79
Boccaccio thus consolidated, in entirely canonical terms, the contrast that
religious morality had by then firmly established between the instability of
worldly goods, whose enjoyment is linked to the earth and the unpredictable
events of human life, and the secure and stable benefit of heavenly goods,
which we can only access after obtaining eternal life. The logic behind this
paradoxical construction of hope in an afterlife is founded on a systematic
devaluation of the apparent importance of facts supported by earthly experi-
ence. While worldly goods are part of the sphere of false appearances and
vanity, only the promises of heavenly life fall into the realm of real things. This

79
31.16–21: ‘Ivi vid’io dipinta, in forma vera, / colei che muta ogni mondano stato, / tal volta
lieta e tal con trista cera, / col viso tutto d’un panno fasciato, / e leggermente con le man volvea /
una gran rota verso il manco lato.’
220 Word of Mouth

way of interpreting existence proposes a singular wager that could only be

supported by blind religious faith: we must distrust life and the reality
proposed by our senses in order to reach a happy and truly glorious dimen-
sion, destined only to be revealed after death. This is what the Guide continues
to advise the narrator of the Amorosa visione, after briefly persuading him to
follow her (37.49–53):
Ma poi che del seguirmi se’ contento
ed hai veduto le mondane cose
volubili e caduche più che vento,
appresso viemmi, ché le gloriose
ed etterne vedrai.80
But since you are content to follow me and have seen how worldly things are fickle
and more fleeting than the wind, come with me to see what is glorious and eternal.
According to such a cultural schema, truth is part of an invisible but eternal
dimension, while what occurs before man’s eyes should be considered unstable
like the wind, and without a well-grounded meaning: it is inanis, uanus
precisely because it is mundanus.

7.3. ‘ PASSAN VOSTRI TRIONFI E VOSTRE POMPE’:

PETRARCH AND GLORY

7.3.1. From Boccaccio to Petrarch

I lingered on Boccaccio’s poem for two reasons: firstly because of the clear way
in which the transience of a virtue like human glory is emphasized; and
secondly because there are various motifs in nuce in the poem’s structure
that Petrarch develops at length in the Trionfi.81 A key thematic element in
both poems is that of triumph being celebrated by allegorical figures—two of
whom, Love and Worldly Glory (Fama), appear in each text. The groups of

80
See also 47.34–6: ‘Non cre’ tu che io ti guidi / in qual parte vorrai? perché perverte / tua
volontà il mio consiglio vero, / per vanità lasciando cose certe?’
81
The elements common to the two poems (already pointed out in past criticism: see e.g.
Appel 1901, xxxiv–xxxvi) have already been studied, notably by Vittore Branca (see Branca 1941,
followed by Billanovich 1946, 21–31, and Branca 1976). Unfortunately, Branca uselessly com-
plicated the relationship between the two works, hypothesizing the existence of an alleged second
version of Boccaccio’s poem, to which he dedicated a separate edition (see Branca 1974).
According to him, this other text should be traced back to Boccaccio himself and would be
revealed by the significantly retouched version that appeared in the first printed edition (edited
by Gerolamo Claricio in 1521). Branca believed this was the hypotext essential for the compo-
sition of the Trionfi (in all likelihood the opposite is true: see Guastella 1991 and Santagata 1996,
xxix–xxx).
 Beyond Death 221

characters surrounding these figures are also described in a similar way.

Finally, both sets of descriptions appear within the narrative framework of a
dream vision.
The deep structural and ideological similarities between the Amorosa
visione and the Trionfi do not seem attributable to a generic, common literary
matrix or to simple analogies born of the recurring motifs and narrative
techniques of the medieval period. But for the purposes of my discussion, it
is not necessary to specify how Boccaccio’s work probably influenced the
ideation and composition of Petrarch’s poem. What matters is that, of all
their readers, at least the illustrators of the Trionfi must have considered the
two works from a common perspective, so much so that to some extent they
considered the allegorical figures of ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ and ‘Fama’ to
be interchangeable.
This kind of assimilative operation is founded on two main principles:
1. on an ideological level, the opposition between human time—the realm
of ‘worldly’ goods like Love and Fame—and the eternity of God;
2. on a narrative level, the construction of a series of ‘triumphal’ scenes
where a large procession of historical and mythical personages winds its
way around a central reference figure.
Here we have the roots of the conception of Fama which, starting with
Boccaccio’s description of ‘Gloria del popol mondano’, was then developed in
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century iconography, through the illustrations that
accompany the text of both Petrarch’s De uiris illustribus and his Trionfi. As
we will see, Petrarch dedicated no attention to the allegorical figure of Fama,
but concentrated instead on the group of wise men and warriors surrounding
her. Nevertheless, a triumphal image of this character was developed in the
illustrations accompanying the Trionfi, using the very traits Boccaccio had
assigned his allegorical figure in canto 6 of the Amorosa visione.

7.3.2. Petrarch and Worldly Glory

As is well known, Petrarch dedicated many pages to the subject of glory,

revealing rather contradictory feelings about it as he did so. Before discussing
the Trionfi, we should at least consider the most important moments of the
extensive and tormented debate that he developed on this subject with himself
and his favourite auctores.82
The reconstruction of the different phases of this debate continues
to fascinate critics today. Analysis of Petrarch’s work has always been

82
For a general portrait of Petrarch’s concept of fame, see Boitani 1984, 103–24.
222 Word of Mouth

inescapably linked to the historical reconstruction of his life, if for no other

reason than the author’s noted tendency to write his public literary biog-
raphy into his texts. The attention to fama-glory is one of the main points
around which this biography constantly revolves. To highlight the centrality
of this theme we need only mention the symbolic value Petrarch gives to
laurel, an element capable of simultaneously symbolizing both the presti-
gious accomplishment of his poetic victory on the Capitol on 8 April 1341
and Laura’s name.83
The hesitant—if not outright ambiguous—attitude about the human rec-
ognition of glory, which Petrarch maintains throughout his poetic career, at a
certain point seems polarized around the well-established conflict of moral
values that we considered in the previous sections of this chapter. Starting
approximately from the end of the fourth decade of the fourteenth century,
Petrarch’s musing seems decidedly oriented towards the typical religious view
of the matter, as book 3 of the Secretum in particular would lead us to
believe.84 There (and also in the Trionfi), fama-glory is generally presented
as an ephemeral good connected to the finite extension of human time, while
the true and stable virtues to which the author believes we should direct our
choices belong to the divine sphere of eternal life.
For the purposes of my discussion, we need not consider the tangled
interweaving of Petrarch’s ‘poetic’ biography and the letter of his texts.
What matters is clearly identifying the fundamental oppositions proposed to
the reader as reference points in his works, not only in order to guide moral
reflection on human and divine values, but also to create clear thematic links
to earlier literary tradition. These oppositions are the same ones that we found
at the basis of the discussions that Dante and Boccaccio dedicated to ‘vana
gloria’ and ‘Gloria del popol mondano’. They are of central importance to both
the conception of Fama that Petrarch presents to us in his Trionfi and this
character’s iconography, which would remain emblematic in modern art for
several centuries.

7.3.3. Laurel and Triumph

Particularly in the first phase of his literary production, Petrarch shows he sees
not only a desirable, but a decidedly positive, end in fama-glory. Unsurpris-
ingly, the most important proof of this attitude is found in texts like the speech

83
See e.g. Trumphus Cupidinis 4.79–84: ‘con costor [sc. Socrates and Lelio, i.e. his friends
Ludwig van Kempen and Lello di Pietro Stefano dei Tosetti] colsi ’l glorïoso ramo / onde forse
anzi tempo ornai le tempie / in memoria di quella ch’io tanto amo. / Ma pur di lei che ’l cor di
pensier m’empie, / non potei coglier mai ramo né foglia, / sì fur le sue radici acerbe ed empie.’
84
See Fenzi 2003, whose conclusions make up the main premise of my discussion.
 Beyond Death 223

composed on the occasion of his coronation as poet laureate in 1341

(Collatio laureationis). With the award ceremony in sight, this was only
natural: it was still some years before Petrarch would look disapprovingly on
this episode of his life, in which, by his own admission, he had succumbed to
excessive pride.85 In the Collatio the honoured poet describes the desire for
glory as a virtue, and to demonstrate this he regularly looks to statements
by classical authors for support. His main point of reference is Cicero’s
writing, sometimes complemented by the contributions of great poets like
Ovid, Virgil, and Horace.
From the beginning of the speech, Petrarch proudly describes the obstacles
he faced to attain the poetic laurel, and indicates that pride in his own glory
(‘decor proprie glorie’) is one of the three roots that nourished his passion for
epic poetry, allowing it to overcome all difficulties.86 Chapter 7 is entirely
dedicated to this ‘decor proprie glorie’. Petrarch is well aware of the fact that
some ancient philosophers composed entire treatises on disdain for glory
(de contemptu glorie), but seems uninterested in their arguments: deferring
to Cicero’s authority, he even adds that these same authors hastened to put
their names at the beginning of these works.87 In chapter 10, he again states
that ‘glorie decus’ and the immortality of one’s own name (‘nominis immor-
talitas’) are the main rewards that he expected not only for himself, as a result
of his poetic efforts, but also for the characters whose achievements he
celebrates in the Africa. His models are in this case represented by ancient
epic poets: primarily Ovid, who proclaimed his own future renown at the end
of the Metamorphoses, as well as Statius, Virgil, and Lucan.88 Epic poetry is the
genre that best assures both the glory of its authors and of the characters
whose deeds are being exalted. Petrarch particularly insists on the ability of
writing to rescue the actions and names of heroes from time’s oblivion,
drawing on the famous Horatian motif about the guarantee of memory that
only poets can give heroes (Carm. 4.9.25–8).89 Horace’s authority (Carm.
4.9.29–30) is invoked again right after, to emphasize the power that poetry
has to grant worldly glory and make it last over time (10.16–17):
Profecto, quantum ad mundanam gloriam pertinet uerum est illud Oratianum:
Paulum sepulte distat inhertie
celata uirtus.

85
See Godi 1970, 2–3.
86
Coll. 5.7 (the text here and elsewhere is quoted according to the Godi 1970 edition).
87
Cic. Tusc. 1.34.
88
Petrarch quotes Ov. Met. 15.871–2, Stat. Theb. 12.810–12 and 10.445–6, Verg. Aen.
9.446–9, Lucan. 9.985–6.
89
See esp. 10.9: ‘Et profecto multi fuerunt in uita gloriosi et memorabiles uiri, tam in
scripturis quam in re bellica, et quorum tamen nomina, lapsu temporum, contexit obliuio
nullam ob aliam causam nisi quia litterati hominis que in animo habuerunt stilo mansuro et
stabili commictere nesciuerunt.’
224 Word of Mouth
Et nimirum hinc exclamatio illa est Alexandri Macedonis, qui, cum ad sepulcrum
Achillis uenisset, dixisse fertur suspirans: ‘O fortunate adolescens, qui talem tue
uirtutis preconem inuenisti!’, Homerum signans, poetarum principem, quem
Achillis famam constat egregiis nobilitasse carminibus.
Of course, with regard to this world’s glory, there is truth to the famous Horatian
saying:
Not far from buried inaction
is hidden virtue.
This is the origin of Alexander the Great’s famous exclamation. It is reported that,
having reached the tomb of Achilles, he said, sighing: ‘Fortunate youth, you have
found such a great man to divulge your virtue!’ In this way he indicated Homer,
the first of the poets, who all agree made Achilles’s fame (famam) known through
his extraordinary poetry.
Following this is a long chapter dedicated to the laurel crown, the mark of
success that also becomes a symbol of glory for both the powerful and the
poets—the first strive to obtain glory of the body, the second, glory of the soul.
According to Petrarch, the decision to award victors with laurel leaves is due to
the plant’s characteristics, beginning with the perfume it emanates: a perfume
that is linked directly to the metaphorical scent of fama itself (11.4):
Hoc primum, per quod odor bone fame potest imputari, quam querunt cesares
et poete.
This is the first quality, by which that perfume of good fama can be granted, that
emperors and poets go in search of.90
In addition, laurel is not subject to decomposition: according to Petrarch, this
property is transferred to everything the leaves of the plant touch. Once again,
this is a quality that has a beneficial effect on fame (11.9):
Aiunt arboris huius frondem, sicut inmarcescibilis est in se ipsa, sic libros et res
alias, quibus adiuncta est, a corruptione preseruare; quod singulariter poetis
conuenit quorum opera et propriam et aliorum famam a corruptione defendi
non ambigitur.
They say that the leaves of this tree, which is not subject to decay, also preserve
books and other things they are laid beside. And this particularly befits the poets,
thanks to whose work it is evident that both their own and others’ fame (famam)
is preserved from decay.
Finally, Petrarch even relates the belief that laurel cannot be struck by lightning
to the preservation of fame (11.19–20):

90
See also 11.6: ‘arboris odorifere odorem, ut—diximus—bone fame atque glorie
designant.’
 Beyond Death 225
quod est enim in rebus humanis uiolentius fulmen quam temporis diuturnitas,
omnia consumens et opera et res mortalium et famam. Iure ergo contemptrice
fulminis fronde coronantur hi, quorum gloria illam que, more fulminis cuncta
prosternit, sola non metuit: uetustatem.
and indeed to human affairs, what lightning is more violent than the duration of
time, which consumes everything—the works and feats of mortals and their fame
(famam)? For this reason, rightly crowned with leaves that scorn lightning are
those who enjoy a glory (gloria) that is alone in not fearing old age—which, like a
lightning-bolt, destroys everything.
The second part of the Collatio thus presents different ideas clearly aimed at
establishing a direct relationship between fama-glory and laurel, the mark and
symbol of triumph. Worldly glory is firmly established as an instrument
capable of withstanding the destructive effects of time on human things.

7.3.4. ‘Una donna più bella assai che ’l sole’

We encounter a different facet of this wholly positive view of fama-glory in the

famous canzone on Glory (Rer. vulg. frag. 119).91
The poet begins by professing his devotion to Glory: ever since his youth, he
has been a follower of this famously beautiful figure, in the hopes that he might
continue to live on after death through his writing (11–15):
per suo amor m’er’io messo
a faticosa impresa assai per tempo:
tal che, s’i’ arrivo al disiato porto,
spero per lei gran tempo
viver, quand’altri mi terrà per morto.
for her love I long ago began to toil: so that, if I reach that long-desired port,
I hope to live through her at length when others think me dead.
The poet says he only glimpsed a few reflections or minor details of Glory
(‘l’ombra o ’l velo o’ panni’, 20) during the long initial phase of his literary
activity: but now that she has entirely unveiled her face to him, he is under her
control (26–30). The rest of the canzone contains a dialogue between Glory
and the poet, who completely submits to her. Besides promising him the
realization of his goals (54–7), Glory arouses new ardour in him by pointing
out the superior beauty of her sister Virtue. Before placing a laurel wreath on
his head,92 Glory laments the conditions in which the two women now find

91
On this see esp. Fenzi 2003, 338–42 and Santagata 2004, 554–62 (quotes drawn from this
edition).
92
103–5: ‘di verde lauro una ghirlanda colse, / la qual co le sue mani / intorno intorno a le mie
tempie avolse.’ This is a clear reference to Petrarch’s coronation as laureate on the Capitol.
226 Word of Mouth

themselves: born immortal by God’s will, they no longer enjoy the prestige
they once did, and Virtue is already preparing to leave the world and return to
heaven (95–9):
Amate, belle, gioveni et leggiadre
fummo alcun tempo: et or siam giunte a tale
che costei batte l’ale
per tornar a l’anticho suo ricetto;
i’ per me sono un’ombra.93
We were loved, beautiful, young, and fair for some time: and now we’ve reached
such a stage that she beats her wings to return to her old home; and I’m naught
but a shade.
In this text, too, the very idea of glory is founded on the desire to live after
death. But such a perspective seems secondary to that of true immortality,
reserved for a higher realm to which Glory and Virtue have access thanks to
their birth, which originated from God.
The nominis immortalitas celebrated in the Collatio thus experiences its first
relativization. Renown is revealed inferior to Virtue: not only is the latter more
beautiful, Petrarch also uses the classical topos of glory as umbra uirtutis in a
peculiar way.94 The close association between the two allegorical figures is not
simply presented as an inevitable consequence (with glory as a simple reflec-
tion of virtue), but also according to a hierarchy of values that lends itself to
being used for moralistic ends.95
The glory that Petrarch has achieved with his works, to the point of
obtaining the Capitoline laurel, continues to represent a virtue in itself; but
Glory is linked so closely to her sister that she would be significantly devalued
if Virtue disappeared from the earth. As Enrico Fenzi observed:96 ‘unmistake-
ably hidden within the canzone is the possibility of devaluing glory at the very
moment of its celebration’.

93
For the motif of line 98 cf. Hor. Carm. 3.2.21–4: ‘Virtus, recludens inmeritis mori / caelum,
negata temptat iter uia, / coetusque uolgaris et udam / spernit humum fugiente pinna.’ The
interpretation of l. 99 is not simple, due to the ambiguous meaning of ‘ombra’ in this context (the
shadow of what glory once was? or the shadow of virtue?). Fenzi 2003, 342 suggests we should
‘think of something like: “Virtue, given the state of things, returns to take refuge in heaven, and I,
her shadow, have no choice but to follow her, also fleeing from this world”. This would reaffirm
the singularity of the Capitol coronation as a manifestation of values that the present day has lost
and to which only poetry can now give testimony.’
94
See sec. 7.1.3 and n. 13. This constellation of motifs is also found in the Secretum (3.204–6:
see sec. 7.3.7) and De remediis utriusque fortunae (1.92): see Fenzi 2003, 308–9, 325–6 and
Santagata 2004, 558–9, 561.
95
As in Rem. 1.92 (in fine), where it is stated that glory can be considered ‘true’ only when it is
a reflection of virtue: ‘Laus quidem sapienti utilis stulto nocet. Ex his uides umbram per seipsam
esse non posse, rei cuiuspiam sit oportet. Visne igitur gloriam ueram esse? Fac ut uera et solida
uirtus sit.’
96
Fenzi 2003, 342.
 Beyond Death 227

7.3.5. True Glory

The relationship between Virtue and Glory returns in two epistolary texts. The
first is a poetic letter written in Parma (Epyst. metr. 2.18), where Petrarch
informs Guglielmo da Pastrengo about his mood and his activities, replying to
his friend’s imagined questions (14–16):97
— Que prima in pectore cura?
Africa. — Quod studium? — Vehemens. — Quis fructus? — Inanis
Gloria: nam solidam uirtus uel sola meretur.
‘What is your first concern?’
‘Africa.’ ‘How much attention do you devote to it?’ ‘A great deal.’ ‘What will come
of it?’ ‘Empty glory: only virtue may achieve the solid kind.’
Radicalizing the opposition already outlined in the canzone ‘of Glory’,
Petrarch seems to want to make the typical ideological argument that moti-
vated the condemnation of vainglory (inanis gloria) for most of the Middle
Ages.98 Literary glory is presented as empty of substance and therefore
conflicts with true glory, moralistically placed in relation to the practice of
virtue. This then turns into a more general and pessimistic reflection on the
brevity of human life.99
A more extreme radicalization is found in another epistolary text from a few
years later, addressed to Guido Sette, archbishop of Genoa (Familiares 5.17).
The theme of fame acquired through literary writing is addressed explicitly
from the very first lines. True glory comes not from words, but from deeds and
awareness of virtue (1):
ex factis non ex dictis oriri ueram gloriam, uere philosophie non dubitant secta-
tores; illam inquam gloriam, non quam predicat uulgus, a quo laudari magnis
animis pene fastidiosum est, sed que ex sobria et iocunda recordatione uirtuo-
sorum operum in pectore uirorum excellentium uiget atque alitur, cuius sine
theatrico strepitu, sine fauore uulgari Deus et conscientia testes sunt.
The followers of true philosophy do not doubt that true glory proceeds not
from words but from deeds. For me glory is not what is acclaimed by the rabble
whose praise noble minds find almost disgusting, but rather that which flourishes

97
See Fenzi 2003, 318–28 and 343. The letter can be dated to 1344. In it, Fenzi (2003, 326)
sees the ‘turning point, where the ascending, positive phase of Africa’s composition ends and the
long phase of repeated and vain attempts to finish it begins, the latter lasting for the rest of
Petrarch’s life’.
98
According to Fenzi 1992, 33 ‘the essence of what Augustine affirms in the Secretum’ is
already present here.
99
36–40: ‘Quin cassa caduci / fundamenta tui circumspice corporis amens: / eripe te in tutum
nunc dum licet, omnia nec sint / te semper potiora tibi: domus ista manebit, / corruet hoc corpus,
sedem uacuabis utramque.’
228 Word of Mouth
and is nourished by the serious and pleasant recollection of virtuous works in
the heart of distinguished men and of which God and one’s conscience are
witnesses without theatrical applause or the support of the multitude. (trans.
Aldo S. Bernardo)
Once again there is a clear contrast between true glory, founded on actions,
awareness, and the superiority of virtue, and common glory, linked to words,
unruly applause, and popular favour: the latter is a success that would not
be so well received by people of nobler spirit. It is worth highlighting
the fact that Pertrarch knowingly merged Christian and philosophical trad-
ition with his devaluation of words (dicta), which are incapable of generating
authentic glory on their own, all the more so if created by common people
(uulgus).
Another characteristic of true glory is its stability (2):
Hec est equidem illa uerax gloria, que in solo stabili actis alte radicibus casum
nescit; illa uero in hominum fundata sermunculis, primum diuturna non est et
perfacile proteritur et quibus attollitur flatibus eisdem semper agitatur ut corruat;
deinde si esse posset eterna, uulgaribus tamen ac minime generosis artibus quesita,
nunquam ingenuos animos delectaret, seruilis opere uilis merces.
This alone is real glory because its roots are deeply implanted in firm soil, and it
is not subject to chance. The kind that is based on the prattle of men is, to begin
with, of short duration, is very easily overthrown, and then is forever tossed
about by those very blasts that raised it on high, so that it eventually falls
to destruction. Furthermore, even if it could last forever, the fact that it is
sought only with the most vulgar and least noble means made it unattractive
to the truly noble minds, being but the cheap wages of servile labor. (trans.
Aldo S. Bernardo)
For this discussion, it is not essential to understand to what extent and how
such phrases must be related to Petrarch’s actual second thoughts about his
own poetic career and personal glory.100 Instead, one must highlight the fact
that in this text the author showcases the traditional ideological model behind
the condemnation of worldly glory, which is clearly contrasted with true glory.
‘Vain’ glory is presented as incapable of lasting over time, associated as it is
with gossip (sermunculi), popular favour (fauor uulgaris), and the lurid
success of performances (theatricus strepitus). We again come across the
motif of the gust of wind that lifts insubstantial glory into the air (‘quibus
attollitur flatibus’), along with the motif of frailty (corruere, casus), to which
only true glory is immune.101

100
This, however, is the angle taken by Fenzi 2003, 343–5.
101
Later on, this motif is again associated with popular favour (‘uentose laudis ambitu’, 3).
 Beyond Death 229

7.3.6. Petrarch’s Version of the Somnium Scipionis

A conception of glory’s insubstantiality, presented according to Cicero’s lines

of thought in the Somnium Scipionis, emerges insistently in Petrarch’s final
creations; particularly in the great works whose more or less provisory texts
were rearranged and divulged only after his death, specifically the Secretum
and the Trionfi.
Before examining these two texts, it is useful to look at the Somnium
Scipionis that Petrarch wished to revisit in his own way, moving the scene
described by Cicero up a generation. The episode is found at the beginning of
the poem that he never finished, despite it being his most ambitious project:
the Africa.102
This passage was studied at length by Enrico Fenzi, who demonstrated
convincingly how Petrarch’s most important reflections on the aspiration for
worldly glory should be connected to the various stages of composition of this
poem (as well as De uiris illustribus). Petrarch aspires to graft his poetic voice
on the trunk of ancient tradition; and yet he tries to frame the heroic greatness
of a figure like that of Scipio (Africanus the Elder) from a Ciceronian-Boethian
perspective, redefined in a moralistic light of Stoic and Augustinian quality.
The subject of glory—both that of the ancient hero and that of the poet tasked
with celebrating him—is central to each of these operations. As we will see,
Petrarch reuses the opposition between false and true glory to clearly demon-
strate the value of his favourite Roman hero (and consequently that of himself
as an epic poet).103
With Hannibal about to arrive in Italy, Scipio Africanus the Elder falls
asleep and dreams of his father’s shade (still visibly injured from the skirmish
where he lost his life), who recounts his heroic end. When Scipio asks if the
image he sees belongs to someone still living, the shade answers affirmatively
as he inverts his son’s perspective, saying that real life is not what is found on
earth, but what is in heaven.104
The narrative structure is similar to that of Cicero’s Somnium, but Petrarch
also pays homage to his most influential epic model by introducing great

102
The dream episode begins on l. 154 of book 1 and continues until the end of book 2 (557).
Obviously, the characters are not the same as those found in Cicero’s text: in De re publica Scipio
Aemilianus (Africanus the Younger) claims to have dreamt of his adoptive grandfather (Afri-
canus the Elder), along with his father Aemilius Paulus, while Africanus the Elder is the
protagonist in Petrarch’s poem. On the insertion of this episode at the beginning of the poem,
see Fenzi 1992, 23–5 and 2003, 305–6.
103
Petrarch alludes to himself as a sort of new Ennius from Tuscany (‘uelut Ennius alter’,
2.441–50). On the parallel reworking of the Ciceronian themes in the Somnium in book 3 of the
Secretum and in Africa, see Fenzi 2003, 307–8, 355–6 and passim. On the presence of this theme
in the Triumphus Mortis see Santagata 1996, xxv and Pacca 1996, 307.
104
1.339–40: ‘Hec, inquit, sola est certissima uita. / Vestra autem mors est, quam uitam
dicitis’. Cf. 460–3.
230 Word of Mouth

Roman heroes of the past and present at three points in the scene. At first,
Scipio’s father reveals the protagonists of the imminent conflict with the
Carthaginians to his son (344–418). Then Scipio’s uncle speaks. He identifies
the majestic characters crowding in front of him in a way that is clearly
inspired by book 6 of the Aeneid. The uncle’s narration begins with Romulus
and the kings, and finishes shortly before the end of book 1, after the victory of
the Horatii. Book 2 opens with a new narrative of Roman events, this time
looking to the future. Here, Scipio’s father responds to his son, who is eager to
know the fate that awaits his city. After hinting at the future victory over
Carthage, he gives an overview of the stages of the process that will allow
Rome to exercise (thanks to its heroes) an absolute power over the entire
world. In the end, Rome too will experience its downfall—not at the hands of
enemies, but simply because many years have passed—and perish along with
the rest of the world.105
In the long closing section of book 2, Petrarch tries to piece all the themes of
this narrative together within a problematic moralistic model, where the
worldly values of tradition struggle to reconcile with an eschatological vision
of human history. This is a highly ambitious poetic reworking of motifs central
to Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis. The starting-point for the reflections proposed
by Scipio’s father is the brevity of human life and the fall of all things mortal
(2.348–55):106
Tempora diffugiunt; ad mortem curritis; umbra,
Vmbra estis puluisque leuis uel in ethere fumus
Exiguus, quem uentus agat. Quo sanguine parta 350
Gloria? quo tanti mundo fugiente labores?
Stare quidem uultis, sed enim rapidissima celi
Vos fuga precipitat. Cernis quam parua pudendi
Imperii pateant circum confinia nostri?
Hec tamen heu quanto nobis extenta labore! 355
Time flies: you hurry towards death, you are shadow, shadow and light dust or a
little smoke the wind carries with it in the air. To what end is glory bought with
blood? To what end such efforts while the world flees? Of course you would like
to stay, but heaven’s rapid flight casts you down. Do you see how little the borders
of our base kingdom stretch? And yet how much effort we made to expand them!
In what is effectively a dynamic revival of the topical ubi sunt motif, Petrarch
wonders what outcome is expected from glory and the suffering needed
to achieve it. To answer this question, he returns to Cicero’s arguments
about the laughable limitations of the inhabited world (including physical
and cultural obstacles to the spread of fame), revisiting them from a Boethian

105
2.313–26.
106
On this passage, see Fenzi 2003, 345. Africa quotes are drawn from Festa 1926.
 Beyond Death 231

perspective.107 Under these circumstances, there is no sense in deluding

oneself about achieving life after death through a name rendered eternal by
glory.108 True eternal life is not that of a name earned on the earth, but what is
had in heaven (2.417) and only accessed by practising virtue (2.422–6):
Sine tempore uiuite; nam uos
Et magno partum delebunt tempora nomen,
Transibuntque cito que uos mansura putatis.
Vna manere potest occasus nescia uirtus.
Illa uiam facit ad superos.
Live without time: because the years will erase you and that name you obtained
through such an effort. What you believe is lasting will swiftly wane. Only virtue
can go on: she knows no end. It is she who opens the way to heaven.
Petrarch organizes the argument of Scipio’s father around a dense intertextual
dialogue with Boethius’s writing. As we have seen, Boethius used the ubi sunt
motif to demonstrate the tenuous basis of the fame acquired by history’s great
heroes. For Boethius, it is difficult for fama to prolong the memory of people
about whom in many cases nothing is known but their names. Sooner or later
even a name that has been rescued from oblivion, as it is only entrusted to a
few engraved letters (‘signat superstes fama tenuis pauculis / inane nomen
litteris’, Cons. 2.7 Metr.17–18), and in reality is equivalent to a gust of wind
(‘mortalis aura nominis’, 24), will be erased by time: in this way, an individual
dies for a second time.109
Petrarch reworks and integrates the Boethian model in an interesting way.
For one thing, he does not speak generically of ‘glory’, but specifically of ‘false
glory’. He also closely relates the ‘second death’ to the disappearance of the
tomb, which preserves both mortal remains and the letters of the name
engraved on it (2.428–32):
Quod si falsa uagam delectat gloria mentem,
Aspice quid cupias: transibunt tempora, corpus

107
2.360–406. See esp. 395–402: ‘Hec crescere famam / Impediunt; nulli toto cognoscier orbe /
Contigit. Extrema quis erit bene notus in Artho, / Et Nili ignotum continget nomine fontem? /
Quem sua Toprobani commendet gloria et idem / Litus ad Hibernum resonet? Mortalia
quorsum / Vota ruunt? Amplam cupiunt diffundere famam; / Septa sed arcta uetant.’ Cf. Cic.
Rep. 6.25 and esp. Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Metr.9–19, cit. sec. 7.1.5. On the relationship between these
lines and Cicero’s model, see Visser 2005, 118–37, who disregards the importance of Boethius in
Petrarch’s reading of the Somnium Scipionis. We must also remember the importance of
Macrobius’s commentary on the Somnium in Petrarch’s culture (see Bertolani 2001, 29–31).
108
2.407–14: ‘Illa quoque in uobis ridenda insania mentes / Occupat: eternum cupitis
producere nomen, / Secula demulcent animos numerosa, uenitque / Posteritas longa ante oculos;
libet ire per ora / Doctorum extinctos hominum, clausosque sepulcro / Liberiore uia per mundi
extrema uagari. / Viuere post mortem, uiolentas spernere Parcas / Dulcia sunt, fateor, sed
nomine uiuere nil est.’
109
See sec. 7.1.5.
232 Word of Mouth

Hoc cadet et cedent indigno membra sepulcro;

Mox ruet et bustum, titulusque in marmore sectus
Occidet: hinc mortem patieris, nate, secundam.
And if false glory is what pleases your unstable mind, watch what you desire: time
will pass, this body will expire, and your limbs will waste away in an ignoble tomb.
Even the grave will then crumble away, and the inscription engraved in the
marble will disappear: then, my son, you will undergo a second death.
At this point, Petrarch extends the scope of the Boethian image, bringing the
theme of writing, which aspires to preserve the names of those no longer alive,
to the forefront. No matter what places preserve mortal remains, it is thanks to
books that fama continues to survive over time: writing continues to ‘talk’ and
‘cause talk’ of us after our death (433–7):
Clara quidem libris felicibus insita uiuet
Fama diu, tamen ipsa suas passura tenebras.
Ipsa tuas laudes etas uentura loquetur:
Immemor ipsa eadem, seu tempore fessa, tacebit
Immemoresque dabit post secula longa nepotes.
It’s true that an illustrious fame will live on at length in fortunate books, but that
too is destined for obscurity. Future generations will speak your praises; but even
they, unmindful or weakened by time, will grow silent, leading, centuries later, to
forgetful progeny.
Although name and memory can survive longer because of literature, the
memory that flows from one generation to another will sooner or later be
exhausted. Even the power of literature has its limits.
But then Petrarch quickly brings the focus back to the feats (res) of his hero
Scipio. In this unexpected way, the role that poetry plays in the conservation of
memory is exalted once more. Not only that, Petrarch daringly puts himself
and his poem at the centre of the scene, in front of his protagonist. As he does
this, he inserts an open self-praise that allows his character to be associated
with Ennius (438–43):110
Magna geris, maiora geres, immensaque uictor
Conficies tu bella manu et dignissima fama:
Res multis laudata quidem laudandaque multis.
Cernere iam uideor genitum post secula multa
Finibus Etruscis iuuenem qui gesta renarret,
Nate, tua et nobis ueniat uelut Ennius alter.
Your feats today are great; much greater are tomorrow’s. Victorious, you will
finish immense battles, well deserving of fame: feats already praised by many and

110
This approach is used again in book 9. After alluding to Ennius, who joins in Scipio’s
triumph, Petrarch does not miss the opportunity to boast about having celebrated that same
ceremony on the Capitol, 1,500 years later (‘ter centum labentibus ordine lustris’, 404).
 Beyond Death 233

destined for still more praise. I already think I see a youth, born on Etruscan soil,
who after many centuries will recount your deeds anew, my son, and for us he’ll
be like a second Ennius.
With this ingenious narrative device, Petrarch achieves the difficult task of
separating a hero’s worth from the duration of his name: the first belongs
to things and events, while the second is extended in time particularly thanks
to literature. Although limited, this extension through books cannot be
ignored. Compared to the unambiguous Ciceronian and Boethian vision of
the narrow confines that restrict glory, writing and books seem to have a
wider realm of influence when they are given the role of prolonging the life of
someone who will be remembered for his feats.111 But even when glory is
moved from the spoken to the literary sphere in this way, fame is destined to
perish (455–65):
Iam sua mors libris aderit; mortalia namque
Esse decet quecumque labor mortalis inani
Edidit ingenio. Quos si tamen illa nepotum
Progenies seruare uelit, senioque nocenti
Vim facere ac rapido uigilans obsistere seclo,
Non ualeat, tam multa uetant; fatalia terris 460
Diluuia et populos uiolentior estus adurens,
Et pestes rerum uarie celique marisque,
Bellorumque furor toto nichil orbe quietum
Stare sinens, libris autem morientibus ipse
Occumbens etiam; sic mors tibi tertia restat. 465
But then books too will suffer death: it is, in fact, inevitable that all made by
mortal effort’s empty skill is mortal. But if later generations try to save such
books, resisting time’s destruction, opposing time, which carries everything
away, with tireless care, they won’t succeed, as too many things prevent it:
menacing floods, and violent fires that set towns ablaze, and various storms
from sky and sea, and raging wars that leave nothing undisturbed anywhere
in the world, itself destined to die along with books. And so a third death
awaits you.
In one brilliant move, Petrarch split Boethius’s ‘second death’ into two parts,
allowing the memory of mortal men to survive for many more generations
thanks to the wide scope of literature. Only with the fall of this last bastion do
human feats become victims of transience: this is the ‘third death’ that follows
the two from the Boethian model.
By breaking down traditional arguments about fame in this way, Petrarch
manages to carve out new spaces for himself, where both the value of literature
and glory itself can be at least partially recovered and presented in a more

111
See 448–9: ‘nobisque breuem producere uitam / contendet.’
234 Word of Mouth

favourable light. In the passage we have just examined, Scipio’s father affirms
that fame guaranteed by books will eventually perish; however, the affection-
ate, grateful tone he reserves for Ennius and his distant Tuscan descendant
suggest an appraisal of poetry (which is capable of prolonging memory) that is
far from negative and goes beyond the Boethian cliché. Thus, the very
moralistic operation that Petrarch revives in his version of the Somnium
Scipionis has unexpected implications.112
Something similar happens when Scipio’s father once again invites his son
to turn his gaze away from the earth and towards the world above. This
extremely important passage must be examined in its entirety (472–500):
Vulgus inane
Viderit in terris quo te sermone loquatur.
Despice quisquis is est, et si mea iussa merentur
Te docilem, humanum, iubeo, contemne fauorem, 475
Neue ibi tantarum rerum spem pone tuarum.
Illecebris trahat ipsa suis pulcherrima Virtus.
Gloria si fuerit studiorum meta tuorum,
Peruenies equidem, sed non mansurus, ad illam.
Premia sin autem celo tua, nate, reponis, 480
Quo semper potiaris habes sine fine beatus
Et sine mensura. Quod si dulcedine fame
Tangeris et stimulis etiam nunc pungeris istis,
Quod preclara tuo stat gloria fixa labori
Polliceor: ueniet pretium tibi, nate, quod optas; 485
Illa uel inuitum, fugias licet, illa sequetur.
Vt sub sole uagum comitatur corporis umbra
Ipsa tui: quocumque gradum tu flexeris, illa
Flectitur et stat, si steteris; sic Fama uolentem
Nolentemque simul sequitur. Sed numquid ineptum 490
Dixeris arenti gradientem in puluere, ut umbram
Aspiciat post terga suam? Non sanior ille est
Qui terit etatem frustra corpusque fatigat,
Aut animum curis onerat, nichil inde reposcens
Ni laudem et uanos populi per compita uentos. 495
Quenam igitur queres mea sit sententia. Dicam.
Ille eat ut metam teneat, licet inter eundum
Vmbra sequatur iter; Virtutis amore laboret
Hic alius, celumque sibi sit terminus, et non
Gloria, que meritos sequitur, uel spreta, labores. 500
Let the vain crowd choose the way it wishes to talk of you here on earth. However
it does so pay it no heed, and should you choose to follow my advice, I urge you to

112
In contrast, see the few words Boethius dedicated to literature (Cons. 2.7 Pr.13): ‘quam-
quam quid ipsa scripta proficiant, quae cum suis auctoribus premit longior atque obscura
uetustas?’
 Beyond Death 235

scorn men’s favour. Do not place your hope there after such great feats. May none
other than beautiful Virtue lure you in. If glory is the goal of your efforts, you will
certainly achieve it, but not forever. If instead, my son, you look for reward in
heaven, there you have something you can have forever, happy without end or
measure. If the sweetness of fame is what moves you, and this spur is also what
goads you on, and an illustrious glory is what you work towards, I assure you, my
son: you’ll have your desired reward; even if you did not want it, even if you fled
it, it would follow you. Just as, if you wander under the sun, your body’s shadow
goes with you: wherever you direct your steps, she does too; if you stop she stops.
And so you have Fame behind you, whether you want this or not. But would you
not call foolish a man who advances through arid dust only to turn to look at the
shadow at his back? No wiser is someone who spends his life uselessly, wearying
his body or burdening his soul with worry, only to obtain the praise and empty
wind of the crowd on street corners. You wish to know what I think. I’ll tell you.
One man may proceed towards his goal, though a shadow follows him as he goes;
another may tire himself for love of Virtue, with his aim heaven, not Glory, who
follows worthy endeavours even when ignored.
This complex passage leaves sufficient leeway for the concept of glory to be
rescued from outright condemnation. Petrarch once again plays with the
contrast between ‘true’ and ‘false’ glory, linking the first firmly to virtue and
the second to words, to the sermo of the uulgus (inane, like the fame it
produces). It is only this human appreciation (humanus fauor) that Scipio is
invited to scorn, as it is an insubstantial goal for a man of virtue. The true goal
must be the practice of virtue: only this can guarantee him eternal life, and it
automatically brings ‘true’ glory with it, as provided by the umbra uirtutis
cliché once again subtly revisited by Petrarch.113 In other words, fama-glory
would be an inevitable consequence of virtue’s practice, and it would be
neither useful nor necessary to linger on it as if it were a reward for one’s
actions. Appreciated and sought after in and of itself, glory is reduced to a gust
of wind, which, as Horace said of rumor, disperses at the crossroads.114 But
glory is a simple and natural extension of virtue. The true prize is the
supernatural dimension (which Scipio’s father calls ‘heaven’) that virtue
reaches: glory is simply a corollary of this success.
Petrarch’s complex vision of glory paints a different picture from that of the
reflections of Cicero and Boethius. The glory of this world, considered in and of
itself, is something empty and insubstantial that is exhausted in the fleeting
talk produced to celebrate the names of famous men. Heavenly glory, on the
other hand, is what inevitably and eternally follows virtue and its works.
Words of praise do not make men immortal; instead, they often make up
useless chatter that is destined to be blown away by the wind and by time like

113
On this, see Fenzi 2003, 349.
114
Hor. Sat. 2.6.50: ‘frigidus a rostris manat per compita rumor’.
236 Word of Mouth

dust and smoke. But the lines of a poet (like Petrarch himself) tasked
with celebrating the virtue with which past heroes achieved heavenly life,
although they add nothing to the true eternity of these men, cannot simply
be reduced to the useless chatter of ordinary men. Literature does not
make the names of its heroes immortal, but the moral function of the
memory it guarantees is recovered by transferring the true location of
glory to a supernatural dimension. A mechanical component of the process
activated by virtue, this laudatory device that surrounds whoever has earned
eternity through his or her merits paradoxically appears both superfluous
and inevitable.

7.3.7. Book 3 of the Secretum

The argument developed in book 2 of the Africa is similarly reformulated in

the dialogue with Saint Augustine from the Secretum. Among other things,
this work places the writing of both the poem about Scipio and the biographic
collection De uiris illustribus at the centre of a problematic project of moral
conversion.115 The section dedicated specifically to glory is a lively discussion
of the themes already elaborated in Petrarch’s version of Somnium Scipionis,
and contains more than one quote from that poem.116
At the start of book 3, Augustine invites Francesco to reject the two
unyielding chains that, because of their apparent splendour, prevent him
from looking at life and death in a clear frame of mind. This image brings
us back to the struggle against the two elements around which Petrarch
concentrated the literary representation of his uncertainties and ‘fluctu-
ations’.117 As Augustine explains (130–2), the two chains that tie Francesco
to an earthly prison are none other than love and glory, which he mistakes for
valuable things (diuitiae).118 The theme is clearly the same that is proposed, at
the beginning of the second part of the Rerum uulgarium fragmenta, in
canzone 264 (‘I’ vo pensando, et nel penser m’assale’): a poem focused on

115
See Fenzi 1992, 25 and 28–9. To use the concise phrasing of Santagata 1996, xxxiii: ‘the
Secretum . . . while supplying the narrative framework for the entire conversion process, consti-
tutes a sort of ideological manifesto of it’. The date of the dialogue’s composition, which Petrarch
set in 1342–3, is uncertain (see the introduction in Fenzi 1992, esp. 10–29, 40–7, and 71–4). The
part I am concerned with comes after (or at the earliest, is contemporaneous to) the passage from
Africa I have just examined, and can be probably dated to around 1352–3.
116
The poem’s text is recalled in the dialogue’s very first lines, when the beautiful virgin whom
the author sees in his dream suddenly claims to be one of ‘his’ characters, namely the Truth that
appears in Africa: ‘Illa ego sum, inquit, quam tu in Africa nostra curiosa quadam elegantia
descripsisti’ (22; the dialogue is quoted according to the page-numbering in Carrara 1955).
117
‘Duabus adhuc adamantinis dextra leuaque premeris cathenis, que nec de morte neque de
uita sinunt cogitare’ (130). On Petrarch’s fluctuations, see Fenzi 1992, 48–50.
118
See Fenzi 1992, 71–2.
 Beyond Death 237

the tension between love and fame, which ends with the famous, disconsolate
Ovidian formula that highlights the poet’s inability to follow the right path
(‘et veggio ’l meglio, et al peggior m’appiglio’, 136).
The discussion of glory occupies the entire last section of the dialogue
(188–214). Augustine clearly sets out the terms of the matter (188):
Aug. Gloriam hominum et immortalitatem nominis plus debito cupis.
Fr. Fateor plane, neque hunc appetitum ullis remediis frenare queo.
Aug. At ualde metuendum est, ne optata nimium hec inanis immortalitas
uere immortalitatis iter obstruxerit.
A.—You desire glory among men and a name that will never die more than
you ought.
F.—Yes, I admit it, but I can find no remedy to curb this passion.
A.—But you must greatly fear lest your desire for this false immortality will bar
your way to true immortality. (trans. Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey)
Augustine does not condemn glory completely: more than anything, it is the
extent of Francesco’s desire for it that is criticized, in a discussion that once
again contrasts human glory (and the long survival of human names) with
true immortality.
A little further on, Augustine tries to explain why glory should not be
desired, and he does this with a particularly interesting rhetorical device:
specifying how glory and fama differ (190). He starts with the usual Ciceronian
definitions from Marcell. 26 and Inu. 2.166, where glory is presented, respect-
ively, as ‘inlustrem et peruagatam . . . meritorum famam’ and ‘frequentem de
aliquo famam cum laude’.119 Given that in both formulas, fama is characterized
as glory’s main material, Augustine defines the latter in an original way:
Aug. Scito igitur famam nichil esse aliud quam sermonem de aliquo uulga-
tum ac sparsum per ora multorum.
Fr. Laudo seu diffinitionem, seu descriptionem dici mauis.
Aug. Est igitur flatus quidam atque aura uolubilis et, quod egrius feras, flatus
est hominum plurimorum. Scio cui loquor; nulli usquam odiosiores esse uulgi
mores ac gesta perpendi. Vide nunc quanta iudiciorum peruersitas: quorum
enim facta condemnas, eorum sermunculis delectaris.
A.—Know, then, that reputation (famam) is common and widespread talk
about anyone.
F.—I agree, whether you prefer to call it a definition or a description.
A.—Reputation, then, is a kind of breath or changing breeze; and what is
even more unbearable, it is the breath of a crowd. I know to whom I am
speaking. I have observed that no one hates the habits and behavior of the

119
See sec. 7.1.3.
238 Word of Mouth

common crowd more than you. Now see how great a distortion this is of
your judgement. You are delighted by the inconsequential talk of people
whose actions you condemn. (trans. Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey)
In this definition, fama is reduced to the crowd’s talk, or sermo, which as usual
circulates like a gust of wind. We have seen these same ingredients used before
in speeches about false glory, and now they are more accurately emphasized to
illustrate the only, in this case undeniably oral, mechanism of fama.120
Using similar logic, Augustine rebukes the author first for having tried to
obtain superficial approval by flaunting the knowledge he has gained during
his research, succumbing to vainglory’s enticements (‘quod totum inanis
glorie lenocinium est’, 192). Not content with the fame he has earned in life
(‘presentis eui famam’), Francesco has also strived to ensure himself fame in
posterity (‘famam inter posteros concupisti’) by composing the De uiris
illustribus and the Africa, in a spasmodic search for glory (‘immodice gloriam
petens’).121
In this way, the Africa—where Petrarch was proposing the ‘Ciceronian’
vision of the Somnium Scipionis and its arguments against the inanity of glory
at the same time that he was composing the Secretum—is presented as an
instrument by which he himself has tried, sinfully, to procure glory. In such a
context, the fact that the poem was ultimately intended to celebrate the feats of
a virtuous man like Scipio seems irrelevant. Even the other work that Petrarch
toils over in vain, De uiris illustribus, is meant to celebrate the great heroes of
the past. Both these projects, according to Augustine, distract Francesco from
concern for his own soul, and have an ultimate objective that, as we know well
by now, is extremely limited in space and time. In this manner, the ideas of
Cicero and Boethius are paradoxically used against works like the Africa,
although it dedicates significant space to the development of these very
arguments.

120
The formula Petrarch uses to define fama seems similar to the one in Quint. Inst. 5.3.1
(‘sermonem sine ullo certo auctore dispersum’), a passage that Petrarch might have read (even if
he did not comment on it) on fol. 55v of the Paris manuscript, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 7720
(see De Nolhac 1907, 87). For other possible comparisons, see Fenzi 1992, 396, n. 313. See also
the already-cited passage of Fam. 5.17.2: ‘illa uero (sc. gloria) in hominum fundata sermunculis,
primum diuturna non est et perfacile proteritur et quibus attollitur flatibus eisdem semper
agitatur ut corruat’. There is no need to further linger on the gust of wind to which fama is
compared: this motif appears several times in the passage I am considering and is found at other
points in Petrarch’s work, in fairly stereotypical form. To give just a few examples, see Rem. 2.25:
‘flatus est enim fama’ (see also 2.130), Fam. 1.2.29: ‘uentus est fama quam sequimur, fumus est,
umbra est, nichil est’, RVF 264.66–9: ‘Poi che fia l’alma da le membra ignuda, / non pò questo
desio più venir seco. / Ma se ’l latino e ’l greco / parlan di me dopo la morte, è un vento.’ See also
the passages indicated in Santagata 2004, 1063.
121
On the central role these two works played in the crisis that Petrarch, as man and writer,
shows he has experienced in the last phase of his life, see Fera 2007, 106–8.
 Beyond Death 239

At this point, Petrarch adds another level of irony, having the character
standing in for him declare these arguments old and trite (194–6):
Intelligo istam ueterem et tritam iam inter philosophos fabellam: terram omnem
puncti unius exigui instar esse, annum unum infinitis annorum milibus constare;
famam uero hominum nec punctum implere nec annum, ceteraque huius generis,
quibus ab amore glorie animos dehortantur. Sed, queso, siquid habes ualidius
profer. Hec enim relatu magis speciosa quam efficacia sum expertus. Neque enim
deus fieri cogito, qui uel eternitatem habeam uel celum terrasque complectar.
Humana michi satis est gloria; ad illam suspiro, et mortalis nonnisi mortalia
concupisco.
I know that old, worn-out story told by the philosophers. They say that the whole
earth is just one tiny dot and that one soul endures for an infinite number of
years, but fame does not fill the earth for a single year. This and other things of
this sort they say in order to dissuade the souls of men from a love of glory. But if
you have a more persuasive argument than this, use it. I have always found the
one you used rather more pretty than persuasive. It is not that I have it in mind to
become a god, to have eternal life or embrace heaven and earth. Human glory is
enough for me. I yearn for that and, being mortal, I desire mortal things. (trans.
Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey)
Petrarch describes a shortsighted person, who shamelessly exhibits his ‘mortal’
love for a kind of glory that is earthly and therefore—according to traditional
clichés—false (as becomes evident at the end of Augustine’s reasoning).
Undermining the very arguments he used in the Africa, it is as if the author
wanted to make us understand that the words he gave Scipio’s father were
none other than a list of topoi, both misused and tenuous. This argumentative
device is quickly revealed an effective rhetorical trick for introducing passages
of that poem to the Secretum, in support of the argument given to Augustine.
Soon after, in fact, Francesco’s interlocutor returns to the Ciceronian-
Boethian themes that the author pretended to sneer at earlier (200–6). He
begins with the limitations of the human world, quoting (among other things)
two lines from the Africa (2.361–3). For us, the most interesting part of
Augustine’s speech concerns the narrowness of temporal confines. Here, the
lines where Boethius’s ‘second death’ was split in two by Petrarch, by drawing
a distinction between the destruction of tombs and that of books (the ‘third
death’), are recalled several times and with visible self-satisfaction. In this way,
the arguments that Francesco had just scornfully rejected are reintroduced by
the author with a self-citation that contradicts the character representing him.
Augustine obviously does not fail to call attention to this.122

122
202–4: ‘Adde ruinas sepulcrorum, . . . quam non ineleganter in Africa tua “secundam
mortem” uocas. Atque, ut eisdem te hic uerbis alloquar, quibus tu illic alium loqui facis: “mox
ruet et bustum, titulusque in marmore sectus / occidet: hinc mortem patieris, nate, secundam”
(= Afr. 2.431–2) . . . Adde librorum interitum, quibus uel propriis uel alienis manibus uestrum
240 Word of Mouth

Still more surprising is the fact that the end of Augustine’s closing speech,
where he reviews Francesco’s shortcomings, finishes in a much more open way
than we would have expected given the moralistic attitude of the character
about glory. In this case, too, glory’s value is for the most part recovered. The
rhetorical tools used for this end are not so different from what we saw in the
long passage of the Africa where Scipio’s father invites his son to abandon
worldly glory. It is no accident that Augustine’s words sometimes paraphrase
that passage, recycling its same arguments: beginning with, predictably, the
contrast between true and false glory and the idea of glory as umbra uirtutis
(204–6):
Vt inglorius degas nunquam consulam, at ne glorie studium uirtuti preferas
identidem admonebo. Nosti enim gloriam uelut umbram quandam esse uirtutis;
itaque, sicut apud uos impossibile est corpus umbram sole feriente non reddere, sic
fieri non potest uirtutem, ubilibet radiante Deo, gloriam non parere . . . Hec igitur
seruanda tibi lex erit. Virtutem cole, gloriam neglige; illam tamen interea, . . . quo
minus appetes magis assequeris. Nondum possum michi temperare quominus
tecum tuis agam testimoniis:
illa uel inuitum, fugias licet, illa sequetur (= Afr. 2.486).
Nostis ne uersiculum? Tuus est.
I shall never counsel you to live without glory, but at the same time I shall warn
you not to prefer your desire for glory to virtue. You know that glory is, so to
speak, the shadow of virtue. Just as it is impossible for virtue not to beget glory, if
God shines His light . . . You shall have to keep this commandment: Cultivate
virtue and ignore glory. Nevertheless . . . the less you seek after glory the more you
shall find it. I cannot refrain from turning your own words against you: ‘Although
you try to run away, it will follow you even against your will.’ Do you recognize
that verse? It is yours. (trans. Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey)
So here, too, the ‘worldly’ success of glory is rejected, but then the concept is
ambiguously rehabilitated from a moralistic perspective that urges the practice
of virtue. In light of this, and in view of the new self-awareness the author has
acquired, Augustine invites Petrarch to abandon the literary works he toils
over: the Africa and the De uiris illustribus. They are useless weights that add
nothing to the feats of the Romans or to the fame that they acquired thanks to
their own deeds and the writing of those who celebrated them.
With the author’s reply, we reach the aporetic conclusion of the dialogue.123
Francesco realizes he is incapable of restraining his passion for literature (‘Sed
desiderium frenare non ualeo’, 214), and postpones the application of the

nomen insertum est. Qui licet eo serior uideatur, quo uiuacior est librorum quam sepulcrorum
memoria, tamen ineuitabilis casus est, . . . Quid ergo? adhuc ingerere tibi non desinam uersiculos
tuos: “libris equidem morientibus ipse / occumbes etiam; sic mors tibi tertia restat” (= Afr.
2.464–5).’
123
See Fenzi 1992, 418–19, n. 445 and 2003, 347–9.
 Beyond Death 241

precepts taught him by Augustine, who responds with good-natured resigna-

tion. As at the end of canzone 264, self-awareness does not manage to produce
the behaviours needed to leave the ‘peggior’ and move on to ‘’l meglio’.

7.3.8. The Trionfi

As already mentioned, the Africa, the De uiris illustribus, and the Secretum
were all edited and published after Petrarch’s death by the Paduan circle in
charge of their circulation. This is also true of the Trionfi, the poem where
the figure of Laura occupies a central role that relates the two polar opposites
of Love and Eternal Life, which appear at the start and end of the work
respectively. A complex narrative structure, organized around Laura’s char-
acter, focuses on the two subjects, love and fame, that in the Secretum are
described as the two chains from which Francesco must free himself. We
have already considered the similarities between Petrarch’s work and Boc-
caccio’s Amorosa visione: notably the moralistic perspective, the clear classi-
fication of Love and Fama-Glory as temporary worldly goods, and the
‘triumphal’ presentation of the paintings where these goods are celebrated
in an ephemeral way.
In the version of Petrarch’s work that was circulated, we once again come
across the relation of a dream, which the narrator says he had at Vaucluse on
the anniversary (6 April) of Petrarch’s first encounter with Laura. In his
dream, the poet attends five different ‘triumphal’ scenes. The sequence of
the scenes hinges on two episodes that show the superb victory and later
disgrace of first Love and then Fama.
The first half of the poem revolves around the theme of Love. After the
initial Triumph of Cupid over a multitude of characters (that the god made
his slaves) like that of Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione, we see Laura-Chastity
triumph over Love, before her defeat by Death. In the second half of the
poem, we initially see Fama’s triumph over Death: this episode makes use of
the entire traditional system of motifs that, since antiquity, literature had
dedicated to the exaltation of glory, the splendid renown that only appears to
save man from disappearance and oblivion. This is the section we are
interested in.
In the Triumph of Fama, we see the celebration of the renown acquired by
the powerful through their deeds and by writers with their works—a renown
that lasts after death. As in the similar triumph of Worldly Glory described by
Boccaccio, we see a long procession of famous personages. The first of the
three chapters of the Triumphus Fame is reserved for the most important
figures in Roman history, from the Scipios to Marcus Aurelius; the second to
those (male and female) of other cultures, from the protagonists of the myth of
Troy to characters from Greek history, from the most famous representatives
242 Word of Mouth

of biblical tradition to eastern sovereigns, up to the great figures of the times

closest to Petrarch’s; lastly, the third includes men remembered for their
ingenious contributions in the literary, philosophical, and scientific fields.124
This continuation of life after death is quickly revealed ephemeral. Prevail-
ing over Worldly Fama-Glory is Time, whose ruinous effects on the world are
revealed to the narrator by the sudden acceleration of the Sun’s chariot across
the sky in a chapter almost entirely centred on the condemnation of the
emptiness of worldly goods. In the end, Eternity’s triumph is not so much
described as prophesied. The end of time and history are envisioned in a
distant future, in a meditative discourse that culminates in an awkward
celebration of Laura, within a vaguely apocalyptic eschatological vision.125
The reader’s attention is therefore moved from the contemplation of Love’s
ephemeral dominion to the analogous vision of terrestrial glory’s defeat. Fame
is also a central theme in the cantos dedicated to the Triumph of Time and
Eternity. Petrarch’s discourse remains wholly focused on human transience,
from a perspective that gradually extends beyond the confines of the world
until finding fulfilment in the final dimension of eternal life. Fama’s jurisdic-
tion extends over the existence that men delude themselves they can prolong
beyond death. But Time and Eternity represent the two complementary
dimensions outside of the strict limits imposed on human nature: time is a
fringe of closure for earthly things, while eternity represents the threshold
beyond which the heavenly world—that hosts true life—becomes accessible
to man.
In Petrarch’s poem, Time’s dominance over Fama thus constitutes the basis
for the contrast between the emptiness of earthly things and the truth of
otherworldly existence. The terms of this opposition are stated in a broad and
radical way in a long response, attributed to a mysterious voice, which
occupies the concluding lines of the chapter dedicated to the Triumphus
Temporis (109–45):126
‘Un dubbio hiberno, instabile sereno,
è vostra fama, e poca nebbia il rompe, 110
e ’l gran tempo a’ gran nomi è gran veneno.
Passan vostre grandeze e vostre pompe,
passan le signorie, passano i regni;
ogni cosa mortal Tempo interrompe
e, ritolta a’ men buon, non dà a’ piú degni; 115
e non pur quel di fuori il tempo solve,
ma le vostre eloquentie e’ vostri ingegni.

124
This chapter contains the same range of characters who followed the allegorical figure of
Wisdom, not that of Worldly Glory, in the Amorosa visione.
125
See Bernardo 1974, 143–9.
126
Here and elsewhere, the Trionfi are cited according to the text in Pacca 1996.
 Beyond Death 243

Cosí, fuggendo, il mondo seco volve,

né mai si posa, né s’arresta o torna,
fin che v’ha ricondotti in poca polve. 120
Or, perché humana gloria à tante corna,
non è mirabil cosa, s’a fiaccarle
alquanto oltra l’usanza si soggiorna.
Ma quantunque si pensi il vulgo o parle,
se ’l viver vostro non fusse sì breve, 125
tosto vedresti in fumo ritornarle.’
Udito questo, perché al ver si deve
non contrastar, ma dar perfetta fede,
vidi ogni nostra gloria al sol di neve.
E vidi il Tempo rimenar tal’ prede 130
de’ nostri nomi ch’io gli ebbi per nulla,
benché la gente ciò non sa né crede,
cieca, che sempre al vento si trastulla,
e pur di false opinïon si pasce,
lodando più il morir vecchio che ’n culla. 135
Quanti son già felici morti in fasce!
Quanti miseri in ultima vecchiezza!
Alcun dice: ‘Beato chi non nasce!’
Ma per la turba, a’ grandi errori avezza,
dopo la lunga età sia il nome chiaro: 140
che è questo però che sì s’apprezza?
Tanto vince e ritoglie il Tempo avaro;
chiamasi Fama, ed è morir secondo,
né più che contra ’l primo è alcun riparo.
Così ’l Tempo triumpha i nomi e ’l mondo! 145
‘Your fame is an uncertain winter, a changeable clear sky: a little fog
disrupts it, and great time is great poison to great names. Your pomp and
greatness pass, lordships pass, kingdoms pass; Time disrupts all mortal
things and what he takes from lesser men, he does not bestow on the
worthy; and time does not only destroy what can be seen, but also your
eloquence and your ingenuity. Thus fleeing, it turns the world along with it;
it does not rest or stop itself or come back until it has returned you to a little
dust. Now, as human pride has so many horns, it is no wonder it takes more
time than usual to destroy them. Still, whatever men may think or say, were
your lifespan not so short you would soon see them turn to smoke.’ When
I heard this—because we owe the truth perfect faith, not contradiction—I
saw all our glory as snow in the sun. And I saw Time take so much from our
names that they meant nothing to me, though people neither know nor
believe this: blind, who always loiter in the wind and graze on false opinions,
thinking it better to die late than in the cradle. So many die happy wrapped
in swaddling bands, so many are miserable in old age! Some people say ‘it is
lucky to never be born’. But let the crowd, so oft misled, believe a name may
become illustrious after a long life. Yet what here is being valued? Greedy
244 Word of Mouth

Time conquers and takes everything back: called Fame, it is a second death,
and there is no escaping either. And so Time triumphs over names, over the
world!
The ephemeral bond that links Fame (‘fama’, 110 and 143) and Glory
(‘humana gloria’, ‘nostra gloria’, 121 and 129) to names (‘nomi’, 111,
131, 140) is the foundation of this passage dedicated to the temporari-
ness of greatness (111–13). 127 In the face of time’s destructive effect on
bodies and even man’s genius (116–17), worldly glory, which aspires to
prolong the life of names, is likened first to the uncertainty of winter
weather and to a calm day ruined by nothing more than faint clouds
(109–10), then to something certain to go up in smoke (126), and finally
to snow that melts in the sun (129). The list of topoi dedicated to fame’s
insubstantiality continues with the insistent evocation of superficial
gossip and opinions, light as wind, on which common people feed
(‘vulgo’ 124, ‘turba’ 139, ‘gente . . . che sempre al vento si trastulla’
132–3). Finally, the ‘second death’ reappears (143), here according to
its original Boethian form. 128

7.3.9. Petrarch’s Personification of Fama

In the Trionfi, a precise description of a Fama figure is nowhere be found. The

representation of this character was only gradually developed later by illumin-
ators, painters, and engravers faced with the difficult task of illustrating the
poem. In contrast to what Boccaccio did in the Amorosa visione, when
describing triumphal processions, Petrarch generally omitted descriptive
elements that could have inspired figurative imagery.129
This is also true for all of the poem’s allegorical characters, whose traits
are rather vague. It is generally impossible to imagine any distinguishing
iconographic feature based on Petrarch’s descriptions. As is well known,
only for the first scene of the poem (which is dedicated to Cupid) does the
poet offer us a fairly brief description of the god and his chariot, which

127
See Ariani’s comment (1988, 374) on the repetition of the adjective gran on l. 111 and of
the verb passan on ll. 112–13. Pacca 1996, 496–7 linked this insistence on the verbal form passan
to the proverbial motif Sic transit gloria mundi (see Walther 1967, 15649, 22258, 25202, 27666,
29554, 31537b, 32582b, 33945; see also Tosi 1991, 254, n. 535. On the ceremonial use of this
formula for the papal election, in a rite that compares gloria mundi to the rapid burning of
stubble, see Paravicini Bagliani 2013, 146–9, 157–9 and 165–7). Particularly telling is the
proverbial variant recorded in Walther 1967, 32395: ‘ut flatus venti sic transit gloria mundi’.
128
See secs. 7.1.5 and 7.3.7.
129
On the static nature of the scene described by Petrarch and its differences from the earlier
one of the Amorosa visione, see Vecce 1999, 304–5, and 311–13.
 Beyond Death 245

appear to the narrator right after he has entered his dream vision (Trium-
phus Cupidinis 1.10–30):
Ivi, fra l’erbe, già del pianger fioco, 110
vinto dal sonno, vidi una gran luce,
e dentro assai dolor con breve gioco.
Vidi un victorïoso e sommo duce
pur com’un di color che ’n Campidoglio
triumphal carro a gran gloria conduce. 115
I’, che gioir di tal vista non soglio
per lo secol noioso in ch’i’ mi trovo,
vòto d’ogni valor, pien d’ogn’orgoglio,
l’abito in vista sì leggiadro e novo
mirai, alzando gli occhi gravi e stanchi, 120
ch’altro diletto che ’nparar non provo:
quattro destrier, vie più che neve bianchi,
sovr’un carro di foco un garzon crudo
con arco in man e con saette a’ fianchi;
nulla temea, però non maglia o scudo, 125
ma sugli omeri avea sol due grand’ali
di color mille, tutto l’altro ignudo;
d’intorno innumerabili mortali,
parte presi in battaglia, e parte occisi,
parte feriti di pungenti strali. 130

There, amidst the grass, already weak from weeping, overwhelmed with sleep,
I saw a great light and inside it were great pain and brief joy. I saw a leader,
victorious and of highest rank, like those carried by triumphal chariots to
great glory on the Capitol. Living in such a dismal century—so empty of
worth, so stuffed full of pride—I never had enjoyed such a sight. Lifting my
heavy, tired eyes and eager only to learn, I gazed at this scene, so new and fair.
I saw four stallions, whiter than snow, and a cruel young man upon a chariot
of fire, a bow in his hand and arrows at his side; fearless, and so with neither
armour nor shield, though on his arms he had two great many-coloured
wings; he was naked but for this; around him, countless mortals, some
captured in battle, some killed, some wounded by his stinging arrows.

This is one of the few places in Petrarch’s poem where we can glimpse some
meagre details of the triumphal procession: the god advances on a chariot of
fire drawn by four white horses in celebration of his glory (‘gran gloria’).130
The splendour of the dream scene that appears to the narrator is contrasted
with Petrarch’s own time, where pride continues to prosper but is unsub-
stantiated by virtue.

130
A few other details appear elsewhere: see e.g. Triumphus Cupidinis 1.160, which draws
on a Lactantian passage (see Pacca 1996, 91 ad loc.) to show us an imprisoned Jupiter
(‘catenato . . . innanzi al carro’); and 4.140, which refers to the decoration of a triumphal arch
(see Pacca 1996, 213 ad loc.).
246 Word of Mouth

Little more is said of the Cupid figure, a naked boy with two multicoloured
wings who is holding a bow and arrows.131 This introduction appears ex-
tremely sparse in detail compared to the description Boccaccio dedicated to
the triumph of the same character in the Amorosa visione.132 Commentators
have often underscored that the vaguely antiquarian setting Petrarch used is
also found in the second elegy of book 1 of Ovid’s Amores, when the author
describes the moment in which he gives himself up to the god of Love and the
latter celebrates his victory, advancing on a chariot drawn by doves.133
If the Triumphus Cupidinis presents us with a barely sketched picture, the
figures celebrating victory in the other poem’s scenes lack even indistinct
physical characteristics. Barely any detail is given to the image of Laura-
Chastity. Even vaguer is the figure of Death, for whom by this time a notable
iconographic tradition had already been established. Nor are there personifi-
cations of time or eternity, the subjects to which the last two episodes are
dedicated.134
Even the figure of Fama has no precise features: at the beginning, she is
introduced simply as the woman capable of saving man from death (‘quella /
che trae l’uom dal sepolcro e ’n vita il serba’, Triumphus Fame 1.8–9). Then the
reassuring arrival of this ‘bella donna’ (1.23) is compared to that of the
morning star (1.10–13). The reference to the triumphal character of the
procession accompanying Fama is almost cursory.135

131
See Pacca 1996, 56–9.
132
See Boccaccio, Amorosa visione 15.1–36 (see sec. 7.2.5, n. 77). On the other hand,
Boccaccio’s description lacks any antiquarian element that can be connected to the trad-
itional ancient Roman triumphal ceremony. This is not Cupid’s only triumph of the time
period: another well-known one appears at the start of Francesco da Barberino’s Documenti
d’amore, and was illustrated by the author according to an iconography substantially
different from both Boccaccio’s and Petrarch’s (see Egidi 1902, 13–15 and Nardi 1993,
79–81: the image can be seen in the Egidi 1913 and Albertazzi 2008 editions). See also
Battaglia Ricci 1999, 259–64.
133
ll. 19–52 (esp. ll. 19–34 and 39–42): ‘En ego confiteor: tua sum noua praeda, Cupido; /
porrigimus uictas ad tua iura manus. / Nil opus est bello; ueniam pacemque rogamus, / nec tibi
laus armis uictus inermis ero. / Necte comam myrto, maternas iunge columbas; / qui deceat,
currum uitricus ipse dabit, / inque dato curru, populo clamante triumphum, / stabis et adiunctas
arte mouebis aues. / Ducentur capti iuvenes captaeque puellae; / haec tibi magnificus pompa
triumphus erit. / Ipse ego, praeda recens, factum modo uulnus habebo / et noua captiua uincula
mente feram. / Mens Bona ducetur manibus post terga retortis / et Pudor et castris quidquid
Amoris obest. / Omnia te metuent, ad te sua bracchia tendens / uolgus “io” magna uoce
“triumphe!” canet. / . . . Laeta triumphanti de summo mater Olympo / plaudet et adpositas
sparget in ora rosas. / Tu pinnas gemma, gemma uariante capillos, / ibis in auratis aureus ipse
rotis.’ See Martellotti 1983, 517–24.
134
See Triumphus Pudicitie 118–24 (this lacks any reference to a triumphal setting, which is
instead vaguely evoked in the scene that describes the laying down of the ‘gloriose spoglie’ and
the laurel crown in the temple of Chastity on lines 184–6), Triumphus Mortis 1.31 (‘ed una
donna involta in veste negra’), and Triumphus Fame 1.4–5 (‘partissi quella dispietata e rea, /
pallida in vista, horribile e superba’).
135
See Triumphus Fame 1.26–33: ‘E poi mi fu mostrata, / dopo sì glorïoso e bel principio, /
gente di ferro e di valore armata. / Sì come in Campidoglio al tempo antico / talora o per Via
 Beyond Death 247

After these brief descriptions the character vanishes from the scene. She is
spoken of again (in more detail) in Triumphus Temporis. In fact, in addition
to appearing in the already cited passage at the end of this episode, Fama is
mentioned at the start of the canto, where the Sun expresses his fear that she
can undermine his administration of time.136
In the end, once death and time have left the scene, the Triumphus
Eternitatis introduces a new, finally stable perspective that will tie human
names to celestial bliss, thereby making fame itself eternal (76–81 and
127–34):137
Non sarà più diviso a poco a poco,
ma tutto inseme, e non più state o verno,
ma morto il tempo, e varïato il loco;
e non avranno in man li anni il governo
de le fame mortali; anzi chi fia 80
chiaro una volta fia chiaro in eterno.
...
E quei che Fama meritaron chiara,
che ’l Tempo spense, e i be’ visi leggiadri
che ’mpallidir fe’ ’l Tempo e Morte amara,
l’oblivïon, gli aspetti oscuri ed adri, 130
più che mai bei tornando, lasceranno
a Morte impetüosa, a’ giorni ladri.
Ne l’età più fiorita e verde avranno
con immortal bellezza eterna fama.
It will no longer be divided bit by bit, but stay all together. No more summer or
winter: time will be dead, and space changed; and years will no longer govern
mortal fame; instead those once renowned will be so for all eternity . . . . And those
who earned illustrious Fame, which Time extinguished, and the fair faces that
Time and bitter Death turned pale, will leave oblivion and dark, dreary aspects to

Sacra e per Via Lata / venian tutti, in quell’ordine ch’i’ dico, / e leggeasi a ciascuno intorno al
ciglio / il nome, al mondo più di gloria amico.’ See Battaglia Ricci 1999, 290–1, who in addition to
highlighting how any reference to a fight between Fama and Death has been eliminated,
considers these lines to be aimed at ‘transforming a gallery of heroes into a triumph . . . Fame’s
victory over Death consists of her “appropriation” of the spoils obtained by Death: in this way
bringing the dead (some of the dead) back to life.’ Just a few more traits of Fama’s figure are
described in the ‘abbozzo’ Ia.19–22 (likely the very first realization of Petrarch’s project for this
poem: see Pacca 1996, 549–53): ‘una gran reina’ who ‘a veder parea cosa divina’. In the first two
lines of ‘abbozzo’ IIa Fama is simply called ‘la bella e glorïosa donna / così ornata’.
136
ll. 6–12: ‘Che pensi? omai conven che più cura aggi. / Ecco: s’un che famoso in terra visse /
de la sua fama per morir non esce, / che sarà de la legge che ’l Ciel fisse? / E se fama mortal,
morendo, cresce, / che spegner si devea in breve, veggio / nostra excellentia al fine; onde
m’incresce.’ See also sec. 7.3.8.
137
See Triumphus Eternitatis 43–5: ‘Beati spirti che nel sommo choro / si troveranno, o
trovano, in tal grado / che sia in memoria eterna il nome loro!’ On the Augustinian matrix
behind Petrarch’s idea of eternity, see Ariani 1988, 385–8 and Pacca 1996, 475–6, 516–17, and
523–6.
248 Word of Mouth

wild Death and thieving days, as they grow more beautiful than ever. Thriving in
their greenest age, they will have immortal beauty and eternal fame
Underpinning these lines is a conception of glory clearly compatible with the
one that emerges from the passages of the Africa and the Secretum examined
earlier.138 Fame that follows from virtuous behaviour is now considered part
of an eschatological dimension with vaguely paradisiacal characteristics. The
glory acquired through conduct that merits eternal life is also eternal (and
anything but ‘worldly’).139
The cultural models that frame Petrarch’s conception of Fama therefore
remain clear and stable; however, no precise physical form can be ascribed to
the allegorical figure that guides the triumphal procession of heroes and
intellectuals who have managed to acquire renown through their deeds. For
a personification with a specific iconography to be born from this character, it
was necessary to do something opposite to what can be achieved through
ekphrasis and infer an original image of Fama from a text. The reference text
needed to create adequate illustrations of the triumphal court led by Fama
could not be the Trionfi.

7.3.10. De uiris illustribus

Before explaining the birth of Fama’s modern iconography, largely devised in

order to depict the triumphal scene Petrarch dedicated to her in the Trionfi, we
must touch on another, unfinished work, whose lot is often intertwined with
the Africa’s. I refer to De uiris illustribus, the collection of biographies where
the motif of fama-glory continues to play a crucial role. The reason is clear. On
the one hand, Petrarch conceived of this collection of lives as a literary
monument intended to celebrate the feats (and therefore the fame) of the
great personages of antiquity (Roman and non-Roman); on the other, the
editorial process that led to this work’s circulation produced new ideas that
proved essential for the elaboration of an image of Worldly Glory. In fact, at
the beginning of three of its manuscripts we find the illuminations that
constitute what we might call the archetypes of the later, enormous icono-
graphic tradition that the Fama character enjoyed.140
In this work, the theme of glory is not treated as extensively as it was in the
passages we reviewed earlier, but it rapidly emerges in the preface of the text.

138
See also Bartuschat 2011, 271–81.
139
On the effect that this final vision has on the modern reader, it is difficult to disagree with
Santagata 1996, l–li: ‘a feeling of emptiness, of absence, of lifelessness, of death. Petrarch’s
Paradise resembles a desolate wilderness that not even the final triumph of the blessed souls
manages to bring back to life.’
140
See Ch. 8, secs. 8.2 and 8.3.
 Beyond Death 249

As is well known, two different prefaces to Petrarch’s biographical compen-

dium exist: they appear in the most important manuscripts of De uiris
illustribus that were produced in Padua: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Latin
6069I and 6069F (which we will discuss again later). This last manuscript is
the edition that Lombardo della Seta presented to Francesco il Vecchio da
Carrara. As Vincenzo Fera recently pointed out, the so-called preface A, the
introduction to this manuscript, is only a hastily reworked text based on the
ampler and well pondered introduction that can be found in the other Parisian
codex (preface B). We should therefore examine the latter.141
In the text, addressed to a generic reader, the aim of Petrarch’s work is
described as an attempt to gather together (8)
Illustres . . . uiros, quos excellenti quadam gloria floruisse doctissimorum hominum
ingenia memorie tradiderunt, eorumque laudes, quas in diuersis libris tanquam
sparsas ac disseminatas inueni.
The illustrious . . . persons who, as the most learned men have handed down to
future memory, distinguished themselves with an exceptional glory; and also
praise of them, which I found, so to speak, scattered and disseminated in different
books.142
Clearly, the main prerequisite for a hero to become famous is the acquisition
of an extraordinary glory by his own deeds, but literature’s role is also quickly
pushed to the forefront: the memory of these heroes is guaranteed by the
talents of whoever committed their deeds to writing. Petrarch proposed
himself as the attentive selector of all laudatory proclamations (laudes)
found in old books.
As usual, to validate the glory that such personages boast of, the author sees
it fitting to draw a link between renown and virtue, a quality once again used
to support the concept of true glory. This connection is highlighted soon after
when Petrarch explains why he focuses on past events rather than those from
the present, which he would nonetheless be willing to share with future
generations (11):
Nam etsi quosdam nuper uictoriis satis insignes nouerim, ita tamen aut fortune
aut hostium inertie cuncta cedunt, ut nullus ibi uel uirtuti uictoris aut uere glorie
locus sit.

141
Fera 2007, 111 defines text A as ‘the author’s imperfect summary of preface B, a text that
always remained a draft, and was evidently never revised for publication by Petrarch’. According
to Fera’s convincing hypothesis, preface B was carefully composed and designed to justify the
project of an ample biographical collection starting with the patriarchs and continuing on to
classical antiquity; preface A was prepared for the more limited series of biographies, limited to
the Romans, requested from Petrarch by Francesco I da Carrara.
142
This expression is used again, with very few modifications, in the first sentence of
preface A.
250 Word of Mouth
Much as I am aware of several persons who have of late sufficiently distinguished
themselves through their victories; all the same, their achievements are so
dependent on luck or the ineptitude of their enemies that they leave no room
for the victor’s virtue or authentic glory.143
Supporting the concept of glory here is the usual association of renown and
virtue, but it is stated in a new way. The aspiration for glory is no longer
qualified from a moralistic, vaguely religious perspective, as in the Secretum or
the Trionfi; rather, it becomes the object of a literary discourse that has an
exemplary usefulness. Petrarch’s idea of historical writing aims at a specific
didactic purpose, based on virtuous models to be followed and sinful models
to be avoided.144 In light of this educational objective, even the reward that
might come to the author in the event of his project’s success is not presented
as a glorious survival of his name after death; instead, Petrarch simply requests
affectionate gratitude from the reader for his literary efforts.145
Despite the unassuming tone of these introductory phrases, when published
in the Paduan area, the text featured a majestic triumphal representation of the
very Glory that Petrarch had clearly tried to depict only with utmost caution.
This lavish scene was not created by literary means, but by the icastic effect of
the painted image.

143
This idea is later restated in para. 24, establishing a contrast between those famous for
material reasons and those who acquire glory through virtue (‘Neque enim quisquis opulentus et
potens confestim simul illustris est: alterum enim fortune, alterum uirtutis et glorie munus est’).
144
See e.g. 33: ‘Hic enim, nisi fallor, fructuosus ystorici finis est, illa prosequi que uel sectanda
legentibus uel fugienda sunt, ut in utranque partem copia suppetat illustrium exemplorum’ (part
of this passage is reiterated word for word in preface A.6).
145
‘Si uero forsan studii mei labor expectationis tue sitim ulla ex parte sedauerit, nullum a te
aliud premii genus efflagito, nisi ut diligar licet incognitus, licet sepulcro conditus, licet uersus in
cineres, sicut ego multos, quorum me uigiliis adiutum senseram, non modo defunctos sed diu
ante consumptos, post annum millesimum dilexi’ (39: this passage returns verbatim in preface A.9).
 8

Giving Glory a Body

8.1. FIGURES WITHOUT ICONO GRAPHIC MODELS:

GLORY AN D VAINGLORY

8.1.1. Glory and Triumph

Virgil’s grim monster, which ‘throws cities into terror’, was certainly not a
suitable figure for representing the Fama that diffuses renown, giving glory to
someone’s name. Both at a literary and iconographic level, it was necessary to
bring together positive traits to represent such a character. The Virgilian
personification, which gives body to a disturbing tangle of rumours, was
constructed in order to bring the organs involved in the communication
process into sharp focus. Ovid also concentrated on the description of the
process by which talk is spread all over the world. In contrast, since antiquity
the figure of Fama-Renown has been primarily associated with celebratory
symbolic contexts, and in particular with a ceremonial setting that exalted
human success more than any other: the triumph.
The ancient authors that mentioned the Fama-Renown figure limited
themselves to brief allusions, from which a precise physiognomy never
emerged. This is the case for the Fama that Propertius speaks of (3.1.7–14):
a ualeat, Phoebum quicumque moratur in armis!
exactus tenui pumice uersus eat,
quo me Fama leuat terra sublimis, et a me
nata coronatis Musa triumphat equis, 10
et mecum in curru parui uectantur Amores,
scriptorumque meas turba secuta rotas.
Quid frustra missis in me certatis habenis?
non datur ad Musas currere lata uia.
Away with the man who keeps Phoebus tarrying among the weapons of war! Let
verse run smoothly, polished with fine pumice. ’Tis by such verse as this that
Fame lifts me aloft from earth, and the Muse, my daughter, triumphs with
garlanded steeds, and tiny Loves ride with me in my chariot, and a throng of
252 Word of Mouth

writers follows my wheels. Why strive ye against me vainly with loosened rein?
Narrow is the path that leadeth to the Muses. (trans. H. E. Butler)
Here, Propertius is asserting the supremacy in Rome of his poetry, which
proceeds in the wake of literary models like Callimachus and Philetas of Cos.
Thanks to his elegant and carefully wrought elegiac lines, the poet imagines
being lifted up in flight on the very chariot where his Muse is celebrating her
triumph: drawing him above towards her (sublimis) is Fama herself.1 The
Muse and the poet occupy the place of honour on the triumphal chariot, and
are surrounded by a group of little Amores, while a procession of other writers
follows them.2
Here, Fama-Renown is generically ascribed the character of an aerial
figure without precise features, and it is even difficult to ascertain her
position with respect to the triumphant Muse’s chariot. Propertius then
continues, imagining the honours and praise that will, after his death, be
bestowed on him and his tomb by later generations. We are therefore
witnessing a self-congratulatory fantasy where we see the reappearance of
the topos of glory that allows poets to prolong their existence through the
memory of posterity.
In another case, which envisages a similar scenario, Fama herself is given
a chariot that soars into the air.3 I refer to a passage of the composition
addressed to Lucan’s widow, Polla Argentaria, where Statius commemorates
the deceased poet’s birthday. In the epilogue of the poem, Statius invokes
Lucan’s spirit, imagining its possible condition after death (2.7.107–12):
At tu, seu rapidum poli per axem
famae curribus arduis leuatus
qua surgunt animae potentiores,
terras despicis et sepulcra rides;
seu pacis merito nemus reclusi
felix Elysii tenes in oris . . .

1
See Ch. 1, sec. 1.3.1. In his note on l. 9, Rothstein 1966, 8–9 insisted on the effect of the
Propertian enallage, which highlights the elevated position (sublimis) of Fama, rather than that
of the poet ‘lifted aloft’. The author and his Muse are found combined in the typical role of the
Roman victor, and the details of the triumph described in this couplet and the following one are
Roman (like the decorated horses—for these, cf. Ov. Fast. 5.52, Tr. 4.2.22, Pont. 2.1.57–8). On the
image of Fama lifting up the poets, see Fedeli 1985, 60–1. The most important precedent for this
Propertian scene is Verg. G. 3.8–18.
2
As Rothstein and Fedeli remind us, this is a transposition of the traditional characteristics of
the triumphal procession (the presence, next to the triumphant figure, of his little children and
the procession of comrades-in-arms of inferior rank). For a comparison of the details of this
scene with other descriptions of triumphs in Roman poetry, see Fedeli 1985, 59–60.
3
On Fama’s chariot, see Wassermann 1920, 82–4. Wassermann hypothesized that the roles
that in literature and the figurative arts were given, in similar triumphal contexts, to Νίκη or
Victory, were sometimes transferred to winged figures like that of Fama (or Gloria).
 Giving Glory a Body 253

But thou, whether uplifted in the soaring chariot of fame through the whirling
vault of heaven, whither rise more puissant souls, thou lookest down upon the
earth and laughest at sepulchres; or whether on Elysian shores that thy deserts
have won thee thou hast gained the blissful bower of peace . . . (trans. J. H. Mozley)
The first of the hypotheses that Statius proposes in these lines presents us with
a state of affairs that in many ways recalls the scene from the Somnium
Scipionis. The spirit of a dead man, in the blessed condition guaranteed him
by the extraordinary greatness of his merits, looks down on earth from above;
and from this position he is able to disdain death and tombs.4 In this case,
Fama’s chariot is not really a triumphal one: instead it is the vehicle that
assures the dead man’s soul the privilege of raising itself far above narrow
worldly limits. Obviously, though, the earlier Propertian passage readily sug-
gested the association of this fantasy with the triumphal setting. But regardless
of whether any triumphal imagery was activated, it remains clear that Statius is
bestowing on Lucan the very form of glorification that, in the moralistic
tradition that we illustrated in the preceding chapter, was destined to be
systematically subject to criticism over the course of the medieval period.
On this occasion, too, it is unfortunately impossible to construct an idea of
the Fama figure that owns such a sublime chariot.
An analogous remark could also be made about Gloria, a concept that in the
Roman world does not seem to have been personified in a consistent way.
We know of no ancient iconography for such a personage, and the allusions
made to her in texts that survive today indicate that no recognizable, wide-
spread ‘type’ existed, in contrast to what happened for figures of Victoria or
Concordia.5
A triumphal chariot for Gloria is mentioned in the well-known Horatian
satire addressed to Maecenas, where the poet asserts his dignity despite his
humble origins. Before declaring himself ‘son of a freedman father’, Horace
makes several sarcastic comments about the fact that the common people
(populus) do not know how to assess the true virtue of personages who obtain
the highest political positions, because while passing their judgments they let
themselves be tricked by the titles of nobility exhibited by important families
and are too dependent on what they hear (‘famae seruit ineptus’, 16). He adds,
moreover, that glory exposes those it rewards to suspicion and envy. Conse-
quently, he describes the ambition of those who aspire to obtain prominent
positions using a paradoxical image (Sat. 1.6.23–4):

4
See Van Dam 1984, 495–7.
5
See Knoche 1934, 117–18, n. 87, Vermeulen 1981, 203, and Desnier 1988, 278 (‘la notion
n’[a] pas connu d’existence iconographique propre, hormis une brève et tardive apparition
numismatique, bien hypothétique’). On numismatic representations of glory, see Bruun 1985,
23–5. In Latin literature, there are only vague references to a personified Glory figure, like the one
in Manil. Astr. 2.808–19 (on this see Kyriakidis, forthcoming).
254 Word of Mouth

sed fulgente trahit constrictos Gloria curru

non minus ignotos generosis.
Still, Glory, with her gleaming chariot, draws on as her prisoners the unknown no
less than the nobly born. (trans. P. Michael Brown)
In the triumphal setting that, as Porphyrion already observed, these verses
recall, Glory does not call on the ambitious to celebrate their success, the way
she does in the Propertian fantasy examined earlier. Instead, they are found in
the procession of prisoners obliged to follow her chariot.6
Horace also uses the image of Glory’s chariot in his description of the
vainglorious playwright in the letter to Augustus that opens book 2 of the
Epistulae (2.1.177–8):7
Quem tulit ad scaenam uentoso Gloria curru,
exanimat lentus spectator, sedulus inflat.
The man whom Glory carries to the stage in her windy car, the listless spectator
leaves spiritless, the eager one exultant. (trans. H. Rushton Fairclough)
This is one of the most important ancient examples of the association between
the ephemeral gust of wind and glory: an association intended to suggest the
idea of an ‘empty’, insubstantial success that ‘inflates’ anyone who feeds on
groundless pride.8

8.1.2. An Ancient Iconography for Fama-Glory?

It does not seem that significant examples of a well-defined Fama-Glory

figure existed in classical texts or ancient iconographic production.9 The only

6
See Porphyrion ad loc.: ‘Sensus est: Rapit omnis cupiditas gloriae. Sed quod “curru[s]
fulgente” dixerit, a triumphis uidetur sumpsisse.’ With a suggestive anachronism, Hardie 2012,
29 and n. 92 defines the triumph that Horace speaks of here as a ‘Triumph of Vainglory’.
7
The definition of gloriosus poeta is again from Porphyrion ad loc.: ‘Postquam auari poetae
uitia ostendit, nunc transit ad gloriosum poetam, qui, si non laudatur, et animum et artem abicit,
laudari se uide<ns> fit temerarius ac tumescit.’
8
The image of gloria uentosa appears in Verg. Aen. 11.708 (‘iam nosces uentosa ferat cui
gloria laudem’): Servius already explained that this expression was equivalent to the Greek
κενοδοξία (Servius, followed by Conte, in his recent edition of the Aeneid, asserted among
other things that at the end of the line, the authentic reading must have been fraudem and not
laudem). See Brink 1982, 216–17. The adjective uentosus is also used in reference to fama in Stat.
Silu. 4.4.50–1 (‘uentosaque gaudia famae / quaerimus’). Later on, the moralistic nuances of this
use of the term would become canonical. Suffice it to think of the Superbia described by
Prudentius as ‘uentosa uirago’ (Psych. 194). For the link between Vainglory and the wind
motif, see Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.3.
9
A review of the passages that contain very brief allusions to more or less clearly personified
forms of Fama-Glory can be found in Wassermann 1920, 78–87.
 Giving Glory a Body 255

possible reference to the image of such a personification appears in two brief

tetrastichs from the first half of the sixth century. They were handed
down to us among Luxorius’s epigrams, included in the poetic collection
of the Codex Salmasianus, known as the Latin Anthology. These consist of
two very brief allusions to a depiction of Fame in the circus stables (312 and
313 Riese2):
De Fama picta in stabulo circi
Qualem te pictor stabulis formauit equorum,
Talem te nostris blanda referto iugis.
Semper et adsiduo uincendi munera porta
His, quorum limen fortis amica sedes.
About a Painting of Fame on a Circus Stable
Just as the artist has painted you on the horses’ stables, in that same pose
alight favorably on our teams. Always and unfailingly carry the prize of victory
to those on whose portal you are seated as such a powerful friend. (trans.
Morris Rosenblum)

Aliter
Verum, Fama, tibi uultum pictura notauit,
Dum uiuos oculos iuncea forma gerit.
Tu quamuis totum uelox rapiaris in orbem,
Pulcrior hoc uno limine clausa sedes.
Another Poem on the Same Theme
Your true features, Fame, have been delineated in the painting, which shows your
slender body and your sparkling eyes. Although you fly with speed over the whole
world, you are so much more beautiful when you sit here permanently fixed on
this portal. (trans. Morris Rosenblum)
In the first of the two pieces, the poet invokes Fama to come bringing the
prizes of victory: the recipient of these prizes might be the team to whom
the stable storing the image of the goddess belongs. However, it is not
specified what form the artist gives the auspicious figure. In the second
tetrastich, the attention is focused on the power that the painting has to
‘arrest’ the beauty of Fama, who usually moves around the whole world at an
unstoppable speed.
The presence of an image of Fama in a location frequented by charioteers,
genuine ‘stars’ in the society of the time, certainly does not seem out of place.
Yet these few lines constitute a wholly isolated reference to the association of
this imaginary character with the world of the circus. Such a text reveals
neither what kind of pictura is being referred to nor which walls, floors, or
furnishings would have displayed it. As for the physical appearance of the
personage, these rapid allusions to her slender form, lively eyes, and speed do
not help us form a precise, clear idea of this figure. At most, we can observe
that the way in which Fama is invoked in the first of the epigrams recalls a
256 Word of Mouth

figure similar to that of Victory, also winged, and also at home in the circus
environment.10

8.1.3. Glory and Vainglory in the Middle Ages

Things did not change over the subsequent centuries. Throughout late an-
tiquity and most of the medieval period, it cannot be said that a recognizable
iconography of Glory existed. It was only in the decades closer to Petrarch’s
literary activity that a few interesting representations began to appear. But
these depictions of her were sporadic and seemingly isolated. Something
similar can also be said of the Glory figure’s negative counterpart: Vainglory.
It is not my intention to give a precise portrait of the iconographic tradition
related to these two figures during the Middle Ages. I will limit myself to a few
scattered examples that give an idea of the variety of figurative solutions
chosen to represent the two characters.
An example that is noteworthy for its intended originality is the image of
Glory found in the manuscripts of Francesco da Barberino’s Documenti
d’amore (c.1309–13), among the illuminations designed by the author to
illustrate his poetic text (Fig. 8.1). The Glory mentioned is an entirely different
figure from the ‘triumphal’ one that interests us more directly.11 The poet
describes her in the following way:
Ella in un prato ha colti fiori e tace, 6240
perché le piace
un bel cantar d’augelli
che son davanti a llei gentili e belli.
Età di xxv anni ha perfecta;
veste ha gialletta; 6245
molti intagli per entro,
che mostran com’ell’è gioiosa dentro.
Arbori, et erbe sono in questo prato,
e lei da llato
ha cucciolini e molti 6250
begli animali che di selva son tolti.12
She has gathered flowers on a lawn and is silent, for she loves the pleasant song of
the pretty and gentle birds before her. She is twenty-five years old, and wears a

10
Wassermann 1920, 82 and 85 already suggested this. Happ 1986, II, 215–16 (see also Dal
Corobbo 2009, 208) called this an example of ‘eine synkretistische Figur’, where the traits of
Fortune and Fame would merge, but this hypothesis has no foundation.
11
See Egidi 1902, 9 and 83–4, Goldin 1980, 128–30, Frojmovič 1993, 142–4.
12
I quote from Albertazzi 2008, I, 373–4, ll. 6240–51 (see also Egidi 1913, 255–7).
 Giving Glory a Body 257

Fig. 8.1. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Barb. Lat. 4076, fol. 85r (detail). Gloria.
© 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, with all rights reserved).

bright yellow robe with many eyelets that reveal her internal joy. On this lawn are
trees and grasses, and she has beside her pups and many lovely animals that have
come from the woods.
As one of the Latin glosses that accompanies and explains these lines makes
clear, the Glory spoken of here is a pure and simple being of a joyful nature,
kept carefully distinct from the figure of Vainglory, which attracts the usual
disapproving moralistic reflections.13

13
See e.g. the gloss about the detail of her ‘gialletta’ clothing: ‘Que comparatur aureo colore
tanquam excellentiori et puriori. Gloria enim ista pura debet esse ac simplex, ut nichil in illa
uanitatis sed solius debite ac limitate recreationis existat’ (I quote from Egidi 1913, 257–8, but
see 266–7 for the treatment Francesco gives Vainglory: see also Albertazzi 2008, II, 495
and 499).
258 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.2. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 2077, fol. 165v (detail).
Inanis gloria and Timor Domini. By permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de
France.

There are not many representations of the other form of Glory, considered
fallacious and meaningless, either. In addition, the various figurative forms in
which the character appears do not seem to belong to a coherent iconog-
raphy. In various manuscripts, we find the image of Vainglory beside texts
centred on the discussion (and condemnation) of the vices and sins. To give
an idea of the diversity of the solutions chosen to represent the character in
these contexts, I will limit myself to two examples that are rather different
from each other.14
A miscellaneous manuscript from the beginning of the eleventh century,
from Saint-Pierre de Moissac (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Lat. 2077),
contains (among other things) a compilation of the works on the vices and
virtues by Halitgar of Cambrai and Ambrose Autpert. It is here that we find
the image of Inanis Gloria, contrasted with that of Timor Domini (Fig. 8.2).15

14
For other representations of Vainglory, see Katzenellenbogen 1939 (index s.v. gloria vana)
and the list in Hourihane 2000, 424–5.
15
See Katzenellenbogen 1939, 12–13. On fol. 163r, along with the group of vices surrounding
Pride, Vainglory appears as a scantily clad woman. Fraisse 1999, 229, other than pointing out that the
term used by the two authors of the works contained in the manuscript is Inanis Gloria, observes that
the image is intended to show how ‘la méchanceté peut être dissimulée par une belle apparence.’
 Giving Glory a Body 259

Fig. 8.3. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 8318, fol. 54v (detail). Vana Gloria.
By permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

On the left is a male character, shown ostentatiously giving alms to two beggars:
on the right appears the female figure of Timor Domini, who is furtively handing
over her offering to a poor man, not returning his gaze. In this case, ‘vain’ glory
consists of the search for approval from others of one’s own virtues.16
An entirely different figure appears in another miscellaneous manuscript,
this time from the Carolingian period, from Tours (Paris, Bibliothèque natio-
nale, Ms. Lat. 8318). Here, on fols. 49r–64v, we find the text of Prudentius’s
Psychomachia. Vainglory appears in an illumination that integrates the Pru-
dentian text (where this character does not appear) with the introduction of
unmentioned figures that are nonetheless related to the contrast of the vices
and virtues that is being addressed. On fol. 54v, Vainglory appears as a female
figure whose clothing is intended to be luxurious and alluring (Fig. 8.3).17

16
See Norman 1988, 83 and Fraisse 1999, 232 and 237. The link between vainglory and
almsgiving is implicit in Jesus’s condemnation of hypocritical generosity in Matt. 6 (see Ch. 7,
sec. 7.1.6). This motif is recurrent in the Christian debate on true charity, and has one of its main
sources in John Chrysostom (see Leduc 1969, 13–15). Particularly influential in the debate on
this subject was the commentary of the ps.-Chrysostom on the gospel text (Opus imperfectum in
Matthaeum. Hom. 13.3, PG 56, 707 Migne), which was widely diffused in the Latin West.
17
See Norman 1988, 76–8. As Norman observes, it is significant that the figure of Vainglory
has the same features as Pomp, who in Prudentius appears in the group of those accompanying
260 Word of Mouth

In this case, the appearance of the woman, and possibly also the very concept
being personified through her image, seems clearly linked to the realm of
ostentation and excessive luxury.18
The best-known representation of Vainglory produced in the fourteenth
century directs us to an analogous realm of negative values. I refer to the
famous image of the personage that appears in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco
dedicated to the allegory of Bad Government (1338–9), on the left wall of the
Sala della Pace in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico (Fig. 8.4).
Together with Pride and Avarice, Vainglory frames the monstrous image of
Tyranny. Winged like the other two flying figures, she carries a mirror (in
which she is looking at herself) in her right hand, and a dried branch in her
left. Her clothes are luxurious and on her head she wears a band set with
precious stones.19
Here, just as in the Tours manuscript, the idea of vainglory is associated
with female luxury. Although Lorenzetti’s figure has no exact equivalents, the
meaning of the traits assigned to her is clear. There are many well-known
examples of images of allegorical female characters who, throughout the
Middle Ages, called to mind the sphere of lust and vanity, and were depicted
holding a mirror (and in most cases a comb): examples include Venus, the
Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation, the Sirens, the character of
Oiseuse in the Roman de la Rose, and the personification of Luxuria herself.20
The dried branch recalls the rapid wilting of human glory that since the Old
Testament had been contrasted, in religious literature, with the eternity
of divine power.21 It is also known how committed preachers of the time

Luxuria (fol. 58v). Cf. Prud. Psych. 439–40: ‘Pompa, ostentatrix uani splendoris, inani / exuitur
nudata peplo.’ In the manuscript, the figure of Pomp is shown fleeing, losing her adornments
(‘Pompa ornamenta sua proiciens fugit’).
18
Next to Vainglory is a list where the consequences of this vice are enumerated: contentiones,
hereses, iactancia, presumptio nouitatis (elatio was also added to the top of the list, in another
hand). An example of Inanis Gloria represented as a richly dressed girl is also found in an
illustrated manuscript of Guido Faba’s Summa de uitiis et uirtutibus (see Pini 1956, 94).
19
On the meaning of this figure, see Gilbert 1991, 123–4 n. 77, Donato 1995a, Caciorgna and
Guerrini 2007, 126, and esp. Seidel 1997 (35 and 84–5 in particular).
20
See Fleming 1969, 74–8 and 1984, 26–7, Grabes 1973, 171–82, Friedman 1977, 54–5, 66–77
and 80–2, Blamires and Holian 2002, 9–15. See also Kolb 1965, 140–3 and Alvar 1985, 111–13.
The mirror played also a fundamental role in many representations of Pride and her ‘champion’
Narcissus (see Reidemeister 2006, passim), and would continue to do so until Cesare Ripa’s
Iconologia (see the entry ‘Superbia’ in Maffei and Procaccioli 2012, 563–4).
21
See e.g. Isa. 40.6 (‘omnis caro faenum et omnis gloria eius quasi flos agri’ etc.), Ps.
102.14–16, August. Enarr. in Psalmos 102.22. The motif also appears in literature: see e.g. one
of the glosses to the Documenti d’Amore that Francesco da Barberino dedicated to Vainglory:
‘Vera enim gloria radices agit ficta autem celeriter tanquam flosculi decidit, nec simulatum
quidquam solet esse diuturnum’ (I quote from Egidi 1913, 266; see also Albertazzi 2008,
II, 499).
 Giving Glory a Body 261

Fig. 8.4. Siena, Palazzo Pubblico. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Bad Government
(detail). Vana Gloria. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.

(and those from the following decades) were to presenting female lust as
the search for a kind of temporary glory that was a mix of vanity, avarice,
and pride.22

22
Other than the already-cited pages from Seidel 1997, see Battaglia Ricci 1987, 102, Starn
and Partridge 1992, 25–6, Muzzarelli 1996, 155–210 and 1998, 106–14, Casagrande and Vecchio
2000, 25–33, Bolzoni 2002, 21, 29, 33–4. In these contexts, the figures of Luxuria and Vainglory
seem interchangeable: on this, see Meiss 1951, 51–2.
262 Word of Mouth

To interpret the representations of the vice of Vainglory, therefore, it is first

necessary to understand what the individual illustrators were trying to stig-
matize. When someone’s self-congratulatory pride is being discussed, we
have seen the use of the image of a man making a show of his own generosity.
When the subject is the vanity of someone who gives too much weight to his
or her riches or beauty, the image is that of an elegant and/or dangerously
seductive woman.
We thus find ourselves before a variegated and poor panorama, where
the figures of Glory and Vainglory do not seem to have produced a
substantial iconographic tradition. Compared to the isolated and unim-
portant representations of the Glory character, we might say that the figure
of Vainglory received more attention from artists. But even in this case no
coherent and uniform tradition takes shape. As we will also see when it
comes to Virgil’s Fama, we find only disparate solutions that may depict
the same distinctive traits but present them in forms and combinations that
are different each time. There are no stable iconographic models for
characters like these.
In contrast, something completely different is true for the image of Worldly
Glory. Between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth
centuries this figure assumed a specific physiognomy, thus becoming what we
might call the preferred icon of the modern idea of Fama.

8.2. THE F IRST IMAGES OF MODERN FAMA :

THE GLORY OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN

8.2.1. Altichiero’s Glory and Petrarch’s De uiris illustribus

The first examples known to us of an allegorical figure that represents Worldly

Glory only emerged a few decades after Petrarch’s death. Not coincidentally,
they appeared in the illustrations accompanying the text of the Trionfi,
and before that, in those accompanying the text of the De uiris illustribus.
Although the character of Glory (or Fama) is never mentioned in the latter, it
takes form in the illustrations that accompany three of the main manuscripts
through which Petrarch’s collection of biographies was put into circulation
in Padua.
Two very similar images open the two most important manuscripts, today
in Paris, that were produced in circles close to the Carrarese court. It was in
these manuscripts that, for the first time, the scattered parts of Petrarch’s
incomplete text were reassembled and organized by a group of learned men
who had faithfully preserved the memory of the deceased poet. Lombardo
 Giving Glory a Body 263

della Seta was undoubtedly the editor most committed to standardizing

Petrarch’s biographical work according to the suggestions made by the lord
of Padua, Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara, who was interested in the celebra-
tion of the heroes of the past.23
With these two images, which critics commonly attribute to the activity of
Altichiero, the celebrated Paduan painter of Veronese origin, the biographical
sequence created by Petrarch was introduced by the singular triumph of a
figure that we can reasonably assume to be the personification of Glory.24 The
first of these two splendid illuminations appears on fol. 1r of the manuscript
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Lat. 6069 F (Fig. 8.5), and depicts a winged,
crowned woman, sitting on a chariot pulled by two horses and guided by two
winged geniuses playing winged trumpets.25 Two other winged spirits fly along-
side the woman, also playing winged trumpets. Below, there are two groups of
knights, some of whom lift their arms towards the woman, who is shown
throwing laurel crowns into the crowd in front of her. This has all the evidence

23
To address the complex question of the different versions of this work, we must start from
the preface of Martellotti 1964, ix–xv and Martellotti 1983, 50–66. A different organization of the
information reconstructed by Martellotti was recently proposed with noteworthy arguments by
Fera 2007, and integrated by Malta 2008. If we accept the conclusions proposed by Fera, we must
abandon the hypothesis of Mommsen 1952, long accepted by critics, according to which at least
the final writing phase of the De uiris illustribus would have occurred with a view towards the
realization of the Illustrious Men pictorial cycle that Francesco il Vecchio was planning for the
aula of the Carrarese palace.
24
As far as I can tell, the literary description that comes closest to an image of the sort is the
Propertian passage (3.1.9–11) that I briefly examined in sec. 8.1.1: ‘quo me Fama leuat terra
sublimis, et a me / nata coronatis Musa triumphat equis, / et mecum in curru parui uectantur
Amores.’ Leaving aside the clear differences between this description and the illustrations in
the Petrarchan manuscript, it must be said that this is, in all probability, a chance resemblance.
For a historical contextualization of the two illuminations, see Richards 2000, 123–34. Other
than for stylistic reasons (see n. 25), the attribution to Altichiero depends on a complex series
of related hypotheses. Altichiero was very active in Padua during the years in which the De
uiris illustribus manuscripts were produced. According to a piece of information from Michele
Savonarola’s Libellus de magnificis ornamentis Regie Ciuitatis Padue (1447), Altichiero, along
with Ottaviano da Brescia, would also have been the painter of the fresco cycle for the ‘Sala
uirorum illustrium’ that the Carrarese lord requested (the passage can be read in Segarizzi
1902, 49). The information corresponds with later sources (see Schmitt 1974, 175, n. 29 and
Richards 2000, 107–10). Of these frescos, only the part that depicts Petrarch in his study
remains today.
25
This manuscript (Lm in Martellotti 1964) was copied and organized into its various parts
by none other than Lombardo della Seta. It is dated to 25 Jan. 1379 and includes the most
important section (from Romulus to Cato, with the addition of the De gestis Cesaris) of the
‘Roman’ lives composed by Petrarch. The editor added two additional prefaces and a new
sequence of biographies (from Titus Quintus Flaminius—that is, Titus Quinctius Flamininus—
to Trajan). Next to the image of Glory appears a portrait of Petrarch (fol. Av) that, due to its close
resemblance to the one from the contemporaneous fresco in the San Giacomo Chapel (com-
missioned by Bonifacio Lupi) of the Basilica di San Antonio in Padua, suggested the attribution
of both illuminations to Altichiero.
264 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.5. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 6069 F, fol. 1r (detail).
Altichiero (?), Glory and the Illustrious Men. By permission of the Bibliothèque
nationale de France.

of being a representation of Glory as she dispenses her laurels to illustrious

men. We are looking at an ‘absolute’ version of human glory, a wholly
original depiction of the reward that heroes manage to obtain through virtue.
Obviously, there was no room for a contrast between ‘true’ and ‘false’ glory,
in limine of the presentation of the ‘illustrious persons who distinguished
themselves with an exceptional glory, as the most learned men have handed
down to future memory’.26 However, one must keep in mind that, as we will
see later, the allegorical image I am discussing is of an entirely secular and
‘worldly’ personage.
It is important to immediately note the presence of an instrument that has a
fundamental role in the iconography of our character: the trumpet. In this
case, it is not carried by Glory (as we will see in other, later, images), but by the
geniuses accompanying her, who perform the same role as the trumpeters
(tubicines) in Roman triumphal processions. This is the first time that we see
this trait appear in relation to the idealized figure of Glory.

26
These are the first words of Preface A: see Ch. 7, sec. 7.3.10 and n. 142.
 Giving Glory a Body 265

For a long time it was believed that this manuscript contained the first
edition of the various sections of Petrarch’s unfinished work, organized by
Lombardo della Seta in a luxury edition presented to Francesco il Vecchio da
Carrara. Consequently, it was always thought that the illumination opening it
was the first example known to us of such a representation of Glory. Recently,
however, Caterina Malta cast doubt on this hypothesis, developing several
ideas from an earlier work by Vincenzo Fera.
As Malta rightly observes, the ambitious version of the De uiris
illustribis proposed by Lombardo della Seta in this manuscript is the
result of a considerable reorganization of the original text. Petrarch had
left his biographical materials incomplete, without indicating a specific
place for them in the work’s overall structure. According to Malta, the
arrangement of the materials on Petrarch’s desk when he died would,
however, have been faithfully reproduced in another manuscript that is
now kept with the other Paduan volumes in Paris (Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale, Ms. Lat. 6069 I). This may have been the first ‘complete’
manuscript of De uiris illustribus to be produced in Padua, a simple
transcription of the biographies as the author left them.27 The work
would initially have been presented in this state to Francesco il Vecchio.
Only after that would the Carrarese lord have asked Lombardo della Seta
to produce a new version that did not include the non-Roman segment
(which did not fall within his cultural interests), and to integrate it in a
way that made it better suited to his self-celebratory projects.28 In this
case, too, the illustrator may have been Altichiero or someone from his
workshop.29
It is unnecessary to address the difficult question raised by Malta here,
as the chronological sequence of the two manuscripts is not important

27
The manuscript (Pi in Martellotti 1964) was usually considered to have come after
Lm (and consequently dated to around 1380) not on the basis of conclusive information,
but as a consequence of a different hypothetical reconstruction of the various Paduan
‘editions’ of Petrarch’s biographical work. Pi presents a different version of the work: the
Petrarchan core describing the lives of Roman heroes (from Romulus to Cato, with the
addition of the ample biography of Caesar) is preceded by a series of twelve non-Roman
biographies (from Adam to Hercules), in all likelihood composed by Petrarch at Vaucluse
between 1351 and 1353. According to Malta 2008, ccxli, however: ‘Pi is a transcription, an
honest and direct collection of the parts as they were found on Petrarch’s desk.’ The
manuscript would therefore be datable to before 1379, the year of Lm’s creation. Malta’s
hypothesis, which is clearly difficult to demonstrate with certainty, deserves serious
attention.
28
Malta 2008, ccxl–ccxlii.
29
See Richards 2000, 125–6 on the inferior quality of this illumination (he considers it
impossible to identify the artist). Colour would only have been added to the drawing later on.
There is no point in hypothesizing who conceived of the design for this figure.
266 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.6. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Lat. 6069 I, fol. 1r (detail).
Altichiero (?), Glory and the Illustrious Men. By permission of the Bibliothèque nationale
de France.

to the present discussion. What matters is that on fol. 1r (Fig. 8.6) of the
manuscript that Malta re-examined, there is a version of the same scene
from the manuscript prepared by Lombardo della Seta, but in a form that is
even more complete and rich in important, meaningful details.
The figure of the winged woman who throws laurel wreaths to the knights
appears in a position that recalls iconographic schemes like that of the
Maiestas Domini or Christ as Judge. Glory appears on her triumphal chariot
framed by a mandorla, with a fountain of light behind her, out of which a
crown of shining rays appears. Her name (GLO-RIA) appears twice, in gold
and white respectively, around the edges of the mandorla. In this case, too,
winged geniuses (six of them, this time) play winged trumpets. The two
mounted on the white horses are also crowned with laurel; the two closest to
Glory seem to still be flying off, leaving the mandorla behind. The last two
 Giving Glory a Body 267

winged figures, further down at the sides of the mandorla, bear what were
originally the two most famous emblems of the Carraresi (emblems that
were scraped away after the manuscript entered the Visconti library of
Pavia). To the right of Glory we can still see the distinctive outline of the
plate where the reddish chariot of Carrara was stamped; to her left we can
just glimpse the traces of the other well-known emblem, which consists of a
helmet enveloped in a mantle and topped by the little figure of the winged
Saracen. The image of this triumphant Glory was also used as a way to
celebrate the family that reigned over the city of Padua at the time.30

8.2.2. A Triumph and a Judgment

Representations of this kind seem to mix elements belonging to both sacred

and secular iconographic schemes, which are linked to a common triumphal
imagery.31 Evoking this setting are the chariot shown frontally, the laurel
wreaths, the presence of winged figures (in all probability connected to the
tradition of figures that announce victory), and the trumpets (also winged)
whose blasts celebrate Glory’s praises or call out to gather those chosen few
destined for fame.32 But aside from these elements, which manage to creatively
reassemble triumphal motifs that are, all things considered, topical, two details
in particular stand out. Glory is framed by a shining aureole or a mandorla,
in the manner of the most typical presentations of personages ‘in glory’: suffice
it to recall the Maiestas Domini (and the various depictions of the Last
Judgment), with their hosts of ‘angelic’ winged figures.33 The trumpets are

30
See Mariani Canova 2006, 76 and 2011, 66. For two good reproductions of these emblems,
see Mariani Canova 2011, figs. 1 and 8 (see also Donato 1995, 409–10 and 412). We must
therefore reject the hypothesis of Mellini 1965, 36 and 1974, 51, who thought that the emblem on
the right was the Scaligeri coat of arms, and consequently imagined that the Paduan illustration
was an adaptation of the triumph of Cansignorio Della Scala that Altichiero might have painted
in his Veronese palace.
31
See sec. 8.5.
32
See Ch. 9. Winged geniuses of this kind are found in various illuminations from the first
half of the century. For many similar examples, see the decorative figures that frame the text of
Leuven’s Anjou Bible (Leuven, Maurits Sabbe Bibliotheek, K. U. Leuven, Ms 1), often shown
playing various kinds of trumpets while riding different types of animals.
33
On the function of the mandorla as a manifestation of the glory of God, see Brendel 1944,
16–19 and 22–3 in particular: ‘Eventually, the mandorla became a visible sign of celestial
exaltation, of Christ primarily, such as the device is generally known in medieval art. From the
symbolical illustration of the Ascension of Christ proceeded the liturgical and apocalyptic
representation of the medieval theophany.’ For the similarities between the iconography of the
triumph of Fama and the descriptions of divine apparitions, see Ortner 1998, 85–9.
268 Word of Mouth

also winged: this motif, to my knowledge, had never surfaced before in

Western art.
There are other examples of secular figures framed inside a mandorla and
on a ‘flying’ chariot. Giordana Mariani Canova has drawn attention to
several representations of the planets found in the rich iconographic rep-
ertoire used to illustrate various ancient and medieval astrological trea-
tises.34 In particular, Mariani Canova compared the pattern that Altichiero
used to represent Glory to a very original representation of the Sun, which
is found in a fourteenth-century manuscript of Michael Scot’s Liber intro-
ductorius in astrologiam (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 10268
fol. 37r; Fig. 8.7).35 This image—which may even be an imitation of a model

Fig. 8.7. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Clm 10268 fol. 37r (detail). The Sun
and Phaeton. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze/bpk, Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und
Geschichte, Berlin.

34
Mariani Canova 1998, 27–41.
35
‘Non si fa fatica davvero a pensare che il modello ideale della miniatura, o della pittura che
vi poteva stare a monte, fosse una grande figura del Sole, simile a quella del Monacense, o della
Luna’ (Mariani Canova 1998, 40).
 Giving Glory a Body 269

present in a painting cycle completed by Giotto at the beginning of the

fourteenth century, in the hall of the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua—
presents the Sun ‘as a solemn character, mantled and crowned, who, raised
on a chariot drawn by four horses and holding a little figure of Phaeton, his
son, readies himself to advance along the great river that flows out of hell
and into the heavenly space traversed by the planets that proceed along
their orbits’.36
In this case, too, we find ourselves before a representation of an entirely
physical reality. The figures suspended in heavenly space are not imagined
as components of the divine dimension, but as elements belonging
to the human world, governed by, among other things, the influences of
the stars.37
A similar figurative model would therefore be suitable for introducing
an allegorical character like the Glory who belongs to illustrious men:
a character who, despite having a ‘supernatural’ nature, still remains
firmly linked to the worldly sphere. In Glory’s case, however, there are
additional structural elements that recall iconographic schemes used to
represent divine scenes: the little team of winged geniuses with trumpets
and the seemingly laudatory assembly of knights create a triumphal
atmosphere that establishes a strong hierarchical relationship between
the allegorical figure and the human community surrounding her. In
front of her heroes, Glory behaves in the typically benevolent way of
sacred figures like the saints or Christ. In this mixture of sacred and
secular elements, the entire scene is set up to be read as the parousia of a
kind of secular divinity.
What role can be ascribed to such a ‘supernatural’ and in some ways
sacred presentation of the Glory figure on a chariot, which moreover
appears at the start of the introduction of a gallery of Viri illustres that
gives no description of this kind of goddess? At first glance, it seems to
depict the public acclamation of Glory triumphant by the knights below
her, but this impression is erroneous. Glory is in fact shown in the act of
bestowing her prizes on the heroes, who hold out their hands to receive
the laurel crowns, and therefore aspire to become illustrious. This behav-
iour of the female figure framed by the mandorla and surrounded by her
small winged angels could be compared to that of the eternal God
pronouncing his final judgment, welcoming the chosen and rejecting the
damned, in the midst of a crowd of trumpeter angels. For some well-
known examples not too far removed in time from Altichiero’s illumin-
ations, we need only look at the Last Judgment on the counter-façade of

36 37
Mariani Canova 1998, 39. Mariani Canova 1998, 23–4 (see also 1999, 21–2).
270 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.8. Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni. Giotto, Last Judgment (detail), 1303–5.
© 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.

the Cappella degli Scrovegni (Fig. 8.8);38 or consider Cimabue’s fresco

in the left transept of the Basilica superiore di San Francesco in Assisi
(Fig. 8.9), which depicts the apocalyptic scene where the angels of the

38
On the relationships between this fresco and other great examples of representations of the
Last Judgment, see Schwarz 2008, 42–7.
 Giving Glory a Body 271

Fig. 8.9. Assisi, Basilica superiore di San Francesco. Cenni di Pepo (Cimabue), Scene
from the Book of Revelation, end of the thirteenth century. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
272 Word of Mouth

seven trumpets and the angel with the golden thurible (habens turibulum
aureum) appear before God (in conspectu Dei), during the silence before
the divine judgment starts (Rev. 8.2–5).39
In the case of Glory, we are in front of a sort of ‘secular judgment’, if it can
be defined as such. Rather than a reward or an eternal punishment, it is
designed to grant an ephemeral accolade destined to have an exclusively
human relevance (and duration): an entirely worldly Glory, who imitates the
gestures of the one who can truly bestow eternal rewards.
In addition, the arrangement of this iconographic scheme overturns that of
certain theophanies, like the scene from the Book of Revelation where the
anonymous figure sitting on the throne in the presence of the twenty-four
Elders is greeted by the Tetramorph, with expressions of praise directed
towards the mandorla in which he appears.40 These scenes, in other words
(like the various representations of the Maiestas Domini), are organized
in such a way as to direct the conferral of glory towards the figure in
the centre, as is obvious in a celebratory context that culminates in the
Trisagion, a formula that Isaiah had attributed to the Seraphim, and which
also appears in the episode of St John’s Book of Revelation that I have just
referred to.41 For example, we can see how the vision of the anonymous figure
is depicted in one of the two Neapolitan panels with stories from the Book
of Revelation, housed in the Württembergische Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart
(Fig. 8.10).42
In contrast, in the triumphal vision depicted by Altichiero, the flow of
praise moves in the opposite direction: glory, in other words, is not directed

39
See Christe 1981, 162–3 and Hueck 1981, 286–7.
40
For the relationship between the tradition of the imperial cult and the arrangement of these
kinds of images, see Van der Meer 1938, pp. 446–50. Among other things, it is necessary to
remember that in the iconographic tradition of Christian art, the Elders offer the Lord the corona
gloriae: see von Müller 1977, 79–80.
41
See Isa. 6.1–3; Rev. 4.4–11.
42
This is the fifth scene of the first panel, according to the descriptions in Schmitt 1970, 475
and Rave 1999, 131. The centripetal arrangement of the scene is emphasized even more in
Cavallini’s earlier fresco of Santa Maria Donnaregina Vecchia in Naples (see Schmitt 1970, 476
and ill. 1, Rivière Ciavaldini 2007, 143–72 and 180–2). On the Stuttgart panels, see Leone de
Castris 2006, 128–9 (with the bibliography cited in 160–1, nn. 40–2), who believes they had
their origins in the lost cycle of stories from the Book of Revelation realized by Giotto at Santa
Chiara in Naples, and links the artist of these panels, according to a position already widely
established in earlier literature since Erbach-Fürstenau 1937, to the activity of Cristoforo
Orimina’s circle, like the Hamilton Bible (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, Ms.
78 E 3), or the Neapolitan Bible of Vienna (Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Ms.
1191). See also Schmitt 1970, 480–4, Castelfranchi 1983–4, 36–9, Rivière Ciavaldini 2007,
205–8, Zaru 2009. For the links between the Stuttgart panels and these manuscripts, see also
Rapetti 2010, 176–7 and Paone in Tomei and Paone 2010, 64. In the past, Roberto Longhi
(Longhi 1940, 181 n. 4) had even related these panels to the two De uiris illustribus manuscripts
from Padua (see Rave 1999, 126–7), by way of an unlikely attribution of all these works to
Giusto de’ Menabuoi.
Fig. 8.10. Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie. Anon. Neapolitan, Stories from the Book of Revelation (detail), c.1340. © Photo Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
274 Word of Mouth

at the ‘divine’ figure framed by the mandorla, but emanates from her
towards men.43 The triumphant figure is not celebrated by those who
witness her apparition: instead, she glorifies her onlookers, bestowing her
laurel wreaths on them. In other words, it is from Glory’s own hands that
heroes receive the title of illustres.44 Whereas traditional sacred iconog-
raphy, whose pattern Altichiero’s illustrations seem to recall, is focused on
the majesty of God, this striking secular allegory glorifies a power that, even
as it transcends the confines of mortal life, still remains subject to the
tyranny of time.

8.3. THE I MAGE OF WORLDLY GLORY

8.3.1. Gloria mundi

A different iconographic scheme from the one attributed to a creation of

Altichiero’s appears in an illumination that opens a third manuscript, possibly
also from Padua, which contains the De uiris illustribus, this time in Donato
degli Albanzani’s Italian vulgarization. This manuscript, unfortunately rather
damaged, is in Darmstadt (Hessische Landesbibliothek, Hs. 101), and can be
dated to c.1400 (Fig. 8.11).45
Once again, Glory appears on a chariot drawn by two white horses, but a
characteristic element of Altichiero’s illuminations is entirely missing: wings.
Not only is the allegorical figure not winged: neither her winged geniuses nor
their trumpets appear. The laurel wreaths are also missing. The crowned lady
is sitting on a throne placed on the chariot and framed by a circular shape, of
which no more can been seen than a uniform, faded background. In her right
hand, Glory holds a sword, and in her left she holds a small figure whose
details are, once again, difficult to discern: we glimpse only the standing form

43
Compare the behaviour of the heroes figured in Altichiero’s illuminations to the scenes
from the Book of Revelation in the Stuttgart panel, where the first of the four horsemen, the
archer, raises his hand to the flying angel who places a crown on his head (Rev. 6.2: ‘et data est ei
corona, et exiuit uincens ut uinceret’). The second raises his to the other angel, who gives him a
sword (Rev. 6.4: ‘et datus est ei gladius magnus’).
44
Battaglia Ricci 1999, 286–8, though, rightly observes that neither these illuminations nor
the images that depict the procession of Fama-Glory in the later manuscripts of Petrarch’s
Trionfi represent genuine triumphs, as the procession ‘lacks all the ritual liturgy’ and, import-
antly, ‘the triumphal procession does not include the vanquished . . . The parade described in the
text of the Triumphus Famae—which is also what the illustrator condenses into the image on the
frontispiece of the De viris . . . —is, in fact, nothing more than an army of heroes: at most, an army
of “victors”.’
45
Or in any case, after 1397, the year of the translation: see Sottili 1967, 458–60. On the
manuscript’s possible Paduan origin, see Mariani Canova 1999a.
 Giving Glory a Body 275

Fig. 8.11. Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek. Hs. 101, fol. 2r (detail). Triumph
of Glory. By Permission of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt.

of a young nude (a Victory, a little Cupid?).46 Six horsemen (three on each

side) are arranged around the circle and touch its outer border with their
hands. In this case, we no longer see the centrifugal movement of glory that
emanates from the ‘divine’ figure towards her chosen few; instead they are the
ones who, with a centripetal gesture, try to move closer to the stationary
woman in a fixed position at the centre of the scene.
At least from the end of the nineteenth century, critics have identified a
possible origin of this iconographic scheme in none other than the fresco of
the ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ described by Boccaccio in canto 6 of the
Amorosa visione.47 As we have seen, Glory also appears as a regal figure there,

46
Mariani Canova 1999a, 179 speaks of ‘a nude victory’. Earlier on, she had hypothesized that
it might be the very figure of Phaeton that is found in the representation of the Sun in the
Munich manuscript of Michael Scot’s Astrologia (Mariani Canova 1998, 40: see sec. 8.2.2).
47
Schlosser 1895. For the most complete treatment of the question of this scheme’s genesis
see Gilbert 1991, 67–196 (with a discussion of earlier literature): see also Ciccuto 1988 (lightly
expanded in Ciccuto 1991) and 1999. No illustrative tradition of Boccaccio’s poem seems to have
existed, although a relationship between the allegories of the Amorosa visione and the icono-
graphic tradition of tarot cards was hypothesized (see Petrucci Nardelli 1987 and 1988).
276 Word of Mouth

posed in a triumphal stance on a chariot pulled by two white horses and

decorated with laurel branches: in her right hand she holds a sword threat-
eningly, and in her left a golden globe (pomo d’oro). Boccaccio also speaks of
a circle rotating around her, in which every region of the world can be
seen.48 The illumination in the Darmstadt manuscript omits just one detail
of the description in the Amorosa visione: the laurel wreaths that should be
decorating the chariot. The pomo d’oro that the woman should be holding in
her left hand is instead replaced by a tiny figure, now difficult to identify.
It seems clear that, in order to give a body to the Glory that introduces us to
Petrarch’s collection of biographies, the illuminator in this case used Boccac-
cio’s personification of Worldly Glory as a model. Such a choice evidently
required the allegorical figure being presented to have a specific, worldly
identity, which refers us back to the long debate on Glory examined earlier.
If the close correspondence of the details were not enough to demonstrate
that a figure like this is a representation of Worldly Glory, we need only
consider a splendid Florentine illumination where, several decades later,
Apollonio di Giovanni reused the same iconographic scheme to illustrate
none other than Petrarch’s Triumphus Fame (Fig. 8.12).49 Apollonio depicts
Fama in the same pose and with the same traits that characterize the figure in
the Darmstadt manuscript. Aside from the substitution of the crown with an
elaborate form of polygonal halo (typical of the representation of abstract
allegorical personifications), the illuminator only added, at the top of the
circle that frames the woman, a pair of winged trumpets and an explicit
identification of the personage depicted, ‘Gloria [Grolia] mundi’.50 The
Darmstadt manuscript therefore presents the oldest example known to us of
a successful iconographic scheme: that of ‘Worldly Glory’, which would later
have its greatest success in the illustrations of Petrarch’s Trionfi.51

48
See Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.5.
49
The illumination is found in a manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ms. 1129) of
Petrarch’s Trionfi. Callmann 1974, 35–6 expressed some reservations about its attribution
to Apollonio.
50
The same erroneous inscription (‘Grolia mundi’) also appears in the illumination that
depicts the triumph of Fama in the Vatican City manuscript, Biblioteca Apostolica, Urb. Lat.
683, fol. 26r (see Callmann 1974, 35 and 57–8, Ortner 1998, 79–82 and 1999, 86–7). In
Apollonio’s illumination, the disposition of the personages that accompany Fama is different
from the one in the Darmstadt manuscript.
51
Mommsen 1952, 107–8 thought that an image of Glory positioned according to the same
iconographic pattern could also be found in the Sala dei Giganti of the Carrarese palace (see also
Bodon 2009, 13–14): an indemonstrable hypothesis (see Gilbert 1991, 131–2 n. 94), rendered
even more unlikely by the new reconstruction proposed by Fera 2007. Lilian Armstrong
identified a possible reflection of the images present in the original cycle of frescos (in the Sala
degli Uomini Illustri of the Carrarese palace in Padua) in the engravings of a rare fifteenth-
century edition (Poiano, 1476) of Donato degli Albanzani’s vulgarized Italian version of the
De uiris illustribus (Armstrong 1999): but no image of Glory appears among them.
 Giving Glory a Body 277

Fig. 8.12. Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana. Ms. 1129, fol. 33r. Apollonio di Giovanni,
Triumph of Fama, post-1461. By permission of the Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze.
278 Word of Mouth

An important element of this iconographic pattern is the circle that

surrounds Glory, both in Boccaccio’s poem and the Darmstadt manuscript.
The meaning of this detail becomes clear if we remember Boccaccio’s lines,
which describe it as a ring (tondo) in which it is possible to see all the regions
of the world.52
This is undoubtedly a device used to allude to Worldly Glory’s dominion
over the entire extension of the earth, for the most part depicted like a world
map on which it is possible to distinguish a sea ploughed by ships and
stretches of land. The figure of the woman, centred inside the worldly ‘sphere’,
remains tied to this world’s boundaries, and in a certain sense is enclosed
within them. This perspective is not dissimilar to the one proposed by the
Somnium Scipionis and Boethius’s reflections on the vanity of human glory.53
The sole objective of the horsemen trying to establish contact with this
‘sphere’, by stretching out to touch its border with their hands, is to obtain
their qualification as illustrious men; in this way, they remain attached to an
entirely worldly dimension with a gesture that, as we have seen, Boccaccio’s
poem describes in those same terms.54

8.3.2. Glory and Giotto

We are therefore dealing with a personification that has fairly stable charac-
teristics. This image of Glory appeared for the first time in literary fiction in
the ekphrasis that occupies cantos 6–12 of the Amorosa visione. After half a
century, it found its figurative equivalent in the illuminations that decorate
the first manuscripts of Petrarch’s De uiris illustribus, and a few decades later

52
Boccaccio, Amorosa visione 6.70–2: ‘Né credo che sia cosa in tutto ’l mondo, / villa, paese,
dimestico o strano, / che non paresse dentro da quel tondo.’
53
A similar way of representing an absolute power over the world might have had an
equivalent in religious medieval iconography. Various images exist where the divine figure is
shown ruling over or protecting the circle of a ‘mappa mundi’ that is more or less accurately
reproduced. In some cases, the body of Christ is inscribed inside the circle, with his head, feet,
and hands touching the circumference in correspondence with the cardinal points. For an idea of
this pattern, we might, for example, look at the reconstruction of the Ebstorf map (dating back to
the first half of the thirteenth century, and now lost): one of its reproductions can be seen at the
URL <http://www.landschaftsmuseum.de/Seiten/Museen/Ebstorf1.htm> (visited on 1 August
2016). In other cases, the bust of the Christ figure looms over or embraces the circle of the
world. See e.g. the two illuminations of the Psalter Map kept in London (British Library, MS Add.
28681, fol. 9r–v), dating from the middle of the thirteenth century. The circle of the world
represents ‘the scene of human mortality’, as the inscription MORS that labels it on the Hereford
Cathedral map (end of the thirteenth century) would indicate. See Edson 1997, 135–9, 142,
Fig. 7.1 and Plate VI, Edson 2007, 21–2, Kline 2001, 42–8, Hoogvliet 2007, 267–80. For a
summary of the cartographic documents that propose this kind of pictorial frame, see Kline
2001, 219–39 (with references to earlier literature).
54
See Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.5, the examples of Alexander the Great and Caesar, described in the act of
‘toccare il cerchio ove colei posava’ (7.80) or putting their hands inside the circle (10.45–6).
 Giving Glory a Body 279

it entered, as we will see, the repertoire of images that illustrate Petrarch’s

Trionfi. Can we consider the figure described by Boccaccio as one of his original
creations? Or perhaps, while assembling his character’s traits, Boccaccio was
inspired by earlier literary models? Or even by a figurative representation that
he might have seen or heard of?
This question has been the subject of much debate among art historians,
who have often considered the possible genesis of this iconographic scheme.
One hypothesis suggests that at the base of both Boccaccio’s text and the
illuminations in Petrarch’s manuscripts there might have been an image
belonging to one of the Illustrious Men painting cycles, which we know
were created during the fourteenth century in Naples, Milan, and Padua.55
Such an origin would allow us, among other things, to assign a clear explan-
ation for the relationship between the depiction of Worldly Glory and the
sequence of Petrarch’s Illustrious Men biographies.
The most attractive hypothesis proposed in the past is that Boccaccio was
directly inspired by one of Giotto’s frescos. Scholars have assembled various
pieces of information according to which the painter had completed two
different cycles of Illustrious Men, both of them lost: the first in a Sala of
Castel Nuovo in Naples, painted for Robert of Anjou between 1328 and
1333;56 the second in Milan, in the palace of Azzo Visconti, around 1335.57
We only have indirect, inconclusive testimonies of these frescos, and today
nothing remains of the places for which they would have been produced.
The testimony that best allows us to hypothesize a possible direct link between
the figure of Worldly Glory and a sequence of illustrious men directs us to the
lost cycle of frescos completed in the Milanese palace of Azzo Visconti in the
1330s. The palace was destroyed soon after 1354, and certainly no longer existed
in 1362.58 But luckily a precious piece of information, which can be dated to
1335, allows us to better document the existence of a cycle in it dedicated to the
Illustrious Men. This information was provided by a Milanese chronicler, the
Dominican monk Galvano Flamma, who in his Opusculum de rebus gestis ab
Azone, Luchino et Johanne Vicecomitibus . . . wrote:
est una magna salla gloriosa nimis, ubi est depicta uanagloria subi . . . ubi depicti
sunt illustres principes mundi gentiles, ut Eneas, Atylla, Hector, Hercules et alij plures.
Inter quos est unus solus christianus, scilicet Karolus Magnus et Azo Vicecomes.
Suntque hec figure ex auro azurro et smaltis distincte in tanta pulchritudine et tam
subtili artificio, sicut in toto orbe terrarum non contingeret reperiri.

55
See Mommsen 1952, 113–16, Joost-Gaugier 1982, Donato 1985, 108–12, Ortner 1998,
90–101, Battaglia Ricci 1999, 281.
56
See Gilbert 1991, 176–96, Ciccuto 1988, 344–58, Leone de Castris 2006, 13–14, 31–2, 58,
and 217–33, Schwarz 2008, 481–3.
57 58
Gilbert 1991, 68–81. Gilbert 1991, 119–20.
280 Word of Mouth
there is a great, splendid hall, where a ‘vainglory’ is painted . . . where the illustri-
ous sovereigns of the pagan world, like Aeneas, Attila, Hector, Hercules, and
many others, are painted. Among them, there is just one Christian, and that is
Charlemagne, and Azzo Visconti. These figures are adorned in gold, deep blue,
and enamel of such beauty and so finely wrought that it would be impossible to
find their equals anywhere in the world.59
So in Azzo Visconti’s palace there was a hall with a fresco cycle of famous men,
which included heroes from Greek mythology up to Charlemagne and Azzo
himself. Inside this room there would also have been an image of ‘Vainglory’:
it is reasonable to hypothesize that with this term the Dominican was applying
a trite moralistic nuance to the identification of the character that Boccaccio
called ‘Worldly Glory’.60
Nothing guarantees, however, that this image of Glory was painted by
Giotto, even though we are certain that he was involved in the completion
of this cycle. This hypothesis was proposed only on the basis of a piece of
information that came much later and was not very detailed. Around 1450, in
his Commentari, Ghiberti attributed the creation of ‘a Worldly Glory’ to
Giotto, but there is no proof that Ghiberti was speaking of the same ‘Vainglory’
that Flamma described.61
As already mentioned, we might also connect Giotto’s name to the
prototype of Worldly Glory in a Neapolitan setting, where we have found
various traces of iconographic patterns similar to the one used for the
‘triumphal’ representation present in the De uiris illustribus manuscripts.62
Some scholars have hypothesized that this case also involved a decorative
project founded on the relationship between Glory and the Illustrious Men.
We have different pieces of information about the Neapolitan cycle dedi-
cated to the Illustrious Men, and it is even possible to have an idea of the
figures that constituted it, thanks to a series of nine sonnets, attributable to
Giovanni da Firenze (known also by his jester name, Malizia Barattone),
which were composed to celebrate the characters portrayed in the hall of
King Robert.63
The hypothesis according to which Boccaccio would have drawn inspiration
from one of Giotto’s models is, however, rather tenuous.64 Neither Boccaccio

59
Galvano Flamma’s text appears in Castiglioni 1938, 16–17: see also Green 1990.
60 61 62
Gilbert 1991, 70. Gilbert 1991, 71–110. See sec. 8.2.2 and n. 42.
63
See esp. Gilbert 1991, 177–96, Joost-Gaugier 1980, Ciccuto 1988, 346–7, 384–9, and n. 114,
Leone de Castris 2006, 220–4. Malizia Barattone’s sonnets are dedicated to Alexander the Great,
Solomon, Hector, Aeneas, Achilles, Paris, Hercules, Samson, and Caesar. Stoppelli 1977 demon-
strated that the author of the Pecorone and the Neapolitan jester are the same person (see esp.
pp. 16–22).
64
According to Leone de Castris 2006, 218–28, in the Amorosa visione Boccaccio would have
remembered the cycle of Giotto’s that he saw in Naples. Gilbert 1991, 140–55 speculated instead
that Giotto’s Milanese fresco must have inspired both Boccaccio’s ekphrasis and a hypothetical
Petrarchan drawing of Glory.
 Giving Glory a Body 281

nor Petrarch ever explicitly referred to images of a Fama-Glory created by

Giotto. Both authors may have seen the Neapolitan cycle: Boccaccio could
have met Giotto in Naples, and Petrarch was certainly aware of the existence
of Giotto’s works at Castel Nuovo, given that he recommended visiting the
chapel of the royal palace in chapter 38 of the Itinerarium Syriacum. On the
other hand, it does not seem that Boccaccio saw the cycle in Azzo Visconti’s
palace in person (and it is unlikely that he was able to study drawn
reproductions of it). Nor do Petrarch’s writings allow us to infer his aware-
ness of the Milanese cycle, even if he was definitely in Milan in 1353 while
composing the De uiris illustribus (and therefore before the destruction of
Azzo Visconti’s palace). On their own, the lines where Boccaccio compares
the beauty of the frescos seen in his dream to those of Giotto are not
enough to support the idea that he really saw the painted wall where the
image of ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ triumphs over a procession of famous
personages.
Of course, the hypothesis of a connection between the iconographic
scheme that Altichiero used and a model created by Giotto is extremely
attractive.65 What matters, however, is that at least on the walls of a
Milanese palace there really was a fresco analogous to the one described in
the canto 6 of the Amorosa visione; and especially that in it a triumph of the
‘Gloria del popol mondano’—if we can interpret the ‘Vainglory’ mentioned
by Flamma in this way—was placed in relation to a cycle of Illustrious
Men, as the Dominican monk indicated. Whether it existed thanks to a
great painter like Giotto is, all things considered, not very relevant to our
discussion.66
The relationship between the triumph of Glory and the gallery of Illus-
trious Men therefore probably existed before Altichiero depicted an
analogous scene at the opening of Petrarch’s collection of biographies,
and this explains how on no fewer than three occasions a work about uiri
illustres could have been accompanied by images like the ones I have
discussed. This kind of scene emphasized that the source of the renown
acquired by those ancient heroes is the Glory that is procured among

65
Let us also remember Giordana Mariani Canova’s theory, which I mentioned earlier,
according to which the illuminations of the De uiris illustribus manuscripts could have been
connected to iconographic patterns present in the cycle of paintings completed by Giotto in
Padua, in the Palazzo della Ragione. See sec. 8.2.2. Likewise hypothetical are the relationships
that some wished to infer between the Petrarchan illuminations and the triumph of Glory that
Avanzi and/or Altichiero would have painted in Verona, in the palace of Cansignorio della Scala,
below a cycle of Jewish stories culminating in the triumph of Titus and Vespasian: see
Carandente 1963, 25–6, Mellini 1965, 36–7, Pinelli 1985, 295–6.
66
In any case, it remains clear that Giotto’s work was one of the main reference models for
the artists who, in fourteenth-century courts, tackled the theme of the Illustrious Men and their
renown: see Donato 1995, 407–8.
282 Word of Mouth

men, the very ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ to which Boccaccio gave such
importance in his Amorosa visione.

8.4. FROM THE TRIUMPH OF G L O R I A D E L PO P O L

M O N D A N O TO THE T R I U M P H U S F A M E

8.4.1. Triumphs and Viri illustres

We saw in section 8.3.1 that an illuminator like Apollonio di Giovanni was

perfectly aware of the fact that he was using the figure of Gloria mundi to
represent the character of Fama in Petrarch’s poem. He must, therefore, have
considered Gloria mundi and Fama to be little more than two onomastic
variations of the same concept, for which he was creating a figurative personi-
fication. Furthermore, as we have seen, the very notions of fama and gloria
(especially Worldly Glory) seem to have been so close as to be interchangeable
for the entire medieval period.
For a text like the Trionfi, which only hinted vaguely at any physical
description of the figure of Fama, it was necessary to construct a character
able to recall the universe of renown, which gives men the vain illusion that
they might definitively transcend the boundaries of human life. The other
illustrations of the poem would have then shown how such an illusion was
destined to succumb, sooner or later, with the onset of a ‘second death’.
A figure like ‘Gloria del popol mondano’, evoked on a literary level by
Boccaccio’s ekphrastic description and already converted into a figurative
form in the three manuscripts of Petrarch’s De uiris illustribus, was certainly
also the ideal model for representing the Fama of the Trionfi.
It is not possible to establish with certainty—nor is it all that important for
this discussion—who chose Boccaccio’s image of Fama-Glory (along with the
others used to represent the remaining triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death,
Time, and Eternity) to illustrate Petrarch’s poem, or when he did so. The
genesis of the original sequence of triumphal processions connected to the
various chapters of the work remains a difficult problem for art historians to
resolve. It seems clear that the impulse to create a figurative pattern began with
the illuminations of the Trionfi manuscripts, some forty years after Petrarch’s
death; and that it was only in the second quarter of the fifteenth century that a
unified illustrative scheme was formed and consolidated in both the cycles of
illustrated manuscripts and on birth trays, chests, and spalliera panels.67

67
See Venturi 1906, 209–12 and Ortner 1998, 64. For an idea of the origin and historical
evolution of this vein of iconography, see Callmann 1974, 12–20, Salmi 1976, 23–42, Samek
Ludovici 1978, I, 93–184, Ortner 1998, 65–126, Labriola 2012, 77–91. Some scholars have
 Giving Glory a Body 283

In this tradition, the figure of Fama was constructed by drawing on compo-

nents from the symbolic apparatus used by Altichiero in his illuminations
and from the pattern we first find in the Darmstadt manuscript illumination.
The Fama figure that appears in the Petrarchan illustrations, like Altichiero’s
model, has wings and trumpets (themselves winged): this is a way of repre-
senting Fama’s swiftness and her ability to carry the echo of famous men’s
renown far and wide. From the fifteenth century on, both these elements
became distinctive features of the ‘emblematic’ representation of this figure,
which remained canonical in the modern age. On the other hand, Boccaccio’s
description of Glory suggested an effective way of representing the ‘platform’
upon which Fama is exhibited in her regal pose; that is, her triumphal chariot
drawn by horses (in many cases these were later substituted by elephants).68
The woman is also placed within a circle on this chariot. Similar ways of
representing the Triumphus Fame were repeated countless times during the
course of the fifteenth century.
The distinctive features that were passed on from the representation of
‘Worldly Glory’ to that of Fama soon established themselves into a pattern
that experienced a limited number of variations. At times Fama appears with
wings, at others she does not. She always brandishes the Boccaccian sword,
while in her left hand she sometimes bears a Cupid (which takes the place of
the Boccaccian globe), at times a book, and in rare cases other objects, such as
scales. Next to Fama we very often (but not always) see trumpets (with or
without wings), which, as I have said, later on became a fixed element of the
iconography.
Finally, the treatment of the Illustrious Men, who in Petrarch’s poem make
up the procession accompanying their triumphant sovereign, is very incon-
sistent. In Petrarch’s poem they are the true protagonists of the section
dedicated to Fama. Vinicio Pacca put it very well when he said:69
The second chapter which (at least in the author’s intention) marks the beginning
of the poem proper, contains an invocation to the muse Polimnia [Polyhymnia]
and to her mother Memoria [Mnemosyne] (TF Ia 13–15) and an introduction of
the argument, the celebration of illustrious men, who file in a procession behind

insisted on the possibility of considering the triumphal processions that began to spread in Italy
at the beginning of the fifteenth century as models for these images (see esp. Weisbach 1901,
72–82).
68
The elephants were introduced into this scene both because of their frequent presence in
ancient triumphal iconography and for symbolic reasons. As various critics remind us (see e.g.
Shorr 1938, 107 and Ortner 1998, 172–3), Plin. HN 8.1 had already mentioned the ‘amoris et
gloriae uoluptas’ that would have characterized elephants, in addition to their extraordinary
memory and great longevity (8.28). According to Pliny (HN 8.4), Pompey would have been the
first to introduce elephants into the Roman triumphal ceremony, following the example of the
Indian triumph of Bacchus. In 1441, the presence of elephants in illustrations of the Triumph of
Fama must already have been a well-established detail (see sec. 8.5.2).
69
Pacca 1998, 208.
284 Word of Mouth
the personified Fama (lines 16–21). What follows is a kind of compact version of
De viris illustribus: a series of Roman and foreign historical figures, with a tiny
appendix of modern figures (the same distribution as in the Rerum memoran-
darum libri), is presented to the reader, at times using what are little more than
lists of names . . . at times through more detailed characterizations, often appear-
ing in a single terzina . . .
Illustrators do not always represent this procession of illustrious men, how-
ever: when they do, we see them either parading around or behind Fama
triumphant, or crowding in front of her, their arms raised. In many cases this
crowd is clearly divided into two more or less thickly clustered groups. We see
the very same two categories of personages who have been the subject of
biographies of illustrious men since antiquity: the ‘intellectuals’ on one side
and the ‘warriors’ on the other.70
The general outlines of the iconographic pattern used to illustrate Petrarch’s
Triumphus Fame is therefore based on a model that perfectly coincides with
what we found for the first time in the Darmstadt manuscript. This can be
clearly seen in several examples from the first half of the fifteenth century, such
as the cassone panel currently housed in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna,
which has been attributed to the pseudo-Domenico di Michelino and, more
likely, to Zanobi Strozzi (Fig. 8.13).71 Fama appears with her head encircled by
an elaborate halo. She is seated on a throne, centred within a circle on whose
background one can clearly distinguish the waves of a body of water being
crossed by a boat. Above the circle, just the traces of two crossed winged
trumpets can be glimpsed. In Fama’s hands we again see the attributes of the
sword and the Cupid (here red). The crowd of figures surrounding her is
particularly large and seems clearly divided into two distinct groups: to her
right stand the kings and heroes, while the clothing of the men in the group on
her left and the books they are holding suggest a group of clerics and scholars.
Once again, four figures (two on each side) are reaching out towards the edge
of the circle that surrounds Fama triumphant; the two figures to the viewer’s
right appear to already be touching it.
This iconographic pattern established itself over the course of the century and
recurred both in Petrarchan manuscripts and on household wedding furniture,
which features the triumph of Fama with considerable frequency.72 There is no

70
In several cases, the procession of Illustrious Men is limited to the two personages of
Hercules and Samson.
71
See Malke 1977, 236 and 242–9, De Marchi 2004. The oldest example of the iconographic
pattern shown here was identified on another cassone panel, attributed by some scholars to
Giovanni da Ponte. First located in Munich, it then resurfaced in the Florentine antiques market
until 1974, when all traces of it seem to have been lost: see Schubring 1929, Callmann 1974, 12
and Plate 25, Ortner 1998, 66 and 71.
72
See Ortner 1998, 25–33. Documentation of chests and birth trays is gathered for the most
part in the Schubring 1923 catalogue (see also Ortner 1998, 317–74); documentation related to
Fig. 8.13. Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale. Zanobi Strozzi, The Triumph of Fama. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and
Activities (MiBAC)’—Pinacoteca Nazionale—Bologna.
286 Word of Mouth

need here to analyse this iconographic scheme in any more detail as scholars
have already devoted considerable attention to it.73 To examine its distinctive
features, I will simply take a closer look at some of the most celebrated
contributions to the illustration of Fama’s triumph. The artists responsible for
these were active in fifteenth-century Florence: Giovanni di Ser Giovanni
(known as ‘lo Scheggia’) and the already mentioned Apollonio di Giovanni.74

8.4.2. The Sword and the Cupid

Fama-Glory’s most stable iconographic attribute is the sword she holds in her
right hand, a symbol of royalty and justice.75 It is the constant presence of this
symbolic instrument, traditionally associated with the exercise of judicial
power, that has been responsible for some misunderstanding. In a few cases
Fama is depicted with the same characteristics as Justice. We can see this
clearly in an illumination by Apollonio di Giovanni that appears in a Trionfi
manuscript kept at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence (Strozzi
174, fol.12r).
In this exceptional case, we have two different representations of the
Triumph of Fama that are linked, among other things, to the order in which
the sections of the Trionfi are arranged in this particular manuscript. In it, the
poem opens with what may have been the original core of Petrarch’s project:
following chapter 2 of the Triumphus Mortis (‘La notte che seguì l’orribil caso’,
fol. 9r), which has been copied first, is chapter ‘1a’ of the Triumphus Fame,
which begins with ‘Nel cor pien d’amarissima dolcezza’ (fol. 12v).76 After this,
the most common sequence of the Trionfi begins, starting with the Triumph of

manuscripts and printed editions can be found in Samek Ludovici 1978, Trapp 1992–3 and 1999.
For birth trays, see also de Carli 1997, 29–33, Ortner 1998, 31–3, Däubler-Hauschke 2003,
239–66. The triumph of Fama motif must have been present since the first half of the fifteenth
century, even on tapestries that we know only from inventory descriptions: see Masséna and
Müntz 1902, 123–4 and 206–19, Delmarcel 1977, 70–1.
73
Ample treatment of this theme can be found in Masséna and Müntz 1902 (esp. 101–26 on
Fama), Ortner 1998 (esp. 65–126), Trapp 1992–3, 39–65 (esp. 56–8).
74
On Scheggia, see Cavazzini 1999 and Bellosi and Haines 1999 (on his illustrations of the
Trionfi, see also Ortner 1998, 165–83). On Apollonio, see Callmann 1974 and 1988 and Ortner
1998, 245–56. On the two artists’ parallel activity from the 1430s to the 1460s, see esp. Bellosi in
Bellosi and Haines 1999, 13 and 30–1.
75
Cf. Boccaccio, Amorosa visione 6.56–7: ‘una spada tagliente, con la quale / che ’l mondo
minacciasse mi parea’.
76
The chapter that in modern editions is numbered 1a is the one that Petrarch himself
wanted to replace with the chapter that begins with the line ‘Da poi che Morte triumphò nel
volto’ (see Pacca 1996, 549–53). The sequence of chapters that is found in the Strozzi 174
manuscript is the one classified ‘II.B’ in the Übersicht of Appel’s edition (1901, 106). On fol. 8v of
that manuscript, at the end of a brief gallery of Illustrious Men, there is a silverpoint illustration
of a winged figure, which introduces the beginning of the Trionfi and which some think may be
an image of Glory or Fama (see Rao 2012, 18).
 Giving Glory a Body 287

Love (with a chapter order different from the vulgate version). In this second
sequence, we find the illustration of the Triumph of Fama on fol. 35v, right
after the end of chapter 1 of the Triumphus Mortis and before the beginning of
chapter 1 of the Triumphus Fame (‘Da poi che Morte triumphò nel volto’). It
presents the traditional iconography of Fama holding the sword in her right
hand and a red-winged Cupid in her left. A second illumination devoted to the
same subject appears between the end of chapter 2 of the Triumphus Mortis
and the beginning of Triumphus Fame 1a (fol. 12r; Fig. 8.14).77 In this image
Fama, balanced on top of the world globe, seems to have been given the typical
attributes of Justice: sword and scales.78
It is the object that Fama holds in her left hand that has varied most
frequently from the basic iconographic scheme. In place of the globe men-
tioned by Boccaccio, we usually find a Cupid or a book. In Boccaccio’s
description, the symbolism of the golden globe (pomo d’oro) is very clear: as
is known, this was a symbol traditionally linked to displays of royalty and
power, whose function in this particular case was to indicate Glory’s absolute
dominion over the world.79
But the substitution of a component like this with a Cupid (the object
most frequently seen in Fama’s left hand) appears incongruous and difficult
to explain: how should we interpret a detail like this? A most ingenious
solution to the problem was proposed by Dorothy Shorr,80 who started from
the assumption that the iconography of these illuminations was the direct
figurative transposition of the Glory described in Boccaccio’s Amorosa
visione. As Boccaccio refers to a ‘pomo d’oro’ that Glory would hold in her
left hand, Shorr suggested that the substitution was the result of a simple
misunderstanding: someone had read ‘(h)omo d’oro’ (golden man) instead
of ‘pomo d’oro’. In her view, this would have led to the depiction of Cupid in
the act of releasing one of his arrows, which we find so frequently in Fama’s
hand. Though this hypothesis may be attractive, it rests on a series of
indemonstrable hypotheses. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the supposed

77
In this illumination, we see two elements that diverge from the most common depictions of
the Triumph of Fama: the two Cupids riding the horses that pull the chariot (a detail that is
found only in Altichiero’s illuminations, where the Cupids are winged and blowing into winged
trumpets), and a strange jester who seems to be dancing in front of the chariot (I have not come
across any other examples of this figure in depictions of the Triumph of Fama).
78
See Labriola 2012, 93 and 95–6. In several cases, we can observe strong similarities between the
iconographic patterns dedicated to Justice and Fama. I will cite just one example, which dates back
to the beginning of the fifteenth century: the figure of Justice that appears in Taddeo di Bartolo’s
cycle of Illustrious Men in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico. In her right hand, she grasps a sword, while in
her left she holds one of the books resting in her lap. Beneath the sword’s hilt, we can clearly see the
circle of the world with its regions and rivers (on this, see Rubinstein 1958, 190 and plate 17c).
79
See Greenhalgh 1985, 189–90.
80
Shorr 1938. Shorr 1937 also identified the two prisoners who often appear at the side of the
horses (or elephants) before Fama’s chariot (see also Ortner 1998, 145–6).
288 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.14. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Strozzi 174, fol. 12r (detail).
Apollonio di Giovanni, Triumph of Glory. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural
Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further reproduction prohibited.
 Giving Glory a Body 289

‘omo d’oro’ then turned into a Cupid who, moreover, was only very rarely
depicted in gold.81
Shorr was probably correct in thinking that some kind of misunderstanding
had arisen from a faulty interpretation of the symbolic apparatus used to
represent this figure. But if we are to suppose there was an error, it seems more
likely that an image, rather than a text, was interpreted incorrectly.82 As we are
dealing with the representation of a triumph, it is quite possible that one of the
many tiny figures that had been appearing (since antiquity) in celebratory
contexts, with the function of praising a powerful figure, a hero, or a god, may
have been deformed; very often we encounter little figures like this in the
hands of the personages or divinities depicted. The image that seems the most
pertinent in such contexts is that of Victory.
On many Roman coins, which, as we know, played an important role in the
development of the iconography of Illustrious Men, the emperors and divin-
ities depicted hold up either a globe or a Victory (sometimes the Victory is
even standing on top of the globe).83 Of the many possible examples, let us
examine three. On the reverse of an aureus of the emperor Tacitus (Fig. 8.15)
we see the personification of Rome seated on a shield: in her right hand, poised
atop a globe, a Victory offers her a crown. On the verso of another aureus, of
the emperor Diocletian (Fig. 8.16), we find instead a standing figure of Jupiter
with a globe in his right hand, upon which is a Victory bearing a palm branch.
Finally, on the verso of a solidus of Valentinian I (Fig. 8.17), the emperor
appears, standing, while holding a labarum in his right hand and a Victory in
his left: balancing on a globe, she is about to crown him.84

81
See Callmann 1974, 12. The Cupid is golden on the birth tray Scheggia painted for Lucrezia
Tornabuoni (see sec. 8.4.4, Fig. 8.22), but more often he is white or reddish.
82
Another hypothesis without specific proof was advanced by Lutz Malke (1977, 245) and
recycled by Alexandra Ortner. According to this hypothesis ‘the Cupido Gloriae would be an
invention by Renaissance artists who, through this, would have wanted to highlight the greed of
the famous men of antiquity who touch the circle of the glorious woman’. See Ortner 1998, 76
and 1999, 89. Also improbable (and refuted with precise linguistic arguments by Battaglia Ricci
1999, 285, n. 62) is the hypothesis of Gilbert 1991, 134, n. 97, according to whom the tiny figure
would be the deformation of a sceptre.
83
This pattern is extremely old (both the Olympian Zeus and the Athena Parthenos of
Phidias held little Victories: see Paus. 5.11.1 and 1.24.7). On this image of the tiny Victory on
the globe that the emperor holds (symbolically linked to Rome and the Senate), see Alföldi 1961,
28–31. This figure was progressively Christianized over time: it later held the cross and became
an angel (the symbol of the cross instead of Victory was also often placed on top of the globe).
A possible evolution of this kind of figure can be seen in the manuscript Hamburg, Staats- und
Universitätsbibliothek 151, fol. 123v (see Pächt in Brandis and Pächt 1974, 196–7). On the reuse
of numismatic models in the iconography of the ‘Uomini illustri’, see Schmitt 1974, 189–210. In
particular, many of the details related to triumph imagery (beginning with the presence of
elephants) could be derived from numismatic models. Altichiero’s decoration of the Palazzo
della Scala shows that he was one of the first fourteenth-century painters to reproduce icono-
graphic patterns derived from a detailed knowledge of ancient coins: see Mellini 1965, 30–2 (with
ample illustrative documentation) and Richards 2000, 70–3.
84
See Greenhalgh 1985, 189–90.
290 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.15. Aureus of the emperor Tacitus. Siscia mint (275–6 CE), RIC 5 74, p. 333.
© Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 8.16. Aureus of the emperor Diocletian. Siscia mint (284–305 CE), RIC 5.2 295.
© Trustees of the British Museum.

Figures like these may be found much later on, in Italian art of the four-
teenth century. A famous example is Giotto’s personification of Justice in the
Cappella degli Scrovegni (Fig. 8.18). On the tray of the scales that she holds in
her right hand appears a Victory (or an angel) crowning a just man (whose
image is now damaged).85 In all likelihood, tiny statues and figures also
appeared in the hands of the uiri illustres depicted, often in triumphal posi-
tions, in the hall commissioned by Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara.86

85
Panofsky 1960, 152 speaks of ‘a diminutive Victory rewarding the peaceful scholar’.
86
If the hypothesis put forward by Lilian Armstrong is true, some trace of this would be
found in the woodcuts that appear in the Poiano 1476 edition of the Libro degli uomini famosi
(Armstrong 1999, 517, figs. 8 and 9). These elements later reappeared in the frescos that
 Giving Glory a Body 291

Fig. 8.17. Solidus of the emperor Valentinian I. Antiochia ad Orontem mint (364–75 CE),
RIC 9 2(a)(ii). © Trustees of the British Museum.

Without specific evidence, it is obviously impossible to prove the hypothesis

that a pre-existing iconographic component was misinterpreted: it is left to art
historians to identify, if they exist, the possible connections of this figure to
ancient schemes of which fourteenth- and fifteenth-century artists would have
been aware.87

8.4.3. The Book

The interpretation of the symbolic meaning of the book, which in various

representations appears in place of the Cupid, seems obvious. It is a reference
to the glory of writers, thinkers, and men of science. This attribute also
appeared in Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione (4.25–30), but not held by Worldly
Glory. Instead, Wisdom, figured in the first of the four frescos described by the
poet, holds it in her left hand; and we should not dismiss the idea that it was
transferred from there to several illustrations of the Triumph of Fama.88

Domenico Campagnola substituted for the original ones in the ‘Sala Virorum Illustrium’ of the
Carrarese Palace in Padua (see e.g. Lucius Aemilius Paulus holding a small statue of Victory,
Gaius Marius holding a statue of ‘Occasio’, Marcus Aurelius with an image of Minerva: the
illustrations may be seen in Bodon 2009, 514, 524, 538).
87
Among the figures susceptible to a misreading, we might also mention the little trumpeter
angels that we saw in Altichiero’s illuminations. It is a simple suggestion that I do not wish to
discuss further here.
88
See Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.5. For another element that hints at a contamination between Boccaccio’s
descriptions of the frescos dedicated to Wisdom and Worldly Glory, this chapter, n. 90.
292 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.18. Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni. Giotto, Justice. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
 Giving Glory a Body 293

Fig. 8.19. Florence, Palazzo Davanzati. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called ‘Lo Scheggia’,
Triumph of Fama. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities
(MiBAC)’. Further reproduction prohibited.

The purpose of the book in this new context is very clear, as we can see from
one of the four curious curvilinear panels Scheggia decorated with the scenes
of the Trionfi, which today are housed in the Palazzo Davanzati in Florence. In
this panel (Fig. 8.19) Fama, winged and with her usual polygonal halo, is
accompanied by a dense throng of heroes, heroines, and wise men.89 Here, the
book is an obvious symbol of the ability literature has to extend the memory of
writers and illustrious men over time. The two types of personages involved in
the propagation process of Fama are distinguished by their positions in the
triumph scene. It is no coincidence that the two groups accompanying Fama’s
chariot, drawn by two elephants, have been arranged so that on Fama’s right,
the side of her sword, we see sovereigns and warriors (in the first row,
Penthesilea, Scipio, Caesar, and Octavian); while to the left of the chariot,
corresponding to the book, the series of writers and philosophers proceeds

89
The name of the character, ‘Fama’, is inscribed next to the sword hilt.
294 Word of Mouth

(with Callisthenes [?], Lucan, Homer, Plato, Cicero, Pythagoras, Aristotle,

Dante, and Virgil in the foreground).90
The very particular shape of this and the other three wooden panels devoted
to the Trionfi suggests that they were all part of a more complex series of wall
decorations that must have included four other panels with triumphal scenes,
whose placement was convincingly reconstructed by Rosanna Proto Pisani.91
Three of them each depict the triumph of a Roman general. The fourth, also in
Palazzo Davanzati, is of some importance to my argument (Fig. 8.20). Here we
find a scene that for a long time was mistakenly believed to represent the
triumuiri Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus consulting an oracle. The identifica-
tion of the three knights as the triumuiri was proposed on the basis of the
characteristics of their armour, which clearly resembles the armour worn by
the figures depicted both on the curved panel with the Triumph of Fama as
well as on the other three panels from the same cycle. However, Caesar was the
only figure to be identified with certainty: he is easily recognizable because of
his particularly elaborate helmet surmounted by a golden eagle, which sets
him apart both on the panel in question and on the panel with the Triumph of
Fama (where his image is accompanied by a distinctive legend).92 The iden-
tification of the other two figures remained anything but certain, and the
meaning of the presumed interrogation of the oracle was also unclear.
Proto Pisani has successfully explained the meaning of the scene, starting
from the certain identification of the haloed figure, the edge of whose pedestal
Caesar is grasping. Once again, this is Fama—here wingless but with the
typical polygonal halo. With a welcoming gesture, she opens her hands
towards the heroes approaching her. Her identity is unmistakable because of
the trumpets—each endowed with a pair of tiny wings—played by the small
nude angels at her sides.93 The detail of the small angels appearing with

90
See Ortner 1998, 173–9. The individual figures are identified beyond any possible doubt by
the names written next to them. According to Landolfi 1993, 9–13, the placement of the
personages in the procession does not reproduce the positioning of the Petrarchan triumph;
instead, there would be ‘a direct link between the parade of celebrities and Boccaccio’s text’. In
particular, the presence of Dante, who appeared at the end of the procession of Wisdom in the
Amorosa visione (5.70–6.18), seems to support this theory.
91
Proto Pisani 2006, 286. See also Callmann 1988, 10–11.
92
We can clearly see the same helmet at the triumphant figure’s feet in the panel with the
triumph of Caesar, in the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach (see Bellosi, in Bellosi and
Haines 1999, 98).
93
The detail is difficult to notice in reproductions. The wings are barely outlined, so that they
are rendered transparent. The same pattern appeared in a more complete form in another
cassone panel, probably of Florentine origin (formerly in the Parisian collection of Baron Michele
Angelo Lazzeroni), which Schubring dated to around 1460. Here Fama, making the same
welcoming gesture and flanked by two little winged angels who play winged trumpets, could
be seen at the centre of the scene, above a city gate, this time surrounded by the Boccaccian
‘circle’. On the left and right, she was joined by two chariots, carrying the triumphers (probably
Titus and Vespasian): see Schubring 1923, 248, no. 122 and Table XXII, Carandente 1963, 21.
Fig. 8.20. Florence, Palazzo Davanzati. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called ‘Lo Scheggia’, Fama Chooses her Heroes. By permission of
the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further reproduction prohibited.
296 Word of Mouth

winged trumpets beside Fama is the same that we previously encountered only
in Altichiero’s miniatures. Seated beneath the pedestal supporting Fama’s
throne are two wise men, whom Proto Pisani identifies as Aristotle (to the
right of Fama) and Plato, based on their resemblance to the named figures on
the curved panel.
Proto Pisani suggests that the three warriors are very likely the three
heroes chosen by Fama; or, we might say, those who have been more
successful than the others in reaching her. Caesar’s gesture—he is almost
clinging to the base supporting Fama’s throne—recalls the gesture of the
heroes from Boccaccio’s description, who are hastening to the border of the
circle that guarantees them a place in the world of renown. As I have already
said, there is no question as to the identity of Caesar. Proto Pisani has also
determined that the blond knight is very probably Scipio Africanus, as he
bears a strong resemblance to the named figure that we can see in the curved
Triumph of Fama panel. If we consider the figure of Scipio’s close associ-
ation with the universe of Fama in Petrarch’s Africa, this hypothesis appears
rather likely. Who the third knight is remains uncertain; Proto Pisani
cautiously suggests that it might be Pompey.94
The arrangement of the figures is also revealing of the relationship
between Fama, the heroes, and the wise men, who with their books almost
appear to be physically supporting the goddess’s authority. In this scene, too,
the book seems to be performing a precise function related to the spread of
renown: it is, in fact, the instrument that guarantees heroism and virtue
access to that almost sacred sphere of glory, whose high mediator is Fama.
The mechanism that, thanks to writers and their efforts, bestows celebrity on
the uiri illustres, is presented in an iconographic formula as unusual as it is
effective.

8.4.4. The Circle

Let us return to the curved panel in Palazzo Davanzati. In the procession

depicted, Scheggia devises a unique solution to include Boccaccio’s circle—

94
In the curved panel with the Triumph of Fama, the figure of Pompey is covered by those of
the other heroes, but he rides alongside Caesar and Scipio. The third figure cannot be Octavian,
who is bearded in the curved panel: nor would it make sense to connect him to Alexander or
Achilles, whose features are clearly identifiable among the heroes following Fama. It is not
possible to identify these personages based on the other panels that were part of the cycle. Two of
these (with the triumph of Caesar and the triumph of the hypothetical Pompey) are in the
Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach: see Bellosi, in Bellosi and Haines 1999, 98. A third
panel (with the triumph of Scipio), after remaining in the County Museum of Los Angeles until
1986, went back on the antique market: see Callmann 1988, 10, Cavazzini 1999, 54–5 (with an
illustration accompanied by an erroneous caption), and Proto Pisani 2006, 285.
 Giving Glory a Body 297

Fig. 8.21. Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called ‘Lo Scheggia’,
Triumph of Fama. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze—By permission of the ‘Ministry of
Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC)’.

which stands for the boundaries of the world—in the triumphal scene. The
artist was well aware of this detail’s meaning, as may be seen from other works
of his given over to the same theme. For example, one of the panels devoted to
the Trionfi in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena (Fig. 8.21) shows a frontal
view of a chariot drawn by two small elephants, and within the circle is a hilly
landscape surrounded by a ring of water.95
In the curved panel in Palazzo Davanzati, Fama is shown in profile and
appears to be surrounded by a real circle, which seems to be made of the same

95
In this panel, too, Fama is holding a book in her left hand, and the procession that
surrounds and follows her appears arranged according to the same criteria of the panel in
Palazzo Davanzati. Bellosi (in Bellosi and Haines 1999, 95) suggests that it is part of a spalliera
(see also Cavazzini 1999, 84–8) and attributes the work to ‘the late activity of Scheggia with the
collaboration of his son Antonfrancesco’. See also Bellosi and Haines 1999, 29–30.
298 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.22. New York, Metropolitan Museum. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called ‘Lo
Scheggia’, Triumph of Fama. © 2015. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of
Art/Art Resource/Scala Firenze.

material as the chariot and no longer has the usual characteristics that would
identify it as a clear symbol of the world’s perimeter. This time, the circular
shape surrounding Fama appears to be nothing more than a part of the
structure holding the seat (a globe?) upon which the woman has been placed.
Finally, attached to the circle are the two winged trumpets, which in the
Sienese panel are located above the circular form that serves as a background
for Fama.
Scheggia came up with an even more original and evocative solution for his
best-known and most important contribution to the representation of Fama:
the celebrated birth tray, today housed in the Metropolitan Museum of New
York (Fig. 8.22). It was made in 1448 for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, shortly before
the birth of Lorenzo il Magnifico on 1 January 1449.96

96
See Bellosi in Bellosi and Haines 1999, 10–12 (and Haines, on p. 54), Cavazzini 1999, 50–3,
Däubler-Hauschke 2003, 85–124 and 262–6.
 Giving Glory a Body 299

In this case, the circumference of the Boccaccian circle coincides with the
limits of the painted area of the tray; and the lands and waters visible behind
Fama triumphant are part of the landscape where the scene is presented.
Fama, winged and with her head surrounded by the usual halo (this time
holding a golden Cupid in her left hand) is standing on top of a globe, from
whose apertures six winged trumpets protrude. The very particular structure on
which the globe is resting faintly suggests the motif of the triumphal chariot,
mainly thanks to the frontal view of one of the two prisoners, who traditionally
appear to the side of the animals pulling the vehicle. But this is the only visible
detail that still alludes to the usual depiction of the chariot with two chained
prisoners walking beside it. The structure on which the figure of Fama is placed
seems motionless, and its base rests firmly on the ground. A throng of knights
gather around the woman, extending their hands to touch the circular edge of
the platform bearing the globe, with a gesture similar to Caesar’s in the panel at
Palazzo Davanzati that Proto Pisani studied. Here, rather than the usual image
of the triumphal chariot, we find a sort of a fountain that radiates glory in every
direction.97

8.4.5. The Realm of Fama and its Borders

This way of representing the spatial boundaries of Fama’s domain serves

to illustrate another aspect of Petrarch’s poem. What the poet wished to
emphasize here was not only the narrowness of human space, using
arguments that can be traced back to Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis. He
also contrasted the limits of time with that utter boundlessness that can
only characterize eternity. It is only when Fama and Time submit to the
power of Eternity that a horizon free from the tyranny of death is finally
revealed to the reader. The spatial-temporal forms that characterize the
world must be left behind in order to reach this transcendent dimension
that belongs to God.
Illustrators have represented the Triumph of Eternity in a variety of
ways and this is not the place to dwell on the topic.98 The scene is always
focused on an image of God, or the Son, or the whole Trinity, and the
motifs used to represent them derive from the well-known repertoire of

97
Däubler 1996, 76–80 (see also Däubler-Hauschke 2003, 107–10) convincingly interprets
the posture of the Fama figure as an antiquated recycling of the iconography of a Victory on
the globe.
98
An effective synthesis appears in Trapp 1992–3, 63–5. In manuscripts and illustrated
editions, this triumph is also identified as ‘of the Divinity’ or ‘of the Trinity’.
300 Word of Mouth

figurative formulas used in sacred art to exalt their sovereignty. One of the
most common of these formulas, both in the scheme of Maiestas Domini
and the Last Judgment, is that of a divine figure seated on a rainbow, or
on the globe of the firmament, with the world at its feet.99 The idea
expressed by this kind of figurative pattern is similar to the one proposed
in the sacred scriptures, which say that the Earth is the footstool of
the Lord.100
In many cases, the triumph of Eternity is represented in such a way as to
highlight the difference between the insignificance of the human horizon
(the limited area over which Fama presides) and the transcendent sphere
of the divine. We might say that, while Fama triumphs in the world, the
divine triumphs over the world (and over the entire universe). In order to
emphasize this contrast, artists often played with the spatial position of the
triumphal figure in relation to the circle of the world (or to all the spheres
of the universe). We can see a particularly clear example of this in the
illuminations that, respectively, depict the triumphs of Fama and Eternity
(here identified as the triumph ‘of the Trinity’) in the oldest dated manu-
script of the Trionfi known to us that contains illuminations. This Floren-
tine manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 72, dated
to 9 May 1442) was also illustrated by Apollonio di Giovanni (Figs. 8.23 and
8.24).101 Inside the circle that surrounds Fama and contains the world is a
landscape with characteristics that strongly resemble the earth and sea found in
the Triumph of Eternity, under the lowest of the concentric arcs upon which the
Omnipotent sits. This set of arcs represents the group of spheres that compose
the universe.102
In both miniatures, the presence of trumpets enhances the pattern used
to contrast the limited domain of Fama with the limitless space of Eternity.
The powerful trumpets blown by the angels proclaim (in keeping with
a pattern already seen in illustrations of scenes from the Book of Revela-
tion) the absolute power of God over eternity and men. Compared to
the majesty of this motif, the little winged trumpets hovering above the
highest arc of the ring enclosing Fama only seem capable of producing an
ephemeral echo.

99
This is obviously a manifestation of God’s sovereignty over the cosmos. On the similar
function of the rainbow or the globe with the throne in the iconography of the Maiestas Domini,
see Poilpré 2005, 196–7 and 229.
100
See Isa. 66.1 (‘haec dicit Dominus caelum sedis mea et terra scabillum pedum meorum’)
and Matt. 5.34–5 (‘Ego autem dico vobis: Non iurare omnino, neque per caelum, quia thronus
Dei est, neque per terram, quia scabellum est pedum eius’).
101
See Callmann 1974, 11–12.
102
Apollonio di Giovanni used the same pattern to represent the Triumph of Eternity in the
other manuscript from the Laurentian Library considered earlier (Strozzi 174, fol. 47r).
 Giving Glory a Body 301

Fig. 8.23. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Med. Pal. 72 fol. 84r. Apollonio
di Giovanni, Triumph of Fama. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage
and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further reproduction prohibited.
302 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.24. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 72 fol. 87v. Apollonio
di Giovanni, Triumph of Eternity. By permission of the ‘Ministry of Cultural Heritage
and Activities (MiBAC)’. Further reproduction prohibited.
 Giving Glory a Body 303

8.5. A COMPOSITE TRIUMPHAL SCENARIO

8.5.1. Glory, Victory, Triumph

The personification of Fama that we find in the illustrations of the Trionfi

was created as a figure of ‘Worldly Glory’, and must be considered part
of a complex discussion on the memory of the Illustrious Men. The lady
of Glory appears in the figurative context of a triumphal scene, and
celebrated heroes and heroines, writers, and wise men gather around her.
The structure of this allegorical representation is founded on the connec-
tion between victory, triumph, and glory that is common to ancient and
medieval culture.103
A quick review of the images that I commented on before suffices to show
how different the triumphal imagery of medieval painters and illuminators
was from that of ancient culture and art. There is no need to highlight how the
very idea of triumph was transformed during the transition from antiquity to
the Middle Ages, changing from a ritual practice with specific religious
implications into a generic manifestation of homage, destined to celebrate
not only the powerful (and not only after military victories) but also the most
venerable figures of the religious universe.104
The appearance of this kind of ‘secular deity’ followed by a procession of
famous men in the triumph of Fama represents a radical reformulation of the
Roman ritual’s typical imagery. It is not necessary to fully explain the complex
interaction between the heterogeneous components merged in this composite
‘triumphal’ iconography: the following pages will focus only on the main
symbolic elements that characterize it.105

103
Here it suffices to quote Hugutio again. By reformulating Cicero’s definition of gloria in
his Deriuationes, he established a close link between glory, fama, and triumph, also incorporating
a crucial element of triumphal imagery: the laurel crown. ‘Gloria -e frequens fama cum laude, et
dicitur gloria quasi cloria a frequentia claritatis, g pro c, uel gloria quasi glaurea a laurea, que
datur uictoribus, et tunc dicitur gloria quasi glaurea, idest gerens lauream, et est ethimologia . . . et
componitur ingloriosus -a –um, quia sit sine gloria idest triumphis, et ingloriosus immemor
gloriae’ (C 123.15–16 Cecchini: see Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.1).
104
On the distinctive characteristics of the Roman triumph, as far as they can be gleaned from
ancient sources, see Beard 2007, 48–53, 219–56, 289–305. On the paradigmatic relevance of the
formulas used in the art of the Imperial period to represent the triumph and ceremonies like the
aduentus of the emperor, see Kantorowicz 1944, 214–19. On their passage into the language of
Christian iconography, see van der Meer 1938, 446–63, Grabar 1968, 35–51 and passim. On the
memory of the Roman triumph in this tradition, see Pinelli 1985 (see also Frugoni 1984, 21–8
and Helas 1999).
105
Here it is impossible to tackle the complex problem of the relationship between these
kinds of figurative representation and the Renaissance practice of military and festive triumphal
processions. On this see at least Carandente 1963 (esp. 9–22), Pinelli 1985, 303–35, Gesing 1988,
50–6, Godwin 2002, 181–202, Ortner 1998, 375–459, and Zaho 2004.
304 Word of Mouth

In Petrarch’s poem, the allegorical figure Fama celebrates her triumph after
Death has left the scene.106 The personages following her, like Scipio, Pompey,
and Caesar, should be considered equivalent to soldiers who escort their
commander during the celebration of his victories, although the procession
that accompanies Fama certainly does not have the military structure of a
triumphal parade. It largely consists of heroes who, while alive, in turn
celebrated their own triumphs: and yet in the illustrations some of them still
appear to be trying to enter the sphere governed by Fama and thereby preserve
the memory of their names. The meaning of this scene is clear: this group of
uiri illustres includes the chosen ones, from among the vast crowd of devotees
of Fama, whose names she has granted the privilege of surviving long after the
death of their bodies.

8.5.2. From Ancient to Medieval Triumphs

What kind of triumph are we looking at, exactly? Petrarch barely hints at the
resemblance between the procession he describes as having seen in his dream
and those celebrated in Rome.107 Even in the illustrations, the elements drawn
from ancient tradition are reduced to a basic symbolic repertoire, reinterpret-
ed in a wholly original form. Such elements include the vehicle on which Fama
advances (a chariot pulled by white horses or elephants), the procession that
accompanies her, and the laurel branches that, when they appear, are not
used to crown the triumphant figure: they either decorate Fama’s chariot or
she distributes them to her favourites.108 Aside from these elements, another is
almost always found, in sharp relief, in the illustrations of the Triumph of
Fama: the trumpets, often winged, that appear either played by Cupids (also
winged), or suspended next to Fama, or in her hands. Curiously, this attribute
is not mentioned in Petrarch’s poem.
The chariot is obviously the crucial element of the triumphal scene, both
in its ancient representations and its later revisitations, as it is the main

106
Tr. Fam. 1.4 and 8–9, ‘partissi quella dispietata e rea’, ‘vidi da l’altra parte giugner quella /
che trae l’uom del sepolcro e ’n vita il serba’. No confrontation between the two allegorical figures
appears in the Trionfi, but in the accompanying illustrations this ‘victory’ is made explicit on
several occasions, for example by showing Death in chains at Fama’s feet. ‘Gloria del popol
mondano’ had already been defined ‘nimica di morte’ in the Amorosa visione (6.66).
107
Tr. Fam. 1.29–31: ‘sí come in Campidoglio al tempo antico / talora o per Via Sacra e per
Via Lata / venian tutti’.
108
These elements were also mentioned in the description of the triumphal scene where, as
we have seen, Propertius imagined he might celebrate his success as a poet. In the Propertian
passage, the poet, together with his Muse and little Cupids (11–12), was placed on a triumphal
chariot drawn by crowned horses (‘coronatis . . . equis’, 10); the chariot was then followed by a
crowd of writers (12). See sec. 8.1.1.
 Giving Glory a Body 305

‘stage’ on which the triumphant personage is exposed to the displays of

homage. In antiquity, the chariot was the focal point not just of the military
triumph, but of other ceremonial processions like the pompa circensis, where
the magistrate presiding over the games or a prominent figure from the
imperial family was the one receiving the crowd’s tribute.109 A chariot is also
at the centre of the best-known triumphal procession from myth: the return
of Bacchus from India. This episode must be taken into consideration due
to the strong paradigmatic significance it assumed in ancient imagery, as
its representation in a large number of mosaics and reliefs—among other
things—attests. This scene has an orgiastic quality: the victorious god is
always shown on a chariot drawn by a pair of exotic animals like lionesses,
tigers, or elephants.110
The yoking of these kinds of animals to the chariot of the victorious general
was one of the most conspicuous signs of luxury introduced to Roman
triumphal celebrations. Pliny the Elder (HN 8.4) implies that Pompey might
have drawn inspiration from none other than Bacchus’s triumph to celebrate
his African victory, when he tried unsuccessfully to have his chariot pulled by
elephants through the opening (which turned out to be too narrow) of the
porta triumphalis. This practice later became widespread, as attested by the
extensive historical, numismatic, and figurative documentation.111
Memory of this lavish setting might also have been preserved in Fama’s
traditional iconography. In fact, to illustrate the sequence of the Petrarchan
triumphs, fifteenth-century artists employed a series of more or less estab-
lished symbolic elements, and a specific meaning was assigned to the animals
shown pulling the various chariots. White horses were preferred for the
triumph of Love, unicorns for Chastity, buffalos or black oxen for Death,
deer for Time, and a variety of solutions existed for Eternity/Divinity (figures
of angels or saints, the animals of the Tetramorph).112 In Fama’s case the
chosen creatures were elephants: ancient sources indicated that they had long

109
See Arena 2009 (esp. 81).
110
See Beard 2007, 280–4 and 315–18, who rightly questions the possibility of establishing
precise derivative relationships between this mythical procession and the diverse forms of
triumphal procession that are known from historical documentation. On the presence of the
elephants in representations of Dionysus’s triumph, see Gesing 1988, 32–5 and Boardman 2014,
21 and 26–36.
111
See Beard 2007, 17, 99, 149 and 234–8, La Rocca 2008, 50, Östenberg 2009, 173–84. On the
presence of exotic elements (including the elephants) common to the iconography of the Indian
triumph of Dionysus and the imperial triumph, see Matz 1952 (esp. 719–49) and Turcan 1966,
456–71.
112
On the choice of these animals and their relationship to their respective triumphs, see
Masséna and Müntz 1902, 121–2, Pinelli 1985, 301–2, and Malquori 2010, 84. It should also be
specified that the Triumph of Eternity (sometimes also indicated in the manuscripts as the
Triumph of the Divinity or the Triumph of the Trinity) is in most cases represented as a static
glorification of God (or of the Trinity) over the universe (see sec. 8.4.5), and only sporadically as
a genuine triumphal procession.
306 Word of Mouth

lives and were gifted with exceptional memories and an instinctive love for
glory. This choice may also have been influenced by knowledge of ancient
iconographic patterns: for example, those present on Roman coins, which in
several cases depicted elephants yoked to the triumphal chariots.113
In addition to the suggestions that came more or less directly from ancient
iconographic tradition related to the celebration of the triumphs, we must also
remember the contribution that religious artistic tradition seems to have made
to the construction of the triumphal images favoured by fifteenth-century
painters. As I have mentioned, there also existed a consolidated triumphal
imagery with religious overtones that was linked to the glorification of God
and the saints. I have already recalled famous celebratory schemes like that of
the Maiestas Domini: to these one must at least add the patterns used to depict
the triumph of various saints, which is usually structured according to icono-
graphic formulas typical of medieval tradition, like those used to represent the
personified virtues.114 Usually, these consist of static scenes where the cele-
brated figure appears seated on a throne. But there are also scenes of triumphal
procession configured in ways that are comparable to those of ancient parades.
One rather well-known case is the fresco, attributable to a painter from
Giotto’s workshop, of Gloriosus Franciscus, which is part of the Franciscan
allegories figured on the vaulting cells that loom over the high altar of the
Basilica inferiore of Assisi (Fig. 8.25).115
The chariot, which has a canopy above it, occupies a central position in the
fresco. Francis, in jarring contrast to the humble style that characterized his
entire existence, is sitting on a throne wrapped in a luxurious golden dalmatic,
and is depicted in a hieratic position, with a sceptre in the shape of a cross in
his right hand and a book in his left, his head surrounded by a halo. Like a
king, the saint is being escorted by a large crowd of angels, four of whom are
pulling his chariot, while four others sound their trumpets, like the tubicines
who accompanied ancient triumphs. In this case, we are obviously not dealing
with the celebration of a specific victory so much as the simple glorification of

113
See Cavagna and Savio 2009, 18 and 25 (figs. 34 and 35). As we learn from a letter by
Matteo de’ Pasti addressed to Piero de’ Medici, by 1441 the choice of elephants for the triumphal
chariot of Fama was the standard (see Masséna and Müntz 1902, 136 and n. 1, Shorr 1938, 107,
and Labriola 2012, 77–8). See also sec. 8.4.1.
114
See Katzenellenbogen 1939, 14–21 and 46–56. One might, for example, think of the
fourteenth-century images of the triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the church of Santa
Catherina of Alexandria in Pisa (Lippo Memmi) or in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli at Santa
Maria Novella in Florence (Andrea di Bonaiuti). Various images exist of the triumph of
St Francis, St Dominic, and St Bernardino over the world: on these, see Bollati 2012, 157–73.
For the best-known glorification schemes present in religious art, see sec. 8.2.
115
See Bonsanti 2002, 187–8 and Bollati 2012, 95–130. Here it is not necessary to address the
iconographic problems related to the frontal presentation of the chariot, which recall other veins
of iconographic tradition (think of the images of victorious charioteers, of the Sun’s chariot, or of
Alexander the Great’s ascension into heaven) whose relevance is secondary to this discussion
(see Grabar 1968, 116–18).
Fig. 8.25. Assisi, Basilica inferiore. Maestro delle Vele, Triumph of Saint Francis. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
308 Word of Mouth

the Poor Man of Assisi, whose remains lie in the crypt below the altar with the
fresco above it.
If we keep in mind the resemblance between the structure of such an image
and those used to illustrate the Triumph of Fama, it is immediately possible
to appreciate a macroscopic aspect of the difference that separates the
scene of Petrarch’s poem from the ancient representations of triumph. In
this exaltation of worldly glory, which celebrates its victory over death, the
personification of Fama sits enthroned in the midst of a procession of her
favourites in a way that more closely resembles an allegory of one of the
virtues or a triumphant religious figure than an ancient general.

8.5.3. The Trumpets of Fama

Trumpets make up an essential part of Fama’s triumphal equipment, and

over time have come to be what might be considered this allegorical figure’s
main attribute. In this case, too, we are dealing with an instrument that is
often present in the depiction of triumph scenes, both in antiquity and in
later eras. The trumpets appear regularly in diverse figurative representa-
tions: both in Roman monuments like the one in honour of Marcus Aur-
elius, some of whose relief panels still exist (Fig. 8.26), and, as we have just
seen, in the Christian triumph found in the Franciscan allegory of Gloriosus
Franciscus.116
It is unnecessary to specify the exact function of a military instrument with
a striking sound like the tuba. Did it supply the celebration with typical battle-
signals or with festive sounds? Was it meant to mark the different moments
of the procession? Did it serve to attract the public’s attention and arouse
its emotions, or to call the people to gather?117 Answering such questions is
unimportant for our discussion. What matters is that, over time, the blare of
trumpets was regularly considered to be a typical ingredient of these proces-
sions and their celebratory apparatus.
In the case of the triumph of Fama, however, the presence of the trumpets
clearly acquires a new function: one that is linked not only to the festive and

116
See Ortner 1998, 86–9. On the reliefs of the Marcus Aurelius monument (datable to 176 CE
or the years immediately following) and their history, see Angelicoussis 1984 (see also Beard
2007, 219–21).
117
Zanoncelli 2000 favours this last hypothesis, but ancient sources do not provide us with
sufficiently clear information about this. On the presence of tubicines in the ancient pompa
triumphalis, see Wille 1967, 80–90, 135, and passim. The sound of the trumpet seems to have
been considered a typically military way of celebrating a wartime victory in passages like Cic.
Marcell. 9: ‘Itaque C. Caesar bellicae tuae laudes celebrabuntur illae quidem non solum nostris,
sed paene omnium gentium litteris atque linguis, nec ulla umquam aetas de tuis laudibus
conticescet. Sed tamen eius modi res nescio quo modo etiam cum leguntur obstrepi clamore
militum uidentur et tubarum sono.’
 Giving Glory a Body 309

Fig. 8.26. Rome, Musei Capitolini. Relief of a monument in honour of Marcus

Aurelius. Inv. MC 808. © 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
310 Word of Mouth

encomiastic atmosphere of the parade, but also to the specific symbolic

value that the instrument assumes in relation to the diffusion of worldly
glory. The link between fama’s action and the tuba, or other war-trumpets
like the bucina, seems to have ancient origins, judging by several passages
where the metaphor of the sounding of such instruments constitutes a seem-
ingly obvious reference to the diffusion of news, rumour, and renown.118 For
example, we might think of a letter sent from Athens to Tiro in August 44 BCE
by Cicero’s son, Marcus (Cic. Fam. 16.21.2): he called his addressee, who had
promised that he would speak highly of Marcus to everyone, ‘trumpeter of my
reputation’ (‘bucinatorem . . . existimationis meae’). Or we could remember an
exclamation from Satire 14, where Juvenal describes the behaviour of the
avaricious. The risks of the poor reputation that could result from harming
others in order to become wealthy are summarized by the poet on line 152:
Sed qui sermones, quam foede bucina famae!
But what talk! How horrible the blast of fama’s trumpet!
In cases like these, the spread of someone’s reputation (good or bad) is
metaphorically associated with the sound that a trumpet emits, thus contrib-
uting to the propagation of talk about that person.119 It is a suggestive way of
representing the action of fama, which advances swiftly through space: instead
of imagining it according to the ancient metaphorical pattern dealt with at the
beginning of this book, with wings that push words along rapid, invisible
trajectories, fama is suggested through an analogy where the emission of a
powerful sound carries information far and attracts everyone’s attention.120
Moreover, as we have seen, the separate images of wings and wind instru-
ments were also combined in the fantastical figure of the winged trumpets

118
On the differences between these instruments and their roles in both civil and military
contexts, see Fleischhauer 1960, Speidel 1984, 27–34, Fless 1995, 84–6 (with iconographic
documentation), Ziolkowski 1999, 368–9 and 371–3. On the Etruscan origins of these instru-
ments, see Briquel 2012 and Hugot 2012, 230–41. On the tuba as a ‘positive metaphorical
referent to good and effective rhetoric’, see Moretti 2007, 140–3.
119
Seneca seems to state otherwise in one of his Epistulae morales (78.16), while speaking of
how to tolerate physical pain. He compares the effort that must be made in such circumstances to
that of athletes, who endure injuries and go to great pains in order to achieve victory. For
whoever manages to overcome physical pain, the reward will be virtue itself, not a crown or a
palm-leaf, nor even the trumpet that compels spectators to be silent so that the victor’s name can
be announced (‘quorum praemium non corona nec palma est nec tubicen praedicationi nominis
nostri silentium faciens’). Here, the trumpet’s sound seems, more than anything, to create the
setting that allows someone’s name to be ‘proclaimed’.
120
The image would acquire particular prominence during the medieval period: to give just a
pair of examples, it is also found at the beginning of a famous composition by the Archpoet of
Cologne, written on the occasion of Rainald von Dassel’s visit to Vienne in 1164: ‘Fama tuba
dante sonum / excitata uox preconum / clamat uiris regionum / aduenire uirum bonum’ (2.1–3).
Alain de Lille speaks of a ‘cornu’ of Fama in book 9 of the Anticlaudianus (139–40: ‘cornu quo
Fama sue preconia laudis / Intonat’). See also Ch. 10, sec. 10.2.3.
 Giving Glory a Body 311

that, since the very first images of Fama-Gloria, have often appeared next to
the personification that I am discussing. From Altichiero’s illuminations to the
panel of Palazzo Davanzati, where Scheggia depicts the Illustrious Men re-
ceived by Fama, these objects of unmistakeable symbolic meaning are figured
next to the allegorical female image, either alone or held by winged Cupids.
This iconographic invention does not appear to have any equivalent in ancient
art, where neither figures similar to winged trumpeters nor winged trumpets
of this kind appear.121

8.5.4. Victories and Angels

We finally come to the triumphal figure, in whom we seem to find a

complex synthesis of elements from ancient and Christian tradition. In
the majority of cases, Fama appears on a throne, framed by the ‘circle’
described by Boccaccio in the Amorosa visione, which symbolizes her
absolute power over the entire extension of the terrestrial globe. Another
way of showing the sovereignty of this figure over the world consists of
showing her seated on the world globe or standing balanced on top of it.
The woman’s head is often surrounded by a polygonal halo, and wings
occasionally appear on her body. As we will see later, this last detail,
which during the fourteenth century was typical of various allegorical
figures like those that personified the vices and virtues, was not an
established attribute of the ‘Petrarchan’ Fama triumphant; however, in
the first phase of its diffusion it became typical of the emblematic figure
of Fama, which was tremendously popular from the beginning of the
sixteenth century.
From a morphological perspective, many of the depictions of this kind of
winged triumphal figure share similarities with the character Victory, often
shown, in ancient representations of triumphs, crowning the victorious gen-
eral with a laurel wreath (Fig. 8.26).122 In classical iconography, the figure of
Victory has characteristics similar to those of the winged messengers discussed

121
In antiquity, the association of the trumpets with aerial beings was typical of representa-
tions of the winds (on the evolution of this iconography, see Raff 1978–9), and from there might
have become part of the depiction of various types of trumpeter angels: on this, see Bussagli 2003,
127–31, Nova 2007, 35 and 45–9. Much rarer are the cases of erotes or analogous winged figures
that play wind-instruments of another kind (pipes or mostly double pipes). A typical example of
this kind of figure can be seen in a mosaic in the D3 room of Villa Silin near Leptis Magna,
datable to the second quarter of the second century CE (see Al Mahjub 1978–9, Plate XXIII, and
1983, non-numbered plate: an excellent reproduction also appears in Dunbabin 1999, 123),
which Musso 1994, 138–9 and Parrish 1995, 181 hypothesize might be an image of a wind.
122
See Beard 2007, 88–92 and 219–25. On the presence of the figure of Victory in triumphal
contexts, see Hölscher 1967, 80–96 (and for the presence of Victory in scenes of profectio and
aduentus see Maggi 1993).
312 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.27. Aureus of Octavian, RIC I2 Augustus 268. © Trustees of the British Museum.

at the beginning of this work. Various scholars have rightly insisted on the
messenger role that both the Greek Νίκη and the Roman Victoria seem to
perform, when they are described in the act of announcing news of a military
success to a community.123
But with regard to the success that this figure enjoyed over time, the role of
messenger and mediator seems to have remained, all things considered,
secondary. The image of winged Victory, which was very widely diffused in
the ancient world, acquired particular importance in political symbolism,
becoming an emblematic figure of extraordinary importance in representa-
tions of imperial power. Among the best-known patterns used to depict her, of
particular interest here is the scheme where the figure of the goddess hovers
over the world globe, once again indicating the power that she has over the
whole world (Fig. 8.27).124 Probably similar to this was the iconographic
pattern of the famous statue from Taranto that Octavian had placed in the
Curia Iulia (Cass. Dio 51.22), and which over the following centuries would
become a genuine emblem of Roman power.125 In triumphal or celebratory
contexts, the Victoria that places her feet on the globe appears countless times
in the act of offering a golden crown or a laurel wreath to various allegorical
figures or to the emperor. As we have already seen, in many cases this is a
small image that the emperor is holding as if it were a sign of his power. We

123
We have already seen how this ‘informative’ role is also given to the Φήμη that Bacchylides
invited to bring news of the victory of Argeios at the Isthmian games rapidly to Ceos. See Ch. 6,
sec. 6.2.1, and sec. 8.1.1, n. 3.
124
See Alföldi 1970, 235–8 and Hölscher 1967, 6–47 and 180–2. See also sec. 8.4.2.
125
See Alföldi 1961. For the various forms of this iconographic pattern, see Hölscher 1967,
34–41.
 Giving Glory a Body 313

need not linger on this scheme, whose vast diffusion is well known. To have an
idea of it, it suffices to consider a splendid Byzantine example like that of the
Barberini diptych in the Louvre, which dates back to the sixth century CE
(Fig. 8.28).126
Among figurative depictions of religious scenes, the image of winged
Fama shares similarities with images of the heavenly characters whose very
name preserves a trace of their role as divine messengers: angels. It is not
by chance that these figures have morphological and functional character-
istics similar to those of the ancient Victories. Nor is it a coincidence that
in various celebratory contexts the angels are also found carrying out
functions comparable to those that, in ancient depictions, were attributed
to images of Victory; for example, when, while honouring the sacred
personages who are being glorified, they offer them ‘triumphal’ symbols
like crowns.127
Ultimately, the only ‘triumphal’ function that the Fama figure appears to
have in common with the figures of Victoria and the angels seems to be that of
conferring a laurel crown on the ‘chosen ones’ (here, the Illustrious Men). In
addition, this role is clearly manifested only in the two illuminations attribut-
able to Altichiero, where the figure of Glory, surrounded by Cupids intent on
blowing into their winged trumpets, reveals herself to a crowd of heroes (Figs. 8.5
and 8.6). Spreading her great wings, this personification is shown in a pose that
recalls typical patterns from religious iconography, especially in the miniature
where she appears framed by a mandorla. Activating the ‘triumphal’ dimension
of the scene is the very gesture with which Glory throws crowns of laurel to the
armed figures holding their hands out to her, while the decidedly secular context
in which the image appears recalls a realm closely linked to the human condition:
that of the renown of uiri illustres. In the illustrations of the Petrarchan triumph,
on the other hand, the figure of Fama, dispenser of renown, is not always winged
and—as said before—more often resembles one of the personified Virtues than
an angel, although there are some cases where her image might recall figures
from Christian iconography. Suffice it to think of the haloed figure that dominates
the scene on the birth tray painted by Scheggia for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the
mother of Lorenzo il Magnifico (Fig. 8.22).

126
See Berefelt 1968, 34. In the image of this globe we can find the earliest roots of one of the
most common medieval emblems of power: see Hölscher 1967, 27–34, Schramm 1958, 2–115,
and Greenhalgh 1985, 189–90.
127
See Berefelt 1968, 40–3. When I speak of morphological and functional similarities,
I obviously am not thinking of a derivative relationship between the winged angel figure and
the earlier ancient Νίκη or Victoria (like the one hypothesized by Beck 1936, 3–22). In any case,
establishing clear genealogical relationships between these kinds of figures would not be relevant
to this discussion (on this matter, see Feliś 1912, Landsberger 1947, Ellinger 1953, Klauser 1962,
305–21, Berefelt 1968, 15–56, Schneider 1989, Bussagli 1991, 632–5, Pirani 2000, 392–4, Bussagli
2000, Peers 2001, 25–33, Bussagli 2003, 40–140).
314 Word of Mouth

Fig. 8.28. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Barberini diptych, first half of the sixth century CE.
© 2015. Photo Scala Firenze.
 Giving Glory a Body 315

The fact that the image of Fama is often associated with the attributes of
trumpets and wings refers us to other well-known scenes of religious art. In
fact, in drawing a group of chosen figures (whose names have been rescued
from death) towards her, the ‘angelic’ personification of Fama carries out a
function that is rather similar to the one that religious tradition assigns to
angels. We need only think of scenes from the Book of Revelation or the
Final Judgment: around the figure of Christ or God the Father seated on the
throne, the angels are often shown directing the souls of dead men to their
final destination of damnation or blessing. Notably, the powerful sound of
trumpets held by angelic figures is what calls these souls back to life, as is
common in the major monumental frescos dedicated to the Last Judgment in
Italian territory from the end of the eleventh century on. To have an idea of
this pattern we can consider the pair of angels that, beneath the mandorlas
that enclose the figures of the Virgin and Christ, summon the deceased from
their graves in Buffalmacco’s fresco at Pisa’s Camposanto, which can be
dated to the 1340s (Fig. 8.29).128
The action performed by Fama can in some ways be considered a ‘worldly’
(and consequently restricted by the temporal limits imposed on earthly life)
version of the function that the angels perform when they call the deceased to
gather before the Final Judgment. The link between the resurrection caused by
the angels’ trumpets and the one made possible by the action of she who, to
use Petrarch’s phrasing, ‘trae l’uom del sepolcro e ’n vita il serba’, was also
made explicit by some sixteenth-century illustrators in their depictions of
Fama’s triumph over Death. An original and elegant example of this can be
seen in the full-page illustration that an illuminator from Rouen dedicated to
‘Renown’s victory over Death’ in the manuscript that contains the French
translation of the commentary by Bernado Illicino (Bernardo Lapini da
Montalcino) on Petrarch’s Trionfi (Fig. 8.30). In this image, we can see both
the people crushed by the chariot on which Death, standing over Laura’s
lifeless body, was celebrating his triumph, and the figures of illustrious men
who are leaving their graves after being awakened by the trumpet of an angelic,
richly dressed Fama.129

128
On the iconographic pattern that I am discussing, see Rosenberg 1967, 188–92, Christe
1999, 143–52, 276–328, and passim. On the trumpeter angels and their roles in sacred texts and
Christian iconography, see Hammerstein 1990, 205–17 (with a rich set of illustrations).
129
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Français 594, fol. 178v. The manuscript, probably
commissioned by George d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, for Louis XII, can be dated to
1503. The illuminations by an anonymous local painter that accompany the various ‘triumphs’
all use highly original schemes. See Samek Ludovici 1978 I, 177–9. For another example where
illustrious men emerge from the earth where they were buried, thanks to the sound of trumpets
played by Fama, see Ch. 9, sec. 9.2.5.
Fig. 8.29. Pisa, Camposanto Monumentale. Buonamico di Martino, called Buffalmacco, The Last Judgment, 1336–41. © 2015. Photo
Scala Firenze.
 Giving Glory a Body 317

Fig. 8.30. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ms. Français 594, fol. 178 v.,
Renown’s Victory over Death. By permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
318 Word of Mouth

8.5.5. Glory Celebrates her Triumph

In the depiction of the scene that we are examining, the interaction between
the heterogeneous elements that I have briefly reviewed contributes to the
creation of an original triumphal atmosphere. While in ancient triumphs
Victory was placed next to the victor as he celebrated his successes, rewarding
him with a crown, in the illustrations of the Petrarchan Triumph, Fama
occupies the foreground alone because she is the truly triumphant figure. At
the same time, though, she bestows a reward—the extension of life—on the
uiri illustres who surround her. Glory almost seems to be flowing from the
allegorical figure that dominates the scene onto the Illustrious Men. In a
certain sense, we can consider the triumph of Fama to be the secular, worldly
equivalent of a Judgment: as a result of it, a chosen few are invited to enjoy the
privileges conferred on them by the figure being celebrated.
We might even say this scene depicts the glorification of a figure who
paradoxically represents the very source of glory, towards whom illustrious
men lean forward to collect the crowns that she throws or to touch the circle
that surrounds her. Using her ability to reach any region of the world, Fama
thereby makes herself the divulger of the names of those personages who,
through the echo of their feats, have managed to transcend the boundaries of
human life.
 9

Contaminations

9.1. FIGURATIVE CONTAMINATIONS

9.1.1. Fama malum

While the personification of fama in Virgil’s Aeneid enjoyed extraordinary

literary success, the same is not true for its iconography. This is, of course,
largely a result of the heterogeneity of the illustration cycles created for Virgil’s
poem.1 However, given the limited number of, and noticeable difference
between, the images that exist for this personage, we might reasonably assume
that it was difficult for illuminators and engravers to construct a stable image
from the complex features of the Virgilian figure.
In Pierre and Jeanne Courcelle’s study of the Aeneid’s illustrated manu-
scripts, only three images of Fama are mentioned. All of them can be dated to
the second half of the fifteenth century. Two of the three come from the
Aragonese court of Naples, and the best-known illumination appears in a
manuscript at the Escorial (Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo, S. II. 19, fol. 98v).2
It shows the Fama figure rising from the ground, growing until she reaches
the sky and moving through the city. Her two main attributes are her long
tongue and the featherlike tongues alternating with rows of eyes and ears that
cover her wings and tunic. This image clearly underscores the disconcerting,
imposing qualities of the figure who is intent on spreading her voices across an
entire city.3
The illustrators of the famous 1502 edition of Virgil published in Strasbourg,
the result of a collaboration between Sebastian Brant and Johann Grüninger,
depicted Fama with the same general characteristics. Their engraving on fol. 215v

1
Courcelle and Courcelle 1984, 263–5.
2
See Courcelle and Courcelle 1984, 237 (a reproduction of the illumination appears in fig.
434: another reproduction of the same figure may be seen in Hardie 2012, 604, fig. 9). On the
manuscript (datable to around 1477) and on its illuminators see De Marinis 1947–52, II, 173–4,
Courcelle and Courcelle 1984, 231–3, and esp. Toscano 1998, 403–5 and 594–5.
3
Cf. Verg. Aen. 4.173–7 and 180–3.
320 Word of Mouth

depicts what may be considered the best-known modern image of the Virgilian
Fama (Fig. 9.1).4
The vile monster stands at the centre of the scene: almost entirely covered
by feathers, she has snakelike hair and cloven feet (winged, like Fama herself).
Fire bursts from her hands towards the city behind her: the buildings will be
struck by the information that Fama brings, as will Iarbas, the ultimate
recipient of the rumours about Queen Dido. Visible in the lower left, he kneels
before the statues of Mercury and Jove, protesting the queen’s rejection of him.
Unlike the Aragonese illuminator, the engraver of this image did not empha-
size the strangest features of Virgil’s description: that is, the eyes, tongues, and
ears that cover Fama’s body. An attempt to represent the multiplication of the
monster’s organs of reception is visible only in the three ears on the right side
of her face and in the two additional eyes on her waist.
These features appear in other images that are designed to highlight the
malevolence of the personage figured. An example that has recently acquired a
certain degree of notoriety is the engraving by an anonymous artist that
appears in a sixteenth-century edition of Peter Hegelund’s translation of the
Latin play Susanna, by the Swiss humanist Sixt(us) Birck.5 In his translation,
Hegelund, a Danish bishop, inserted an interlude (dated to 1576) that consists
of a monologue pronounced by a repulsive-looking woman wearing a motley-
coloured garment. In the engraving, this woman, who represents Calumny
(Fig. 9.2), is shown standing under the legend FAMA MALVM.6 This image
clearly shows the multitude of communicative organs typical of Virgil’s
character: eyes and tongues cover the monster’s garment and wings. The
figure also has a number of other threatening attributes. Like the Fama in
the Strasbourg edition, Hegelund’s Calumny has wings sprouting from both
her shoulders and her ankles. She also possesses an enormous pair of ears and
a forked tongue (or possibly two tongues) protrude(s) from her half-open
mouth. Her robe is hung with instruments of witchcraft, and she holds a bow
with three arrows at the ready.
In this kind of image, the chthonic character of the figure and the
monstrous proliferation of eyes, tongues, and ears are used to symbolize a
form of deliberately malicious communication. Both the Fama-Rumour in the
Strasbourg edition and Hegelund’s Calumny are shown putting intentionally

4
Publii Virgilii Maronis opera cum quinque vulgatis commentariis: expolitissimisque figuris
atque imaginibus nuper per Sebastianum Brant superadditis, Opera & impensa Iohannis Grie-
niger: in ciuitate Argentensi. 1502, fol. 215v. The volume’s images are the work of various
engravers. See Suerbaum 2008, 131–57; on the importance of these images, see Rabb 1960,
196–9, and esp. Schneider 1983.
5
Susanna comicotragœdia . . . , Prentet i Kiøbenhaffn aff Matz Wingaard (1578) and Calum-
nia seu Diabola personata . . . , by the same publisher (1579). On the edition and the engraving see
Marker and Marker 1996, 24–5.
6
See Tupet 1985 and Neubauer 2009, 42.
 Contaminations 321

Fig. 9.1. Publii Virgilii Maronis opera . . . : expolitissimisque figuris atque imaginibus
nuper per Sebastianum Brant superadditis, Opera & impensa Iohannis Grieniger: in
ciuitate Argentensi, 1502, fol. 215v. Fama. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, RES/
2 A. lat. a. 292.a, fol. CCXVv <http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00001879/
image_450> (accessed 1 August 2016).
322 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.2. Peder Hegelund’s Susanna og Calumnia, Udgivne af S. Birket Smith,

København, Thieles Bogtrykkeri 1888–90, 149. Calumnia.
 Contaminations 323

hurtful information into circulation. The victim in the first case is Virgil’s
Dido; in the latter, it is the protagonist of the famous episode from the Book
of Daniel.

9.1.2. Other Monsters

The second of the manuscripts mentioned by Pierre and Jeanne Courcelle

(also from the court of Naples) is now housed, like much of the remaining
Aragonese book collection, in the Biblioteca Universitaria de Valencia (Ms.
837, olim 748, fol. 111v; see Fig. 9.3).7 In one of its splendid illuminations,
datable to the 1470s, we find a very different depiction of Fama from those we
have considered thus far.8 Here, Fama (beneath whom we see the cave where
Dido and Aeneas are embracing) vaguely looks like the figure of an ancient
siren, with additional features that are evidently drawn from the iconography
of the dragon in the Book of Revelation. This strange monster with the face of
a beautiful woman is standing on a hilltop. She looks as if she is about to take
flight—or rather, as if she is going to immerse herself in the surrounding
currents of air that almost seem to form the upper part of her bust. The most
disconcerting traits of this figure are the six feathered serpents that form her
body. Here, the communicative organs that characterize Virgil’s Fama are not
spread across the figure; instead we can find them in the twelve eyes and ears
and six mouths on the heads of these snakes.
The same manuscript may also contain a second representation of Fama in
an illumination that depicts an episode from book 1, in particular lines
494–519 (fol. 80v; see Fig. 9.4), though the illustrated scene does not corres-
pond to a precise passage in Virgil’s text.9 In it, we see the moment just before
Aeneas and Achates present themselves to Dido (516–19).10 In the bottom-left
corner the two heroes stand beneath a cloud, and Fama (if it is indeed she)
appears to emerge from it, directing her gaze to the queen seated on the
throne. This might be a figurative device intended to convey the fact that the
arrival of the Trojans was anticipated by the news of them that had already
spread throughout Carthage. As Grazia Fachechi suggested to me (per litteras),

7
On this manuscript, see De Marinis 1947–52, II, 172 and IV, tables 255–63, Courcelle and
Courcelle 1984, 219–20 and 222–3, Toscano 1998, 364–7 and 526–8, Wlosok 1992, 12–14 and
26–7, Wlosok 1995, 105–6.
8
The image may be seen at the URL (visited 2 Nov. 2015) <http://weblioteca.uv.es/cgi/view.
pl?source=uv_ms_0837>, fol. 111v.
9
The image may be seen at the URL (visited 2 Nov. 2015) <http://weblioteca.uv.es/cgi/view.
pl?source=uv_ms_0837>, fol. 80v.
10
‘Dissimulant et nube caua speculantur amicti / quae fortuna uiris, classem quo litore
linquant, / quid ueniant: cunctis nam lecti nauibus ibant / orantes ueniam et templum clamore
petebant.’
324 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.3. Valencia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Biblioteca Històrica Ms. 837 (olim 748),
fol. 111v (detail). Aeneas, Dido, and Fama. By permission of the Biblioteca Històrica de
la Universitat de València.

this hypothesis is supported by the fact that the ‘maidservants around Dido are
clearly speaking amongst themselves . . . their chatter seems to arise from the
girl on the far left who is the first to receive the report from Fama’.11
A manuscript kept in Harvard’s Houghton Library depicts a version
of our figure with a clearer symbolic meaning (Ms. Richardson 38, fol.
135v; see Fig. 9.5).12 In keeping with the courtly setting of this scene,
typical of the International Gothic style, Fama appears as a monstrous

11
Cf. the passage where the two heroes are waiting for the queen. They notice that the events
at Troy, which Fama has already spread everywhere, appear on the friezes of Carthage’s new
temple to Juno (453–7): ‘Namque sub ingenti lustrat dum singula templo / reginam opperiens,
dum, quae fortuna sit urbi / artificumque manus inter se operumque laborem / miratur, uidet
Iliacas ex ordine pugnas / bellaque iam fama totum uolgata per orbem.’
12
This French manuscript is probably datable to 1460–70: see Courcelle and Courcelle 1984,
191–3 and 195 and the bibliography available at the URL (visited 2 Nov. 2015): <http://hcl.
harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/early_manuscripts/bibliographies/richardson/
richardson38.html>.
 Contaminations 325

Fig. 9.4. Valencia, Biblioteca Universitaria. Biblioteca Històrica Ms. 837 (olim 748),
fol. 80v (detail). Aeneas Arrives at Dido’s Palace. By permission of the Biblioteca
Històrica de la Universitat de València.

dragon, with eyes, tongues, and ears covering its body. It is leaving the cave
where Dido and Aeneas are consummating their union. Here, Fama’s exit
seems to mark the beginning of their relationship, which gives way to the
relentless flow of gossip that eventually overwhelms the unfortunate Car-
thaginian queen.
326 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.5. Cambridge (Mass.), Ms. Richardson 38, fol. 135v (detail), Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Aeneas, Dido, and Fama. By permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University.

9.1.3. Transferences and Contaminations

The images I have considered thus far seem unrelated. The disparity between
them strongly indicates that they are isolated attempts at portraying the
memorable figure of Fama-Rumour as she circulates talk of Dido.13
The characteristics of Virgil’s monster sometimes appeared outside the
sets of images that illustrated the Aeneid; they were also used to depict figures
other than Fama-Rumour. Philip Hardie rightly drew attention to the
reverse of a medal created in 1479 by the Mantuan Sperandio Savelli to
commemorate Andrea Barbazza of Messina, a jurist and professor of law at
the University of Bologna (Fig. 9.6).14 Half-bird, half-woman, this Virgilian

13
Likewise there is no coherence among the other representations of Fama-Rumour discussed
by Hardie 2012, 611–15.
14
Hardie 2012, 632–3. On Barbazza see Liotta 1964.
 Contaminations 327

figure of Fama has three pairs of wings, that decrease in size the further
down on her body they appear. Standing on one of the volumes scattered at
her feet, she holds an open book in her right hand and a closed one in her left.
A laurel wreath at the edge of the medal surrounds the Virgilian legend SVPER
AETHERA NOTVS (from Aeneas’s famous introductory speech in Aen. 1.379):
here, this quotation is a way of referring to the glory of the Bolognese canonist.15
Used in this way, in the company of books and symbols of glory, the Virgilian
pattern conveys an idea of illustrious celebrity, and there can be no doubt as to
its positive meaning.
There are not many cases in figurative art where an image of Virgil’s Fama-
Rumour is used directly to represent Fama-Renown. Instead, her monstrous
features were usually ‘contaminated’ with traits from what was considered
(from the end of the fourteenth century) the typical image of the renown of

Fig. 9.6. Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, Sperandio Savelli from Mantua, bronze
medal for Andrea Barbazza (reverse) (inv. MCA Num. 9956). Fama. 1479. By permission
of the Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

15
According to a rumour reported by Fantuzzi 1781, 346 (among others), Francesco Aretino
(i.e. Francesco Accolti) had told those who praised Andrea’s merits ‘that his fame would be a
straw fire’ (‘che la di lui fama sarebbe stata un foco di paglia’), but events proved otherwise: his
328 Word of Mouth

Illustrious Men. In particular, either the trumpets typical of this iconographic

scheme, which over time had established themselves as the distinguishing
features of the emblematic figure attributed to Fama-Renown, were added to
the Virgilian figure, or on the contrary, eyes, ears, and tongues were added
to the ‘Petrarchan’ Fama-Glory.
One of the many examples that demonstrate the composite nature of this
iconographic model is Hendrik Goltzius’s Fame and Virtue (Fig. 0.1), which
I commented upon in the Introduction. This engraving emphasizes the idea of
glory, which is the foundation of any plan to depict a gallery of illustrious men.
Such a representation of Fama is intended to draw attention to her distinctive
wings and trumpet, which are typical of the iconography of ‘Petrarchan’ Fama;
but among the woman’s feathers, we can also distinguish the ‘Virgilian’ eyes
and ears.
A woodcut by the Swiss painter and engraver Tobias Stimmer (1539–84)
provides us with another classic example of this amalgamation of iconograph-
ic models.16 This is one of the several versions of the printer’s mark depicting
Fama used by the Frankfurt bookseller Sigmund Feyerabend (Fig. 9.7).17 In it,
the figure of Fama-Renown blows through the trumpet in her right hand
(another, dark-coloured trumpet in her left hand points downward):18 the eyes
decorating the feathers of her wings constitute her ‘Virgilian’ trait.19
Such examples suggest that the ‘Virgilian’ multiplicity of communicative
organs was grafted onto the iconographic scheme of Fama-Renown developed
in the illustrations of Petrarch’s work. The reverse, where attributes from the
‘Petrarchan’ figure are grafted onto the epic personification of Fama-Rumour,
seems to be less common. A famous example is Bolognino Zaltieri’s engraving,
which illustrates an episode from Statius’s Thebaid (3.425–31): Fama advan-
cing before Mars’s chariot (Fig. 9.8).20 From 1571 on, this engraving appeared
in some editions of Vicenzo Cartari’s mythological repertory Le imagini de i
dei de gli Antichi.21

works always enjoyed a high reputation. This is an interesting and instructive example of how
inextricably rumour and reputation, both based on what ‘is said’ about someone, are intertwined.
16
The image was discussed by Neubauer 2009, 249 and Hardie 2012, 631–2.
17
The image reproduced here corresponds to no. 135 in Andresen 1872, 64. To get an idea of
the possible variations on the ‘contaminated scheme’ that I am illustrating, see O’Dell 1993, 33
and 257–312, with a catalogue of the many versions of this figure produced by the Swiss engraver
Jost Amman.
18
In various similar depictions, our personage is shown blowing into two trumpets at the
same time.
19
As Hardie 2012, 606, has remarked in passing, this feature was also influenced by the
iconographic model used to depict the cherubim (particularly in illustrations of the Book of
Revelation).
20
The image in Fig. 9.8 is from a Paduan edition (1608), which reproduces Bolognino
Zaltieri’s engravings from the Venetian edition published in 1571.
21
See Hardie 2012, 620–1 and fig. 23 and Guastella 2013, 122–3.
 Contaminations 329

Fig. 9.7. Tobias Stimmer, Printer’s mark of Sigmund Feyerabend. Fama. Frontispiece of
Simon de Praetis and Petriantonius Lolius, De Vltimarvm Volvntatvm Interpretatione
Tractatvs Amplissimvs: Divisvs In V. Libros: Hosque Partitos In Plures Interpretationes.
Francoforti Ad Moenvm, 1583. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Shelfmark
13077338 2 J.rom.m. 197 <http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/
bsb10146974_00005.html> (accessed 1 August 2016).
330 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.8. Vincenzo Cartari, Le Imagini Degli Dei degli Antichi, in Padoa appresso Pietro
Paulo Tozzi librario, 1608, p. 364. By permission of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book
& Manuscript Library, Duke University.
 Contaminations 331

The composite symbolic core of these representations ultimately became

the standard image for all manifestations of Fama. The first entry on Fama in
Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia gives us an idea of this fusion of characteristics.22
Ripa introduces the very figure that appears in Zaltieri’s engraving, and states
‘this is how Virgil described her’ (‘così la descrisse Virgilio’). He then quotes
the famous passage from book 4 of the Aeneid, where no mention is made of
the trumpet that Ripa calls one of her distinguishing traits. This particular
description is unaccompanied by an illustration, but a clear reproduction of
Fama can be found in the frontispiece of the second edition, published in
Rome in 1603 (Fig. 9.9). At the right, the winged figure of Fama is holding a
trumpet, her robe strewn with little mouths and ears: opposite her stands
Gloria, on the left.
As we can see from these examples, although no stable iconographic scheme
was ever developed for Virgil’s Fama-Rumour, her defining characteristics
were used to enrich the figure of Fama-Glory, who in modern times became a
representative symbol of the renown attained by a wide variety of famous
people.

9 . 2 . I N T E G R A T I N G RU M O U R AN D G LO RY

9.2.1. Boccaccio and Fama, Daughter of the Earth

Any attempt to unify the characteristics of a figure like Virgil’s Fama and
those of a figure like the ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ (who was eventually
identified with the protagonist of Petrarch’s Triumphus Fame) in one body
presupposes a considerable transformation of the original meaning that the
distinctive traits assigned to the two figures had. Converting the multiplicity
of transmitting and receiving organs that Virgil gave his monstrous emissary
into a permanent feature of the Petrarchan figure meant projecting a role
intended to represent a messenger onto an allegorical character designed to
represent an ephemeral worldly value. The dual nature of the concept of
fama, founded on ‘talk’ and an imaginary ‘winged word’ that makes both
information passed by word of mouth and the renown of a famous name
travel through space (and time), made such contamination quite easy. Once
transferred onto the body of the ‘Gloria del popol mondano’, tongues, eyes,
and ears could be reduced to simple signs of Fama’s ability to learn and
retransmit someone’s name beyond the physical and temporal limits
imposed on mortal life.

22
See Guastella 2013, 123–8. For the text of this entry, see the recent edition by Maffei and
Procaccioli 2012, 176–7 (and the notes on pp. 686–7).
332 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.9. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia Overo Descrittione Di Diverse Imagini cauate
dall’antichità, & di propria inuentione . . . , Roma, Appresso Lepido Facij, 1603. Frontis-
piece. Courtesy of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
 Contaminations 333

But ascribing the Virgilian traits to a personification of Fama-Glory was

not always so effortless and successful a procedure. An illuminating
example of the complications that such a contamination could bring can
be found in the convoluted passage where Boccaccio, in the Genealogie
deorum gentilium, tried to explain the nature and function of Fama to
his readers.
In this text, Fama appears as a genuine mythological character—as one of
the gods that had populated the religious universe and figurative imagery of
the ancients. An entire fabula is dedicated to her, the ‘daughter of the Earth’.23
As for all personages whose feats this work recounts in detail, the genealogical
position of Fama is also displayed graphically in the first of the trees drawn by
Boccaccio on fol. 11v of the Laurentian autograph.
During the long period in which Boccaccio, starting in the mid-fourteenth
century, wrote the Genealogie deorum gentilium, the iconography of Fama-
Glory did not yet exist.24 In fact, as we have already seen, this personification
would only have been created later, after heterogeneous models like that of
the ‘Gloria del popol mondano’ described in Boccaccio’s own Amorosa
visione. The only two descriptions of Fama that he knew at the time were
those by Virgil and Ovid; and therefore, confronted with the need to describe
his character, Boccaccio relied on these very models, which he also cites
in full (2 and 11). However, his long discussion is entirely focused on
explaining the Virgilian portrait, while the passage from book 12 of the
Metamorphoses is rapidly set aside with the simple remark that its meaning
is clear to anyone.25
Boccaccio’s long chapter is thus reduced to a complicated attempt to explain
the passage in book 4 of the Aeneid, through the filter of another text, used to
cleverly manipulate several details of the description, thanks to an interpretive
allegorical technique. In fact, to better frame the genealogical placement of his
character, Boccaccio integrated Virgil’s scant information with another brief
fabula, attributed to Paul of Perugia, whose content is presented at the very
beginning of the section dedicated to Fama.26 This fabula consists of a

23
Specifically, fabula 10 of book 1, which is subdivided into no fewer than thirteen chapters in
Zaccaria 1998, 118–26 (all further citations are drawn from this edition). Although he was
inspired by Virgil’s genealogical suggestion, according to which Fama would have been the
youngest daughter of the Earth, Boccaccio significantly modified the order of birth: Fama is
actually the second of the children that the Earth would have generated ex incognitis parentibus:
born after Night, she would have come before Tartarus, Tages, and Antaeus.
24
On the complex dating of the Genealogie, see Zaccaria 1998, 1592–9 (with references to
earlier literature).
25
‘Satis hec etiam minus erudito patentia sunt’ (12).
26
The quotation (perhaps literal) of the brief text related in paragraphs 1–2 would come from
the Collectiones, the great mythological work by Paul of Perugia, Robert of Anjou’s librarian.
Boccaccio himself informs us of this text, in the section of the Genealogie where he acknowledges
his sources (15.6.8). It would have been a large treatise, in which Paul would have gathered the
334 Word of Mouth

summary of the dispute between Jupiter and the Titans: at the end of the
conflict (which Jupiter won), Earth, the mother of the Titans, as she was
unable to fight on equal terms with the Olympian gods, tried to avenge herself
by giving birth to Fama, who was destined to expose their crimes (‘scelerum
superum relatricem’, 2).27
Starting from these premises, Boccaccio moves on to an analytical inter-
pretation of the general characteristics and meaning of this figure. In doing so,
he passes seamlessly from describing the functions of the messenger created by
Virgil to a description of a figure of renown and glory. Initially (4–5), he
furnishes the reader with a complex allegorical explanation of, on the one
hand, why Virgil says that Earth begat Fama, exasperated by the anger that the
gods had shown towards her sons (‘ira irritata deorum’); and, on the other,
why Paul calls Fama the divulger of the Olympians’ crimes (‘scelerum
superum relatricem’). The gods’ fury would represent the unfavourable influ-
ence that, according to men, the stars have on their lives. One of the main
manifestations of this negative influence would be the disappearance and the
passage into oblivion of moral and illustrious personages who popular opinion
states deserved to become immortal. In turn, the angry Earth would represent
a proud man (‘animosus homo’), made of earth and connected to the earth. The
vision of death would motivate this man to perform meritorious acts, so that
fama would allow his name to survive even after his body no longer existed,
thus avenging his disappearance: this is why Fama would have been introduced
as ‘ultricem future mortis’.28
Immediately after this (6), Boccaccio tries to explain why Virgil called Fama
an evil (malum). In reality, only the renown that someone attempts to acquire
through deception, violence, and crime would be a negative thing; it would be
wrong to judge renown acquired through virtue in the same way. Therefore,

fabulae that he drew from poetic and historical works of various origins, integrating them with
what he could find in a few Greek texts, which he would have been informed of by the famous
scholar Barlaam of Calabria. Boccaccio would have consulted the manuscript of these Collec-
tiones when he was still very young (‘iuuenculus adhuc’), coming across various references to
unusual sources (above all, the work of an otherwise unknown Theodontius: on this, see Pade
1997, Funaioli 2011, and Guida 2014, 22–6). It is difficult to judge the reliability (or indeed the
very existence) of a work like the Collectiones, given that, as Boccaccio explains, it would have
disappeared after Paul’s death (Boccaccio blames Paul’s wife for this: ‘Bielle, impudice coniugis
crimine’).
27
Again in 1.11.1, deferring to the authority of Theodontius and Barlaam, Boccaccio says that
the next child of the Earth, Tartarus, would have remained in the maternal womb: Lucina would
have refused to allow his birth, in order to punish his mother for producing Fama, who was born
to discredit the gods (‘ob id quod Famam in deorum ignominiam peperisset’).
28
Towards the end of the chapter, however, Boccaccio states that Fama would have been
introduced by the ancients as daughter of the Earth because she originates from what is
accomplished on Earth (‘ex gestis in terris’, 12).
 Contaminations 335

Boccaccio reasons, Virgil must have been mistaken to use the term fama
instead of infamia, the concept to which he should have referred.29
So far, through an efficient use of allegorical interpretation, Boccaccio has
reduced Fama to a figure of renown. According to the medieval cliché that
I examined at length in the preceding chapters, men, who are devoted to
worldly goods, would try to reach her in order to escape the confines of their
mortal lives. Central to this first introduction of the character is the strong
link between man and earth, while the struggle between man and the stars/
gods is played around the cardinal theme of death and survival over time.
The fact that the value of renown is considered by Boccaccio in positive
terms leads to the correction of Virgil’s definition, according to which Fama
would be an evil. Thus Virgil is deemed responsible for a presumed
error, which obviously is not the case, given that in book 4 of the Aeneid
Fama-Renown is not mentioned: instead, the monster with countless eyes,
tongues, and ears is a figure that was invented to represent insidious and
noxious rumour.
However, in the next part of his fabula Boccaccio seamlessly moves on to
describe Fama as a figure that circulates talk and information, in strict
adherence to Virgil’s narrative scheme. From this perspective, he explains
the initial fear (‘metu primo’) that would accompany the learning of any
piece of news; the lifting of talk into the air, or rather, the growth and
propagation of what is being related (‘ampliationem locutionis gentium’);
Fama’s simultaneous advance across the earth and sky, that is, the way she
refers to both men of low social ranking and individuals in elevated positions
(7); and finally her wings and her monstrous speed and relentlessness (8–10).
Boccaccio also alludes to two of the recurring topoi related to the circulation
of information: the fact that fama makes no distinction between truth and
falsehood, instead tending to take all that she reports for granted (10),
and the fact that the absence of an auctor makes her similar to someone
without a father (13).
A particularly elaborate device is used to explain why so many organs of
reception/transmission would be hidden beneath each of the feathers of
Virgil’s monster (8). Boccaccio believes this is a metaphorical way of under-
standing the plurality of the chatter that unites to produce Fama. Each feather
on Fama’s body would have a mouth, eyes, and ears, and therefore constitute
the symbolic image of each person (‘hominum effigiem’)—reduced, as it were,

29
Even further on (12), Paul of Perugia’s reference to the fact that Fama would divulge the
shameful behaviour of the gods (‘turpia deorum facta narraret’) is explained as a reference to the
defamation (‘infamia’) with which the weakest individuals (‘minores’) would try to get revenge
on those whose strength they could not compete with.
336 Word of Mouth

to his or her communicative organs—who contributes to the manifold

production of the talk being circulated.30
Clearly, this entire interpretative profile embraces two different planes of
reference that are intertwined with each other without any particular rhet-
orical ingenuity. The Fama whose meaning Boccaccio wants to explain to us
seems to be a slightly forced mixture of two different cultural phenomena that
share the same name and mechanism of transmission, which is founded on the
collective production of talk.
Boccaccio inserts a vulgarized form of almost the entire passage we have
just outlined into his Expositions on Dante’s Comedy, while discussing canto
2 of the Inferno, specifically lines 58–60. In these lines, Dante refers to the
renown (fama) that Virgil still enjoys on earth.31 Boccaccio introduces and
closes the excerpt with two definitions of the term fama that are particularly
interesting because they better highlight the transmission mechanism of talk,
in order to justify the link between the semantic branches of renown and
rumour to which the term fama can refer. From the first of these definitions,
it seems rather clear that Boccaccio’s discussion mainly concerns the renown
that men acquire through meritorious actions; the unique nature of fama is
also indicated by the fact that these deeds are spoken of and continue to be
related (88):
La qual cosa [i.e. ‘essere famoso’], quantunque ad ogni uomo, il quale ha senti-
mento, molto piaccia, sopra a tutti gli altri piacque a’ Gentili, li quali, non avendo
alcuna notizia della beatitudine celestiale, la quale Idio concede a coloro li
quali adoperano bene, quelli cotanti li quali virtuosamente adoperavano, a fine
d’acquistar fama il facevano, e quella vedersi avere acquistata con somma letizia
ascoltavano. È la Fama un romore generale d’alcuna cosa, la quale sia stata
operata, o si creda essere stata, da alcuno, sì come noi sentiamo e ragioniamo
delle magnifiche opere di Scipione Africano, della laudevole povertà di Fabrizio e
della fornicazione di Didone e di simiglianti.
Although such a thing [i.e. being famous] appeals to all of those with judgement,
it appealed most of all to the Pagans, who, knowing nothing of the heavenly
blessing God gives to whoever acts correctly, when acting virtuously did so in
order to acquire fama, and were extremely happy to hear that others recognized

30
‘Unumquenque de aliqua re loquentem pennam unam addere Fame, et sic ex multis, cum
multe sint auium penne, non ex paucis Fama conficitur.’ The interpretation of the reference to
the continuous vigilance of all the eyes scattered on Fama’s body is curious (9). According to
Boccaccio, a rumour would succeed in being spread only when produced by alert individuals
who keep their interlocutors awake, whereas sleep-inducing talk would extinguish the rumour
(‘si in somnum tendet locutio, euestigio fama uertetur in nichilum’).
31
58–60: ‘O anima cortese mantoana, / di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura, / e durerà
quanto ’l mondo lontana’ (italics mine). Boccaccio restates these lines in a barely different form:
‘La cui fama nel mondo ancora dura’, ‘E durerà mentre il mondo lontana’. The notes that are of
interest here appear in chs. 86–108 of the Padoan 1965 edition, pp. 114–20.
 Contaminations 337
they had obtained it. Fama is the diffusion everywhere of news of whatever has
been done, or whatever people think was done, by someone, as happens when we
hear of and recount the magnificent feats of Scipio Africanus, the noble poverty of
Fabricius, or the illicit love of Dido, and other such things.
It is certainly important that, in order to refer to the episode from book 4 of
the Aeneid, which he discusses just after, Boccaccio associates the infamous
tale of Dido’s forbidden love (‘fornicazione’) to those glorious stories that
relate the noble deeds of heroes like Scipio and Fabricius: at the base of the
transmission of all these tales is the common mechanism of ‘romore generale’,
of which fama would consist. The positive or negative valuation of the actions
being recorded for posterity seems to be involved in the communicative
exchange, described in two stages: listening (‘sentire’) and speaking (‘ragio-
nare’). Expressed in this way, the entire definition still remains part of the
cliché of renown, understood as an inadequate surrogate for the more authen-
tic compensation of human merits that can only come from God (‘beatitudine
celestiale, la quale Idio concede a coloro li quali adoperano bene’).
The classification of the terminology related to the celebrity of great per-
sonages, which Boccaccio attempts at the end of his commentary on the lines
where Dante speaks of Virgil’s persistent fama (101–8), is much more chal-
lenging. According to Boccaccio, the four different terms related to human
glory—honour, praise, fama, and glory (‘onore e laude e fama e gloria’)—
should be kept distinct, but some people try to use them as if they had the
same meaning.32 Their classification is achieved by placing these forms of
approval in contrast to each other, according to a curious criterion: whether
they are ‘in the presence’ or ‘in the absence’ of their intended recipient.
‘Honour’ would be the recognition that is given to someone in his presence
(for example, the triumph accorded Scipio Africanus on his return from
his victory over Carthage); ‘praise’ would be acclaim given in someone’s
absence.33 On the other hand, ‘glory’ would be the commendation, admiration,
and respect that are given to men of virtue, while they are still alive, because of
their merits.34 Lastly (108):
‘Fama’ è quello ragionare che lontano si fa delle magnifiche opere d’alcun valente
uomo e che dopo la sua vita persevera nelle scritture di coloro li quali in nota messe
l’hanno, spandendosi per lo mondo e molti secoli continuando.

32
‘E questo dico, per ciò che già alcuni indifferentemente posero l’un nome per l’altro, de’
quali forse furono di quelli che non sapevano la differenza’ (103).
33
When these commendations are expressed in the presence of the person concerned, they
are transformed into flatteries (‘lusinghe’).
34
‘La “gloria” è quella che delle ben fatte cose da’ grandi e valenti uomini, essendo lor vivi, si
cantano e si dicono, e l’essere con ammirazione dalla moltitudine riguardati e mostrati e reveriti’
(107). (This text appears incongruous from a grammatical standpoint.)
338 Word of Mouth
‘Fama’ is that talk about the exceptional deeds of a virtuous man, that spreads far
and continues after his life through the writing of those who put them on the
page, letting them diffuse through the world and persist for many centuries.
Here it is not necessary to linger on the bizarre criterion followed by Boccaccio
in his artificial distinction between the two pairs ‘honour’-‘praise’ and ‘glory’-
‘fama’. What is most interesting here is that once again, at the base of the
Boccaccian definition of ‘fama’, is the talk (‘ragionare’) of someone’s deeds,
which even circulates long after the actions themselves have occurred. This
talk is extended in time thanks to literature, which makes a pivotal contribu-
tion to spreading it and making it endure.35
We might therefore say that, for Boccaccio, fama was chiefly the talk of
someone’s actions that endures over time, especially after his or her death. In
his attempt to integrate all of the ideas that had come to him from earlier
tradition into his own definition, Boccaccio included all he had at his dispos-
ition. In this way, both the elements that recall the sphere of rumour and those
related to the sphere of renown were conveniently manipulated, thanks to the
artifices allowed by allegorical interpretation, and then merged into a singular,
absolutely original presentation.

9.2.2. Pegasus, in figura famae constitutus

Let us return to the Genealogie. Boccaccio also speaks of fama in other parts of
this work, both in order to refer to a later personification of it that appears in
Statius’s Thebaid, and, especially, to indicate that it was the symbolic meaning of
two different mythological figures: Echo and Pegasus, the winged horse.36 The
more elaborate—and for us, the more interesting—passage is the one dedicated
to the latter (10.27), interpreted as an allegorical figure of the fama of great
deeds.37 For this interpretation, which revisits the fabula that Fulgentius dedi-
cated to Perseus (Myth. 1.21), Boccaccio mainly followed the layout of the

35
See the reflections that Boccaccio dedicates to this same theme at the end of his commen-
tary on canto 4 of the Inferno (59–68 in Padoan 1965, 277–9) and Gen. deor. gent. 14.4.12–14.
36
See Gen. deor. gent. 9.3 (para. 13 in particular), an ample section dedicated to Mars, which
refers, among other things, to the Statian description of the chariot of the god, with Fama
appearing before it (Theb. 3.420–31); 7.59 (3 in particular), a section dedicated to the myth of
Narcissus, in which the character of Echo is considered a figure of fama that is not appreciated by
people who are too focused on enjoying the pleasures of life; 10.27, a section entirely dedicated to
Pegasus, Neptune’s eighteenth son. I will not take into consideration other passages where fama
is mentioned only in passing. See e.g. 11.2.8, where Boccaccio, following Fulgentius (Myth.
1.15.48), explains Clio’s name: ‘Clios enim grece fama dicitur, etc.’
37
10.27.4: ‘Ego hunc equum famam rerum gestarum arbitror, cuius uelocitas per cursum et
uolatum equi huius designatur.’
 Contaminations 339

chapter dedicated to Pegasus by Alberic, that is to say, in the mythographic

work better known today as the Third Vatican Mythographer. In this, we read
that (14.3 Bode):
De sanguine eius [sc. Gorgonis] natus fertur Pegasus, in figura famae constitutus,
qui etiam secundum Remigium fama interpretatur.38 Virtus enim dum omnia
superauerit, et terrorem amputauerit, consequenter famam generat. Vnde et uolare
dicitur, quia fama uolucris est.
They say that from her [i.e. the Gorgon’s] blood was born Pegasus, who
symbolizes fama, and whose name according to Remigius means fama. In
fact, when virtue has managed to prevail over everything and end terror, it
then produces fama. This is why it is also said that he flies, since fama is capable
of flight.
The equivalences on which such an allegorical interpretation of the figure
of Pegasus is founded are recalled, integrated, and analytically justified by
Boccaccio. Ancient poetic fiction would have moulded the figure of the winged
horse in such a way as to create a symbolic image of fama, gifted with
supernatural speed. The winged horse would have been called the son of
Neptune and the Gorgon because fama originates from what happens in the
sea and on earth; his conception would have come about in the temple of
Pallas, meaning that fama is born of feats inspired by wisdom and not by
chance, much less by recklessness, which instead generates infamia (4). His
iron hooves would indicate fama’s tireless circulation, his horns would indi-
cate the superiority of famous men, and his fiery breath would signify the
fervid desire to speak of someone who loves to pass on news (4–5).39 The
Castalian spring, favoured by the Muses and sprung from a strike of his hoof,
would represent the considerable myriad of narrative opportunities (‘abun-
dans dicendi materia’) born every time that someone, spurred on by the desire
to attain fama and worldly glory (‘cupidine fame atque glorie temporalis’),
reaches his goal: the poets are obviously the main authors of such tales. Lastly,
the fact that Pegasus carried Bellerophon and Perseus on his back would
indicate that the desire to obtain glory (‘cupidine glorie’) was what drove
them to complete their deeds.40
The fabula that Boccaccio dedicated to Pegasus continues with a critique of
the use that Alberic (the Third Vatican Mythographer) makes of the etymology

38
See Rem. Autiss. Comm. in Mart. Cap. 2.50.16. Also see Myth. Vat. I, 127 Kulcsár (‘De
sanguine autem Gorgonis natus est Pegasus qui fama interpretatur, et pede suo fontem Castalie
siue Pegaseum produxit, quia uirtus omnia superans bonam sibi adquirit famam.’)
39
Boccaccio inferred these three details from Honorius of Autun’s Imago mundi (1.118, in
PL CLXXII 144D), a work that he quotes and attributes to ‘Anselmus’.
40
On the complex origin of the erroneous belief that Perseus also mounted Pegasus, see
Brink, in Brink and Hornbostel 1993, 12–13.
340 Word of Mouth

of the name Pegasus, proposed by Fulgentius in his ‘Fabula Bellerophontis’.41

To this end, the entire Fulgentian passage is examined according to a typical
allegorical reading: Pegasus, figure of fama (‘in figura fame constitutus’), would
mean ‘eternal spring’ due to the fact that the celebrity of extraordinary men is
never extinguished (‘quia fama egregiorum hominum indeficiens sit’).
Beyond the allegorical screen of the Pegasus figure Boccaccio evidently sees
a positive conception of fama, mainly understood as honourable renown.
While still closely linked to the worldly, temporal dimension, this kind of
fama comes from virtuous, wise, and meditated deeds performed by illustrious
heroes (those typically celebrated by the poets); as such, it is strongly opposed
to the ‘infamy’ generated by reckless initiatives. Although words and writing
still constitute the main vehicle for this renown over time, the virtue that
Boccaccio speaks of once again recalls the conception of worldly glory that
I discussed in the preceding chapters.
Boccaccio’s interpretation, in conclusion, is part of a long and complex
vein of tradition that, starting from the very passages by Fulgentius and the
Vatican Mythographers that we have examined, and later on integrated with
images of ancient numismatic heritage, would eventually introduce the image
of Pegasus as a figure of good (or clear) Fama that men can conquer through
illustrious feats.42

9.2.3. A Farce by Sannazaro

Until now, I have spoken of personifications of Fama whose descriptions we

can read in literary texts, and whose images we can see in various types of
figurative representation. It is known, however, that over the course of the
fifteenth century Fama was also concretely impersonated, especially during
celebratory processions and festivals. What form did a character like this
assume in such contexts? I know of no research expressly dedicated to this
topic and am therefore obliged to refer to a pair of isolated examples, which
are still very useful for illustrating the process of contamination between the
figures of Fama-Rumour and Fama-Glory that I am discussing.
It may seem obvious that in eulogistic contexts, which were often arranged
like actual triumphs, the prevalent role given to the personage of Fama had to
be that of bringing about and divulging the glory of sovereigns, princes, and
warriors. But as we will see, even in this setting the striking characteristics of

41
Myth. 3.1: ‘Pegasum, quasi pegaseon, id est fontem aeternum.’
42
See Reinach 1920, 212–14, Steadman 1958, Decker 1997, 38, 63–4, 109–11. One of the best-
known images where Pegasus, along with Mercury, is a figure of ‘Fama Chiara’ is the one that
accompanies the entry ‘Fama Chiara nella medaglia di Antinoo’ in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia
(from the 1603 edition on): see the Maffei and Procaccioli 2012 edition (pp. 178 and 686–7, nn.
8–9) and Brink, in Brink and Hornbostel 1993, 13–18.
 Contaminations 341

Virgil’s figure are either added to the image of the winged goddess, who uses
her trumpet to amplify the renown of powerful men, or even replace the more
typical features of Fama-Glory. This is what happens in Iacopo Sannazaro’s
farce (‘farsa’) Il triunfo della Fama, which was put on at Castel Capuano in
Naples, during the 1492 carnival, to celebrate the recent capture of Granada.43
The festival’s nature was revealed immediately by its set pieces, whose main
element consisted of a triumphal arch, placed at the back of the hall, which
bore (among other things) an inscription praising the Catholic Kings and their
victory. The first to come out from this arch was the goddess Pallas, who told
the story of the battle where she managed to chase Muhammad’s followers out
of Spain. At the end of her introduction, during which she portrayed herself as
favourably disposed towards all those seeking to procure themselves glory
(‘amica / di quei che con fatica cercan fama’, 13–14), Pallas announced the
reward that awaited the nobles present, if their virtue guided them to follow in
her footsteps (55–9):
Ecco qui ’l pregio
ecco qui l’alto segio il qual vi chiama
ecco qui la gran Fama trïunfante
che vien con sue volante argute penne
lodando il Re che sì gran palma ottenne.
Here is the praise, here is the throne to which you are called, here is the great
Fama who comes in triumph, brought flying here by her loquacious feathers, to
praise the King who obtained such great victory.
At this point, accompanied by the blast of trumpets and the sound of flutes,
the triumphal chariot came out from the arch, guided by two giants and pulled
by two elephants. On it was the figure we are interested in:
e lì sopra sedeva la Fama molto pomposamente vestita, puro in la forma che stanno
le statue, e avea sotto le braccia due ale grande, ma piegate, che non pareano si non
quando ella <le> volea alzare; e dette ale erano de oro con molti occhi et orecche e
lingue depente fra le penne, e di sopra portava uno grandissimo manto rivoltato
indrieto, che davante non nascondeva punto del corpo; e portava in testa una
corona de lauro e di certo fiore che li antiqui chiamavano amaranto.44

43
This was the second of the two celebrations of the occasion, held on 4 March and 6 March
1492. The account of the celebrations is found in the letter that Iacopo Sannazaro sent to Isabella
del Balzo (princess of Altamura and Frederick of Aragon’s wife), who was far from Naples. This
letter contains the lines of two of Sannazaro’s farces put on for the occasion: The Capture of
Granada (not the original title, only assigned to the text by modern editors) and The Triumph of
Fama. The texts are quoted according to the Mauro 1961 edition. On the characteristics of the
Neapolitan ‘farce’ in the Aragonese court, see Bersani 1983 (esp. 62–9; also see Bianchi 2009,
59–61). On the Triumph of Fama, see Bersani 1982, 527–9, Pieri 1985, 64–7, Nocilli 2005, 42–3
and 46, Hardie 2012, 412–14.
44
I quote from Mauro 1961, 289.
342 Word of Mouth
And on it was seated Fama, splendidly attired, in a pose typical of statues. Under
her arms were folded two great wings, which could be seen only when she made
to raise them. And those wings were golden, adorned with many eyes, ears, and
tongues drawn among the feathers. She wore a great mantle, gathered at the back,
that in front left her body entirely exposed. On her head, she had a crown of laurel
and those flowers that the ancients called amaranthus.
Both Pallas’s promise and the arrangement of the splendid procession, so
similar to that of the many Triumphs of Fama described in the preceding
chapter, set the scene for a figure destined to bestow glory on the members of
the houses of Castile and Aragon. But the iconography of the personage who
entered the room had none of the details that characterize typical images of
Petrarch’s Fama, with the exception of her luxurious clothing, and seems
instead to direct us firmly to Virgil’s model.
Coherently with this presentation of the personage, Sannazaro had Fama
pronounce verses where she herself was described as a lady of words and
language, who tours the world gathering information on the activities and talk
of men (60–86):
La Fama io son, la qual volando giro
intorno al mondo, e ciò che fra’ mortali
se dice o fa, intenta ascolto e miro.
Sotto le penne de le mee grand’ale
orecchie, occhi e lingue son nascoste,
cussì nuncie de ben come de male. 65
Non si fan cose occolte o sì reposte,
né si parla sì bascio in parte alcuna,
ch’io non sappia demande e le resposte.
Col capo iungo al cerchio de <la> luna
quando mi piace, e coi piè vo per terra, 70
e corro ovunche corre la Fortuna.
Né si contratta mai pace né guerra,
ch’io non <la> sappia e ch’io non la redica,
e qual parte s’inalza e qual s’atterra.
Di tempo e d’anni son vecchia et antica, 75
ma sempre ingiovenesco a le novelle
e di mutazïon son sempre amica.
Tutti i linguaggi intendo e le favelle,
tutti li parlo, e sono in ogni loco,
e cossì viglio al sol com’a le stelle. 80
Non s’affatica il mondo assai o poco,
che da me non se aspette il premio grande,
tal ch’i pericli fo parere un ioco.
Indi la voce mia tanto si spande
e nel parlar tanto più forza acquisto, 85
quanto più avvien che me allontani o ande.
 Contaminations 343

I am Fama, and I go flying around the world, intent on listening to and watching
what is said or done among men. Under the feathers of my great wings are hidden
ears, eyes, and tongues, which announce both good and bad news. So nowhere is
there anything that is done hidden and in secret, or any word that is spoken so
softly that I do not know the whole of it. With my head I can touch the moon,
when I want, and with my feet I proceed on earth, racing everywhere that Fortune
runs. There is no peace-treaty or declaration of war that I do not know of and
make known to others, as well as who is winning and who loses. I am old and
weighed down with years, but upon hearing new things I always become young
again, and I always love changes. I understand all languages and all accents,
I speak them all and I am everywhere, and I keep watch day and night. Whether it
toils little or much, the world expects great rewards from me, and this makes
every risk seem like a game. Then, the more my voice is spread, and the more
strength my speech acquires, the further away I happen to move.
In this first part of Fama’s speech the emphasis is exclusively on the act of
gathering information that concerns the talk of men and the variety of deeds
they are responsible for. Only in the last two tercets quoted do we move from
the description of the ‘receptive’ phase of Fama’s activity to the phase where
she moves on to the actual transmission of the gathered information. It is in
this activity that we find the glorifying function that both Pallas’s introduction
and the triumphal chariot left understood as exclusive to Fama. The great
rewards (‘premio grande’) that human feats would obtain would consist of the
progressive expansion and intensification of the goddess’s voice, as she recounts
them while travelling around the world. In this way, we see that the typical roles
of the ‘Virgilian’ and ‘Petrarchan’ Fama are merged once again, thanks to their
common matrix: that is, their activity spreading information and news.45
However, at the end of his ‘farsa’ Sannazaro does not forget to highlight the
precariousness of the talk that this Fama would be capable of. Once she left the
scene, accompanied by the inevitable sound of trumpets and pipes, Apollo
entered. The god, who would have finished his long speech by singing and
playing the viola, in a way appropriated all the typical functions of the goddess
that came before him. In fact, he presented himself as guarantor of the stability
of spoken words, as it is only thanks to song and writing (‘e col mio canto’,
‘e con l’inchiostro’, 143–4) that they can flee their inevitable destiny: that of
dissolving into smoke (‘gire in fumo’, 139). Thus the show ended with a
reference to literature, which, other than being the true depository of memory

45
Fama’s speech then continued with the narration of the defeat suffered by the Muslims,
thanks to a feat that was deemed superior to all those celebrated in the past by illustrious men
who were saved from death by Fama. See ll. 105–7: ‘or son de vita e non de gloria privi / Cesare,
Scipïon, Camillo e Mario, / e mill’altri che for nel mondo divi.’ Obviously, Fama’s speech ended
with praise for the house of Aragon, which thanks to the two Ferdinands, the Catholic King, and
the King of Naples, would have been destined to be ‘sì glorïosa, / che, mentre il mondo fia, con
chiara tromba / serrai sempre immortal in versi e ’n prosa’ (ll. 126–8).
344 Word of Mouth

that endures over time, also manages to extend the memory of poets and
historians, which their accomplishments were able to rescue from oblivion
(146–53):
Ogne gran cosa,
quantunca glorïosa et eccellente,
quantunca fra la gente sia pregiata,
si non è illustrata in chiaro stile
d’un bel parlar gentile in la mia corte 150
sùbito sente morte. Inde fo lieti
istorici e poeti, e loro affanni
vivon mille e mill’anni.
Everything that is great, even when it excels and obtains glory and when it is
appreciated by men, if it is not rendered illustrious by good noble speeches and
brilliant style, in my court it quickly experiences death. This is why I favour
historians and poets, and their efforts live for thousands of years.

9.2.4. Fama Rewards the Winner of the Joust

Even if we can easily imagine it, we do not know for certain how the costume
worn by Fama’s impersonator for the Castel Capuano festival, described in
such detail by Sannazaro, would have looked. We unfortunately have no
figurative documentation of that event.
However, such documentation does exist for another festive occasion
that pre-dates the Neapolitan performance by several years. I refer to the
joust that concluded the celebrations of the marriage of Costanzo Sforza and
Camilla of Aragon in Pesaro. These events preceded and accompanied the
nuptials between 26 and 30 May of 1475, and there is a very detailed account
of them in a text that also contains all the poems composed and recited for
the occasion.46
The various phases of the celebration were interspersed with dances and
banquets, introduced by allegorical performances designed to give homage to
the wedded couple and their guests. We can get a rather precise idea of the
form in which the various allegorical figures designed for the occasion
appeared to the spectators: not only do we have access to meticulous descrip-
tions in the text that recount the individual moments of the celebration, we also

46
The text also circulated in print, in an edition from Vicenza that came out less than six
months after the event (‘Ab Hermano Leuilapide Coloniensi, Triumphi Hymeneii illustris
principis pisaurensis liber insignis accuratissime impressus est Vicentie: Anno domini.
M.CCCC.LXXV, die nona Nouembris’). The quotations that follow are drawn from one of the
two copies of this edition, kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence (shelf mark E.6.4.71), fol.
e7v–f2r (I have standardized the writing of v/u).
 Contaminations 345

have their splendid accompanying illuminations, from a manuscript prepared a

few years after the event (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, Urb. Lat. 899).47
The personage of Fama appeared during the episode of the joust that
concluded the celebrations on 30 May. The triumphal chariot that transported
the figure of the goddess, to the sound of pipes and trumpets, appeared during
the preparations for the competition. The description of the vehicle and the
allegorical figures found on it is fairly faithfully reproduced by the illustration on
fol. 119r of the manuscript, which depicts the ‘Triumphus Famae’ (Fig. 9.10).
Emerging from the second of the platforms that support the structure on
which Fama is placed are the winged Cupids who blow into little golden
trumpets (‘quatro spiritelli cum capigliare et ale d’oro, et ciascun di loro una
trombeta d’oro in mano’): hung on these trumpets are red standards whose
shape might vaguely recall the outline of little wings. Two silver harpies
support a sphere that represents the world (‘figurata per la terra’): on this we
find the figure of Fama, with peacock wings and holding a golden trumpet.48
The peacock wings can be considered a distant echo of the myth of Argos,
whose eyes ended up, according to Ovid’s version, among the feathers of
Juno’s sacred bird.49 This detail might be an indirect reference to the multitude
of eyes scattered over the Virgilian Fama’s body.
Located beneath the goddess triumphant are three ancient armed warriors
(‘armati a l’anticha richissimamente’), who constitute a select group from the
category of illustrious men: Scipio, Alexander, and Caesar. In the illustration
we can only see one of them in his entirety; we just barely glimpse the heads of
the other two.50
When the chariot reached the centre of the area where the combat was to
take place, Fama recited fifteen tercets that described the function she had
been called to carry out. She had been about to return to heaven, abandoning
the mortals and arriving at her eternal seat (‘dove ho mia vera eterna et summa
sede’), discouraged after seeing the idleness of humanity: men were no longer
seeking the reward of true glory. But then her desire to honour the jousters had

47
The manuscript, ‘scripto de mano di Lionardo da Colle servitore dello illustrissimo signor
Costantio’ and containing thirty-two illuminations, was written in Pesaro and completed in
1480. See De Marinis 1946, vii–viii and Bridgeman 2013, 13–16.
48
‘ . . . cum le code levate in alto facevano sostegno ad una grandissima balla tonda, la qualle
era tuta d’azuro et color d’aqua, excepto quella parte di terra che è habitata et scoperta da l’aqua:
la quale era tuta figurata secundo la cosmographia; et sopra questa, figurata per la terra, era una
bellissima dona vestita d’argento cun capegliare d’oro et frigie d’oro et ale grandissime di pavoni
cum una trombeta in mano fornita d’oro, che presentava la Fama’ (‘ . . . with their [sc. the
harpies’] tails raised high, they supported a great round sphere: this was all blue and water-
coloured except for the part of the Earth that is inhabited and uncovered by water, all decorated
in accordance with cosmography. And above that representation of the earth was a beautiful
woman clad in silver with golden hair and headdress and great peacock wings, a gold-covered
trumpet in her hand, who portrayed Fama’).
49
See Ch. 6, sec. 6.3.5, n. 57.
50
For a more complete description of the illumination, see Bridgeman 2013, 159–60.
346 Word of Mouth

Fig. 9.10. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Urb. Lat. 899, fol. 119r. Triumphus Famae.
© 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, with all rights reserved).
 Contaminations 347

drawn her to that place. This preamble was followed by the goddess’s actual
self-introduction (10–27):
Io sum la dea, che in ogni gentil pecto, 10
Et valoroso, pongon el mio nume,
Chiamando ad alta impresa, et gran concepto.
Fama è il mio nome, et do splendore, et lume
Ad ogni mortal opra, et folla aperta,
Per quanto el mar circunda, el sol alume. 15
Chi laude aprexia, ben constante, e certa
Et del mio nome accura più non tema
Che sua virtù da morte sia coperta.
Ben che l’avara terra, el corpo prema,
Di man gli trago, et faciolo immortale, 20
Però di me, la morte, el mondo trema.
Cum questo carro eterno, e triumphale
La terra, e el cel circundo, et parlo, et sono,
Niuno indegno in questo luocho sale.
Cum mille lengue, et boche, anchor ragiono, 25
Et di lor laude, et libri empio, et honori,
Sì che per tuto se ne sente el tono.
I am the goddess who puts her power in all noble and valiant hearts, calling them
to great feats and noble schemes. Fame is my name, and I give splendour and
radiance to all mortal deeds and great crowds as far as the sea encircles and the
sun gives light. He who treasures sure and constant praise, and looks after my
name, need fear no more that death will hide his virtue. Although the greedy
earth covers his body, I snatch him from its hands and make him immortal. And
so death and the world tremble before me. In this eternal and triumphal chariot I
encircle the earth and sky, and speak and sound. No one unworthy may ever
reach this place. With a thousand tongues and mouths, I still talk and fill the
books with honours and praise of them so that everyone hears their sound.
The goddess introduced herself as a figure of Glory who rewarded the great
deeds of men and, predictably, asserted her jurisdiction over the whole world
and her ability to pull human virtue away from the power of death. The
personage was conceived of according to the ‘Petrarchan’ model of Worldly
Glory, whose main features can also be seen in the structure of the triumphal
chariot and the four winged putti playing little trumpets. It was only when
Fama described how she made the virtue of men known that a specific trait
from Virgil’s model was introduced: the thousand tongues and mouths (‘Cum
mille lengue, et boche’).51 On this occasion, too, as in Sannazaro’s farce, it was

51
This is not a predictable choice. To give just one example of a different representation of
the same motif, Serafino Aquilano, in his Rappresentazione della Voluttà, Virtù e Fama, which
was staged in Mantua in 1495 (see Menghini 1894, 265–75), introduced a Fama whose attributes
were two wings and two trumpets. On the lines where the allegorical figure explained how she
348 Word of Mouth

explained that Fama’s talk is eventually entered into books, which contribute
to spreading renown around the world.
Fama continued her speech, inviting the knights to demonstrate their virtue
on the competition field and the judges to objectively evaluate the competitors.
The grand prize would have consisted of the victor’s welcome onto Fama’s
chariot (37–9):
Questo serà de la victoria el segno,
Che fra questi altri electi in questo luocho,
Sedendo el portarò per ogni regno.
This will be the sign of victory: I will carry him, seated among the others selected
here, across all realms.

After the joust, which ended with the triumph of the groom, the victor, along
with the others being awarded prizes, was invited by Fama to climb on to her
triumphal chariot, under her banners and together with the ancient group of
illustrious men:
Splendidi cavalier de excelso core,
Che in questo bel conspecto, et questa giostra
Mostrato havete el vostro bon valore,
Rendendo sperientia, et chiara mostra,
De virtù vostra ormai ve famo degni 5
De questa sedia, et de la gracia nostra.
Montate donca qui sotto mei insegni,
Che con questi altri del collegio antico,
Intendo di portarvi in tuti i regni,
Tal virtù expecta, chi è de virtù amico. 10
Splendid, noble-hearted knights, Who have demonstrated your worth During
this joust and in this great company, Revealing and giving clear indication Of
your virtue, I now declare you worthy Of this seat and of our favour. So climb up
here below my banners, As I intend to bring you to every realm Along with your
ancient peers. Such honour awaits the friends of virtue.
During this entire episode, the figure of the goddess and the triumphal
apparatus that surrounded her constantly remained part of the iconography
of Worldly Fama-Glory. In contrast to what happened in Sannazaro’s ‘farsa’,
on this occasion there was no organic fusion of the functions of this personage
and those of Virgil’s personification into one body. The only detail that
recalled the Virgilian personage was the brief mention of the most significant
of the traits that characterize the monster from the Aeneid: a detail that was

intended to make the virtue of Francesco Gonzaga and the Duke of Calabria known, she spoke
only of her trumpet’s voice (‘Ferando Duca è suo nome beato / Ché mia tuba di lui tanto risona’,
38–9; ‘in cridarlo sempre e farlo eterno, / Non serà mai questa mia tuba ròca’, 56–7).
 Contaminations 349

mentioned in relation to the pervasiveness of the information carried every-

where by Fama.

9.2.5. An Original Trinity: The Triumph of Fama in Los Honores

In the preceding pages I have studied various ways in which the two different
physiognomies of Fama-Rumour and Fama-Renown were combined in medi-
eval art and literature. However, cases also exist where the artists wanted to
keep the typical functions of these two original personifications clearly dis-
tinct, even when they were proposing a unique scene where the effects of both
Fama-Rumour and Fama-Renown were being presented. One impressive
example of this process appears in a splendid sixteenth-century work, with
which I will conclude this section on the diverse combinations of the distinct-
ive traits attributed to the two main personifications of Fama.
I refer to a cycle of tapestries woven for Charles V around 1520 and known
as Los Honores: among these, we find one dedicated to none other than
Fama.52 The entire series was completed in Brussels, probably to celebrate
Charles V’s ascent to the imperial throne in 1519, and his coronation in
Aachen on 23 October 1520 (the date is woven on the tapestry of Fortuna).
While already complete in 1523, due to financial problems the tapestries
were only sent to Spain in 1526, when Charles was in Seville, and they still
appeared in the city inventory of the emperor’s tapestries in 1544.53 The name
of the possible author of the iconographic programme is unknown, despite
the presence in the last tapestry of the series (dedicated to ‘Infamy’) of the
image of an ‘Author’, over whose head is a text that explains the meaning
of the entire cycle. The number of authors of the cartoons that were the basis
for the scene’s figuration is also unknown: it is thought that Bernart van Orley
and Jan Gossaert may be two of them. The execution of the piece was directed
by Pieter van Aelst.54
The tapestry most important for this discussion is the sixth in the series.55
The scene consists of a large building with two galleries, which display a crowd
of authors from antiquity and the medieval period. This building appears more
like a ‘temple’ or ‘theatre’ of Fama than a triumph. Filling the structure are the
‘sources’ of renown, who brandish books and various writing instruments.

52
Delmarcel 2000, 157 called it the most literary work of Flemish tapestry production.
53
Today the cycle is on display at the Palacio de La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia).
54
For a general overview of this cycle and an interpretation of its meaning, see Junquera de
Vega and Herrero Carretero 1986, 35–44, and esp. Delmarcel 2000, 9–17, 29–36 (and in
particular 102–13, the section dedicated to the Fama tapestry).
55
The sequence reconstructed by Delmarcel is the following: Fortuna, Prudentia, Virtus,
Fides, Honor (the central figure of the series), Fama, Iustitia, Nobilitas, and Infamia.
350 Word of Mouth

At the centre of the scene, on the back of an elephant, is the image of Fama
(this time without wings), shown blowing into two trumpets (Fig. 9.11). To
her right is a group of heroes, and to her left a group of heroines, guided by
Pompey and Penthesilea respectively, who both hold up a standard. Six rows
of tongues, eyes, and ears appear on each one.56
Above Fama is an elegiac couplet that explains the act that the goddess is
performing:
Fama uel effractis reuocat quoscumque sepulchris
Hinc laudes illinc probra canente tuba.57
Fama calls everyone back to life, also destroying their tombs, with trumpets that
on one side proclaim meritorious actions, and on the other disgraces.
This figure is a declension of the triumphal scheme that is rather far from the
models typical of Italian tradition. We find the trumpet in the Fama figure’s
hand, in accordance with a layout documented from the beginning of the
sixteenth century on, especially in French territory, and present in tapestry
production in more northern regions.58 The elephant also recalls the symbol-
ism connected to the triumph. Fama is shown wresting a dense crowd of
personages from death: in fact, at her feet we see heroes and heroines from the
past emerging from the earth, as if coming back to life. Yet again, the function
of the trumpets played by this sort of secular divinity is similar to that of the
trumpets played by the angels in depictions of the Last Judgment, although the
return to life of the heroes who have been ‘resuscitated’ in this way will not
be unrestricted by time.59
As the distich above her explains, the two trumpets Fama holds have
opposite functions, on one side dispensing honour and on the other dishonour.
This opposition is not reflected in the distribution of the famous personages
called back to life: figures like Muhammad, Hannibal, and Catiline, in the
lower left part of the tapestry, are mixed in with others like Lucretia, David,
and Judith, whom it would be difficult to consider ‘infamous’.60

56
Similar standards, on which it is possible to distinguish specific attributes of the allegorical
figures to whom the individual tapestries are dedicated, are found next to Fortuna (carrying them
are Julius Caesar and Romilda, and they contain the images of the different ‘faces’ of the moon, in
its various phases), Prudentia (Deborah holds up a banner with the image of Janus; Judas
Maccabeus a banner with the anchor and dolphin associated with the motto ‘festina lente’),
Virtus (Trajan and an unnamed woman hold two pennants with a symbol that is difficult to
interpret), Fides (Scipio Africanus and Tomyris hold up two pennants on which we can read three
Vs, probably equivalents to Virtus), and Iustitia (once again, Tomyris and Scipio are holding
pendants, on which we can see a queen bee surrounded by a ring of bees on a blue background).
57
The tapestry’s spelling of cauente is incorrect.
58
See Ch. 8, sec. 8.4.1, n. 72 and sec. 8.5.4, and Delmarcel 2000, 103.
59
Several of these individuals reach out towards Fama: the first among them are the figures of
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, who are on horseback and stand out in sharp relief.
60
A proper gallery of infamous persons is found in the tapestry of the cycle of the ‘Honores’,
dedicated to a ‘reverse’ triumph of Infamy, conceived according to an iconography entirely
separate from the patterns examined in this book. See Delmarcel 2000, 142–52.
 Contaminations 351

Fig. 9.11. Segovia, Palacio Real de La Granja de San Ildefonso. ‘Los Honores’, Fama
tapestry (detail). © 2015. De Agostini Picture Library/Scala Firenze.

Instead, the contrast between positive and negative fama is created through
the two flying figures that appear above, to the left and right respectively of the
viewer. On one side we find Perseus riding a Pegasus-unicorn, holding the
Medusa’s decapitated head: this is a figure of ‘positive Fama’, represented by
reprising the three details of the Pegasus figure that Boccaccio, citing Honorius
of Autun, described in the Genealogie deorum gentilium: the metal covering of
the hooves, the horn, and the fiery breath.61

61
See sec. 9.2.2. As I have mentioned, in medieval tradition Pegasus had for some time been
established as a symbol of ‘Bona Fama’ (see Delmarcel 2000, 106). In rare cases, Pegasus is also
found yoked to the triumphal chariot that transports Fama: see Masséna and Müntz 1902,
201, 225.
352 Word of Mouth

On the other side we see a monstrous female being with goat’s feet: the
writing Mala Fama appears by her head. This image has several traits rather
similar to those of the monster that appears in the engraving of Sebastian
Brant and Johann Grüninger’s edition of Virgil, which had been published
about twenty years before (see Fig. 9.1); however, the Mala Fama of the
tapestry lacks both the feathers covering that figure’s bust and the wings at
her feet.
Here, too, there is a distich above each figure summarizing their meanings.
In the case of Perseus and Pegasus, it reads:
Ardua Pegaseo Perseus ad facta uolatu
Accelerans uiuax nomen ad astra tulit.
Moving quickly, thanks to Pegasus’s flight, towards great feats, Perseus carried a
long-lasting name as far as the stars.
In contrast, the negative figure of Fama is accompanied by these lines:
Mendax fama uiros urbes pallacia regna
Territat horrendi nuncia prompta mali.
Lying fama terrorizes men, cities, palaces, kingdoms, immediately announcing
horrible misfortunes.
Pegasus is a figure of fama that helps make the names of heroes live on,
rendering them superior and illustrious; while the monstrous image of Mala
Fama is a figure of false rumour that throws the communities where it is
diffused into chaos.
Unlike the contamination processes that I have spoken of thus far, here we
witness a clear separation not only of the positive and negative roles of Fama,
but also of the diverse personifications known from early tradition. The
‘Petrarchan’ Fama remains at the base of the conceptual system that refers
to the triumph and the continuation after death of the names and remem-
brance of illustrious men: Virgil’s Fama malum is not fused with this figure,
but presented as her negative variant, and as such is found contrasted with the
image of Pegasus, a figure of good Fama.62
The distinctive traits of the Virgilian Fama seem to have become rather
disjointed and then redistributed in a new configuration. The proliferation of
tongues, eyes, and ears, in particular, is separated from the body of Virgil’s
monster and transferred to the standards that Pompey and Penthesilea hold
up on each side of Fama. In this new arrangement, the communicative
mechanism that produces the diffusion of good and bad reputation, of true

62
The distribution into three different figures or allegorical scenes of various aspects of one
concept is found in all the other tapestries: the one dedicated to Nobilitas is particularly elaborate
(see Delmarcel 2000, 125).
 Contaminations 353

and false information, continues to remain at the centre of the scene, but it is
not connected to a ‘body’.
As Guy Delmarcel demonstrated, the main source of inspiration for this
complex combination of figures is, in all probability, none other than Boccaccio’s
mythographic work.63 On the one hand, the artists that realized the icono-
graphic programme of this tapestry used the figure of Pegasus, with the traits
that Boccaccio pulled from Honorius of Autun’s Imago mundi; and on the
other, they redistributed what was found condensed in the fabula from book 1
of the Genealogie (dedicated to Fama, daughter of the Earth) in a new way. We
therefore find ourselves before a sort of deconstruction of Boccaccio’s ‘fabula’.
This iconographic plan places the triumphal scheme of Worldly Glory at the
centre, and the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ poles of Fama are schematically
arranged in an original configuration around it.

63
Delmarcel 1977, 78–81, and 2000, 103–6.
 10

Chaucer, House of Fame

10.1. A PAGAN M AJESTY

10.1.1. An Original Invention

If we venture to explore the various forms of contamination that combined

the distinctive features originally attributed to the personification of Fama-
Rumour or Fama-Glory, we risk losing ourselves in the labyrinth of modern
culture where the concept and figure of Fama have undergone an infinite
series of transformations.
For this reason, I will conclude our journey just before the modern period,
with an analysis of a truly extraordinary literary work. Chaucer’s dream poem
The House of Fame will also allow us to review all the themes examined in this
book, precisely because it systematically draws on earlier tradition.1
Inspired by the masterworks of the past, Chaucer combines all the sugges-
tions about Fama’s nature found in classical and medieval texts into one
fantastical tale, which can nonetheless penetrate the extreme complexity
governing the production, dissemination, and survival of information.2 In
this work we see the personifications of Rumour and Glory combined within
the image of the strange divinity who reigns over the House of Fame. At the
same time, we witness the chaotic genesis of the communicative process that
produces, sorts, and keeps news and stories about figures of the past alive.
Chaucer’s strategy for obtaining this highly original result is primarily

1
I will use this title, preferred by Chaucer when he lists his works in the introductory Balade
of the Legend of Good Women (417: ‘the book that hight the Hous of Fame’). As is known,
Chaucer himself, in the Retraction of the Canterbury Tales, calls it ‘the book . . . of Fame’, the title
that was also adopted in the first print editions (beginning with Caxton’s, probably from 1483:
see Boffey and Edwards 2015, 89).
2
As Braudy aptly wrote (1997, 240): ‘Exuberantly intertwining matters that the Middle Ages
had generally kept apart, The House of Fame sets Virgil and Ovid in the light of both Christian
attitudes toward earthly fame and the new aspirations brought onto the literary stage by Dante
and his inheritors.’ See also Minnis 1995, 183–90. For a general overview of the Latin texts whose
echoes may be found in the House of Fame, see Shannon 1929, 48–119 and Hoffman 1979,
185–9.
356 Word of Mouth

founded on the decision to keep separate the place where rumours are
generated and the one where it is decided what information will prevail over
time (thanks also to the instruments of literary writing).
I do not intend to linger on the oft-debated interpretation of the complex
literary machinery that Chaucer devised for his poem, as this would bring us
outside the scope of this book. I am mainly interested in examining the way in
which Chaucer gives a narrative form to the functioning of the phenomenon
we are discussing. In particular, I will concentrate not only on how Chaucer
created a unique personification of Lady Fame, but above all on the fertile
relationship between the two faces of Fama that have been the constant
reference-points of my analysis: Fama-Rumour and Fama-Glory.
Before I begin, we should remember (as Boitani has rightly pointed out) that
Chaucer’s entire creation revolves around a phenomenon primarily con-
sidered in its oral dimension.3 What ultimately gives life to the renown of
figures and events of the past is the tumultuous circulation of a shapeless mass
of ‘talk’ that Fame capriciously allows to be propagated in either a good or bad
light, or to achieve some type of literary consecration.

10.1.2. Geffrey’s Dream

The poem, probably written at the beginning of the 1380s, consists of three
books and uses the classic dream vision to frame the imaginary voyage made
by the poet, whom an eagle carried to the remote House of Fame.4
After a complicated introduction on the variety of visions that appear to
sleepers, the author addresses Morpheus himself, asking for his help in
identifying the meaning of the curious dream he had on 10 December of an
unspecified year.5
The narrator describes finding himself inside a glass temple dedicated to
Venus. It seems to him that this building is full of all kinds of images, beginning
with one of the goddess herself, accompanied by Cupid and Vulcan.6 He reads
the opening lines of the Aeneid on a wall, and then sees that individual episodes
of Virgil’s poem are depicted there.7 Not much space is dedicated to the stories

3
Boitani 1984, 135.
4
A balanced summary of the debate about dates may be found in Havely 2013, 10–12 and
Boffey and Edwards 2015, 87, n. 1.
5
The date is mentioned on two occasions (ll. 63 and 111).
6
‘Withyn a temple y-made of glas’, 120. Quotes from Chaucer’s text are taken from Havely
2013.
7
These various moments in the narrative are introduced by expressions such as ‘Ther sawgh
I grave’ (193), ‘and after this was grave’ (157: see the note in Havely 2013, 168). Taylor 1989, 23–6
proposes considering this way of relating the episodes of the Aeneid—always suspended between
reading and looking—in relation to Dante’s similar approach, on the first terrace of Purgatory,
 Chaucer, House of Fame 357

of Aeneas, with the exception of the episode concerning Dido’s tragic love for
the Trojan hero, which appears in a version more like the one from Ovid’s
Heroides than from Virgil’s poem.8 The queen’s despair is the focus of the tale,
while Aeneas is portrayed mainly as the traitor who misled her. In this portrait
we find only one significant reference to Fame, when Dido reproaches Aeneas
for divesting her of her honour and former good name, forever exposing her to
the malicious gossip propagated by ‘wikke Fame’.9 Our character thus enters
Chaucer’s poem in the guise of Virgil’s Fama-Rumour.10
Upon leaving the temple of Venus and the gallery of stories that crowd it,
the narrator finds himself in a desert, where a golden eagle suddenly lands.11
As book 2 opens, the bird snatches Geffrey up in his talons and transports him
to the House of Fame. This narrative expedient is obviously inspired by the
episode of the Divine Comedy in which Dante dreams of being carried aloft to
the gates of Purgatory by an eagle with golden feathers.12

before the ‘visibile parlare’ (visible speaking) of the bas-reliefs showing the stories of the
Annunciation, of David and the Ark, and of Trajan and the widow (Purg. 10.28–96).
8
See Baswell 1995, 234–5. Lines 378–80 explicitly invite the reader to go and read these two
ancient texts for himself (‘rede’), in order to learn further details about Dido’s story. It is clear
that the Heroides is the main source text from the next section, which recalls the letter the queen
wrote before dying, along with others by various protagonists of Ovid’s elegiac collection
(Phyllis, Briseis, Oinone, Hypsipyle, Medea, Dejanira, Ariadne). On the handling of Dido’s
story in Chaucer’s poem, see Frank 1972, 59–62.
9
The term ‘fame’ appears for the first time in another passage of the poem, where Dido
laments that men accumulate lovers to bring renown to their own name (‘of on he wolde have
fame / In magnyfyinge of hys name’, 305–6), or to gain ‘frendshippe’ (307), physical pleasure,
material advantages (309–10); 345–61: ‘O, weleawey that I was borne! / For thorgh yow is my
name lorne / And al youre actes red and songe / Over al thys londe, on every tonge. / O wikke
Fame!—for ther nys / No thinge so swifte, lo, as she is. / O, sothe ys, every thinge ys wyste, /
Though hit be kevered with the myste. / Eke, though I myght dure ever, / That I have do rekever
I never, / That I ne shal be seyde, allas, / Y-shamed be thourgh Eneas— / And that I shal thus
juged be: / “Loo, ryght as she hath now, she / Wol doo efte sones, hardely”— / Thus seyth the
peple prevely. / But that is do is not to done.’ These lines clearly draw not only on the phrase that
Virgil uses to present his personification in book 4 of the Aeneid (‘Fama, malum qua non aliud
uelocius ullum’, 174), but also on the words with which Virgil’s Dido reminds Aeneas that she
has lost her own ‘pudor’ and ‘fama’ because of him (320–4: ‘te propter Libycae gentes
Nomadumque tyranni / odere, infensi Tyrii; te propter eundem / exstinctus pudor et, qua sola
sidera adibam, / fama prior’).
10
It is important to stress, as did Riedel 1928, 460–1, that this passage makes a clear reference
to Virgil’s description of Fama as an agent promoting the spread of rumours (tongues and gossip
are mentioned). Later, as we shall see, Chaucer’s Lady Fame performs the role of a veritable
goddess of renown.
11
Of all the various possible interpretations of this landscape (Havely 2013, 175–6), I would
lean towards the one that views the desert as a symbol of the barrenness of the poetic imagination
(see Whitehead 2003, 176–7). Geffrey manages to overcome this lack of inspiration with divine
help, which allows him to reach the very source from which stories originate (see also Paxson
1994, 102–4).
12
Purg 9.19 ff. See Taylor 1989, 20–3.
358 Word of Mouth

The bird addresses its passenger by name, as ‘Geffrey’ (729),13 and begins a
long explanation of the purpose of its mission. First of all, it declares it was
expressly sent to Geffrey by its master Jupiter, the god of thunder. Jupiter pities
the poet, the faithful servant of Venus and Cupid, who has passionately and
respectfully devoted himself to writing erotic tales, but has never been reward-
ed (619: ‘withoute guerdon ever yitte’) nor directly experienced the favours of
the god of Love.14 In particular, Jupiter wishes the poet to have direct access to
the place where the stories of lovers (644–5: ‘Tydynges of Loves folke’) are
created, without continuing to look for them in books, as he usually does
(643–60). This place is none other than the ‘House of Fame’ (663), where it is
possible to hear (672: ‘here’) love stories of every kind (674–98).15 Geffrey
sceptically wonders how Fame can obtain so much information (700–6), so
the eagle puts great effort into explaining the complex natural mechanisms
that channel all of it to her palace, which is rather clearly described in Ovidian
terms. Indeed, the building is located between the sky, earth, and sea, precisely
so that it can intercept everything said, anywhere in the world (712–24):
And, so thyn oune boke hyt tellith,16
Hir paleys stant, as I shal sey,
Ryght even in myddes of the wey
Betwexen hevene and erthe and see— 715
That, what so ever in al these three
Is spoken, either prevy or aperte,
The aire therto ys so overte
And stant eke in so juste a place
That every soune mot to hyt pace, 720
Or what so cometh fro any tonge—
Be hyt rouned, red or songe,
Or spoke in suerte or in drede—
Certeyn hyt most thider nede.
In support of this description, the eagle provides a complex explanation of the
theory of acoustics.17 Words are composed of sound, and their substance is
air (762–8). Similarly to the way in which concentric waves spread over a pool
of water when a stone is thrown into it, sound is diffused through space

13
Chaucer also inserts other references to his biographical persona into the tale (e.g. on 652
ff., where he mentions his profession as a controller of customs).
14
627–8 (‘And peynest the to preyse hys arte, / Al though thou haddest never parte’) and
639–40 (‘Al though thou maiste goo in the daunce / Of hem that hym lyst not avaunce’). See also
665–71.
15
As one might reasonably expect in a place ruled by Fama, the ‘tydynges . . . of Loves folke’
are immediately presented (675–6) as a combination of truth and lies (‘Both sothe sawes and
leysinges’): see also 1029.
16
Undoubtedly a reference to the Metamorphoses.
17
For possible sources, see the summary in Minnis 1995, 203–4. According to Bennett 1968,
71–2, this theory could also be an ambitious expansion of the idea in Ov. Met. 12. 39 ff.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 359

(782–842). In this manner, all sounds are channelled towards the House of
Fame (843–52):
And this place of which I telle,
Ther as Fame lyst to duelle,
Ys set amyddys of these three: 845
Heven, erthe and eke the see
As most conservatyf the soun.
Than ys this the conclusyon:
That every speche of every man,
As y the telle first began, 850
Moveth up on high, to pace
Kyndely to Fames place.
This long, elaborate section underscores a fundamental point, namely that
since the spoken word consists of sound, ‘by its nature’ it too moves and
spreads through space, travelling far from whoever produced it.18 The House
of Fame is conceived of as the natural destination of all sounds and, thus, of all
speech. Chaucer justifies his variation on Ovid’s invention with further ‘sci-
entific’ reasoning, whose detailed description comprises a good part of the
eagle’s discourse. Moreover, his text claims to be the direct testimony of
someone who could see the phenomenon with his own eyes, and especially
hear it with his own ears.19
The account of his arrival at the House of Fame also draws directly on
Ovid’s model, and is enhanced by similes that seem intended to exaggerate
the sound-effects of the voices accumulating inside the building. Indeed, the
sound that emanates from this palace is not the subdued, distant one that
Ovid mentions,20 but the uproar of a storm smashing against cliffs or
provoked by a deafening thunderbolt. All the world’s conversations inter-
mingle within this imposing mass of sound, combining words of praise
and blame (‘feire speche and chidynges’), both true and false (‘of fals and
soth compouned’).21
Another narrative element that takes one of Ovid’s ideas to an extreme
concerns the very identity of the conversations that populate the House of
Fame. In his description of the palace atrium, Ovid mentions an indistinct
crowd of rumores intent on exchanging all kinds of information with each
other by word of mouth.22 These scraps of gossip are portrayed almost as if

18
840–2: ‘ . . . every soun . . . / Moveth kyndely to pace / Al up in to his kyndely place’.
19
On 875–84 the eagle says to Geffrey: ‘Thou shalt have . . . / Of every word of thys sentence /
A preve by experience / And with thyn eres heren wel / . . . / That every word that spoken ys /
Cometh in to Fames house, y-wys.’
20
Ov. Met. 12.49–52 (‘nec tamen est clamor’).
21
1025–42 (1028–9 in particular).
22
Ov. Met. 12.53–8: ‘atria turba tenet; ueniunt, leve uulgus, euntque / mixtaque cum ueris
passim commenta uagantur / milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant. / E quibus hi uacuas
360 Word of Mouth

they were people, but the description’s brevity makes it difficult to understand
how far the metaphor can be extended to refer to the anonymous speakers. For
his part, Chaucer prefers to dispel the ambiguity, having the eagle give a
detailed explanation of the curious relationship said to exist between gossip
and the individuals who crowd the House of Fame (1073–82):
But understond now ryght well this:
Whan eny spech y-comen ys
Up to the paleys, anon-ryght 1075
Hyt wexeth lyke the same wight
Which that the worde in erthe spake—
Be hyt clothed rede or blake—
And hath so verrey hys lyknesse
That spake the word, that thou wilt gesse 1080
That it the same body be—
Man or woman, he or she.
This way of registering the inextricable relationship between the speakers and
their talk within the great sea of conversations is later resumed and further
developed at the end of the poem. In its boldness it constitutes one of the most
original literary inventions ever devised to describe the autonomy that char-
acterizes rumours and their unstoppable movement. But it is also a device
capable of giving narrative visibility to the peculiar nature of rumours which,
as we have seen, perform a communicative function in which the boundaries
between the roles of sender, message, messenger, and recipient are continuously
exposed to all kinds of tension.

10.1.3. Inside the House of Fame

The eagle then leaves the poet in front of the House of Fame and promises to
wait for him until the end of his visit.23 We only discover further on that this
is not actually the true destination of the journey Jupiter has arranged for
Geffrey: the visit to the court of Lady Fame is just a necessary step that will
allow him to fully understand the complex mechanism that, through the
circulation of information, results in the development of the renown of figures
and their exploits.
The third and final book of the work begins with the poet asking Apollo to
enter his heart and help him describe the ‘Hous of Fame’ (1091–1109).24

inplent sermonibus aures, / hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti / crescit, et auditis aliquid
nouus adicit auctor.’
23
1086: ‘And here I wol abyden the.’
24
Dante makes a similar invocation at the beginning of canto 1 of the Paradiso (13–36): see
Steinberg 2000, 194–5 and Rossiter 2015, 28–31. Although it is presented as ‘this lytel laste boke’
 Chaucer, House of Fame 361

Walking around the palace, Geffrey sees that it is built on ice foundations
engraved with countless names; but while the names in the castle’s shadow
seem to have been written recently, those exposed to sunlight can barely be
distinguished or are even illegible (1120–64).25 From the outset, the matter on
which Fame is based appears rather insubstantial (‘feble’, 1132).
The building’s walls are made of beryl, a stone described shortly after
(1288–92) as having the power to magnify things, in the same way as Fame
(‘as kynde thynge of Fame is’).26 The innumerable niches in the exterior walls
hold figures of minstrels and jesters, experts in telling (to musical accompani-
ment) every type of story made known by Fame (1200: ‘that longeth unto
fame’). Chaucer divides these tellers of tales into groups, beginning with the
category of celebrated players of stringed instruments (starting with Orpheus
and Arion), and followed by those famed for playing wind instruments
(another category includes players of war trumpets, like Misenus or Joab).
After a vaguely described group of various instrumentalists, the list concludes
with the category of diverse magicians, illusionists, and astrologers.
Having entered the predictably lavish House, the poet finds himself in the
middle of a richly decorated hall occupied by figures dressed as kings and
knights. Yearning for renown (‘name’, 1312), they glorify the sovereign of the
place (1309–13), as do the Muses, who eternally address their melodious song
to the secular divinity enthroned in majesty (1403–6):27

(1093), book 3 is by far the longest in the work: alone it is almost equal in size to the other two
books combined. While the poem is clearly unfinished, the part needed to complete it could not
have been very long (one might imagine roughly no more than c.100 lines): see Minnis 1995, 167.
25
This way of reducing renown’s ability to last over time was by now a topos. Just to give a
few examples (with Bennett 1968, 107, and above all Boitani 1984, 68–9): the text of Cur mundus
militat sub vanagloria (4–5: ‘plus crede litteris scriptis in glacie / quam mundi fragilis vanae
fallaciae’) or Petrarch’s line ‘vidi ogni nostra gloria al sol di neve’ (Triumphus Temporis, 129: see
Ch. 7, sec. 7.3.8). As Boitani 1984, 145–6 notes, the image of ‘gloria mundi . . . quasi quaedam
pulchra et splendens glacies’ may already be found in Robert Holcot’s Super Sapientiam
Salomonis (Cap. II, Lectio XVI D, in Holcot 1489). The Palace of Fortune described in Nicole
de Margival’s Le Dit de la panthère d’amours (Todd 1883, ll. 1963–75) also stands on a mountain
of ice divided into two opposing sides (on the relationships between the two texts, see Baugh
1960, 57–8 and Whitehead 2003, 177–8). The contrast between the sunlit side of the palace and
the one protected by the shadow may be intended to compare the names immediately
‘consumed’ by celebrity with those preserved by fame’s protective ‘shade’ (in any case, the
latter also remain in a rather precarious state).
26
See Patch 1935, 312–14, Stevenson 1978, 20, Erzgräber 1985, 118. According to Boitani
1984, 161, this detail would appear to have no precedent, but see Whitehead 2003, 178–9 (also on
the building’s entire architectural plan).
27
See also 1415–16: ‘And thus fonde y syttynge thys goddes / In nobley, honour and riches.’
Boitani 1984, 172 rightly observes that in Chaucer’s poem, for the first time since antiquity, Fame
has returned as a divinity who merges characteristics drawn from both the Virgilian tradition
and that of the Book of Revelation. On the presence of the Muses in Chaucer’s poem, see the
notes on ll. 520–8 in Havely 2013, 178–9.
362 Word of Mouth

And ever mo, eternally,

They synge of Fame, as thoo herd y:
‘Heryed be thou and thy name,
Goddesse of renoun or of Fame!’
At this point, Chaucer introduces his new personification of Fama. The
‘Goddesse of renoun or of Fame’ appears seated on a ruby throne placed
on a raised platform. While this imperial pose could vaguely recall that
of Boccaccio’s ‘Gloria del popol Mondano’,28 Fame’s physical appearance is
clearly modelled on Virgil’s Fama-Rumour in book 4 of the Aeneid (1368–92):
For, altherfirst, soth for to seye,
Me thought she was so lyte
That the lengthe of a cubite 1370
Was lenger than she semed be.
This was gret marvaylle to me: [she]
Hir tho so wonderly streight
That with hir fete she erthe reight
And with hir hed she touched hevene, 1375
Ther as shynen sterres sevene.
And therto eke, as to my witte,
I saugh a gretter wonder yitte,
Upon her eyen to beholde—
But, certeyn, y hem never tolde, 1380
For as feele yen had she
As fetheres upon foules be,
Or weren on the bestes foure
That Goddis trone gunne honoure,
As John writ in th’Apocalips. 1385
Hir heere, that oundye was and crips,
As burned gold hyt shoon to see—
And, soth to tellen, also she
Had also fele upstondyng eres
And tonges as on bestes heres— 1390
And on hir fete wexen saugh y
Partriches wynges, redely.

28
Cf. 1360–7 (‘But al on hye, above a dees, / Satte in a see imperiall, / That made was of a rubee
all / Which that a carbuncle ys y-called, / Y saugh, perpetually y-stalled, / A femynyne creature,/
That never formed by Nature / Nas suche another thing y-seye’) with Amorosa visione 6.49–61. The
similarities between the Boccaccio character and the hero of Chaucer’s poem are rather superficial,
and there is no real need to imagine a direct relationship between the two texts, or a common
(perhaps figurative) source (see Sypherd 1907, 110–12, Bennett 1968, 135, Wallace 1983, 144–5,
Wallace 1985, 19, Delany 1994, 14, Minnis 1995, 183–4). The most comprehensive discussion of
the relationship between the Amorosa visione and House of Fame is in Wallace 1985, 5–22. Among
other things, Boitani 1984, 45 suggested that Chaucer could also have seen the fresco of Worldly
Glory presumably painted by Giotto in Azzo Visconti’s palace in Milan, but this hypothesis is
impossible, as the building had already been destroyed in 1362, long before Chaucer went to Italy.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 363
Chaucer’s Fame is physically similar to Virgil’s monster,29 but with one
important difference. Eyes, ears, and tongues are no longer scattered all over
the character’s body—they are just disproportionately multiplied, probably
in the same places where these organs would normally appear on a human or
animal body. Moreover, it is the symbolic function of these traits that has now
been significantly altered. In Virgil, Fama’s variable dimensions, ability to fly,
and abundance of eyes, tongues, and ears indicate her capacity for gathering,
reproducing, and propagating information; whereas here these characteristics—
with the help of a powerful intertextual connection—merely lead the reader to
imagine the features of a generically monstrous being.30
This also occurs because Chaucer is not showing us Fama-Rumour, whose
ability to receive and transmit information Virgil highlighted so successfully.
Instead, he transfers the distinctive features of the monster he has taken as a
literary model to a figure that differs from Virgil’s. This process results in an
organic contamination between the two threads of tradition that in antiquity
and the Middle Ages assigned two separate forms to the concept of fama. So
the body of the Virgilian Fama-Rumour is given to an allegorical personifica-
tion who, like Boccaccio’s ‘Gloria del popol Mondano’, assigns humans and
their actions an ephemeral renown from the position of her royal throne.
That Lady Fame performs exactly this task is evident from the detail with
which the poet ends his description. On her shoulders the woman bears the coat
of arms and names (‘On her shuldres gan sustene / Bothe armes and the name’)
of two great figures from classical antiquity, drawn respectively from history and
myth: Alexander the Great and Hercules.31 This curious invention of placing the

29
Chaucer also turns the detail of the eyes scattered all over Fama’s body into a reference to
John’s description of the Tetramorph (Rev. 4.6 and 8: ‘et in circuitu sedis quattuor animalia plena
oculis ante et retro’). The detail of the ‘partriches wynges’ might have resulted from a misinter-
pretation of Virgil’s expression ‘pedibus celerem et pernicibus alis’ (Aen. 4.180), misread as
‘perdicis alis’ (or something of the sort, see Harbert 1974, 146), but it certainly adds a touch of
awkwardness to this monstrous character (see Newman 1980, 232–3). Koonce, however (1966,
212, n. 76), believed that given Chaucer’s correct rendering of the Virgilian expression in Troilus
4.661 (‘with preste wynges’), we should consider the detail an intentional reference to this bird,
known in the Middle Ages for its cupidity and excessive love of the earth (and hence of ‘vanity’).
Indeed, the entire passage from Troilus (659–65) is a generic description of the rapid flight of
Fame, which need not be closely associated with the Virgilian hypotext.
30
See Stevenson 1978, 19. As Bennett 1968, 131 rightly observes: ‘Variable in size, Chaucer’s
“feminyne creature” is fixed in location. She therefore has no need of the pernices alae, the swift
or “preste winges” on which Fama flies in the Aeneid, IV (and in Troilus).’
31
1410–13: ‘On her shuldres gan sustene / Bothe armes and the name / Of thoo that hadde
large fame: / Alexander and Hercules.’ These two characters may be thought of as the two figures
who spread Greek culture (in historical and mythological environments, respectively) through
the known world of the ancients in the most exemplary fashion. Such a choice was probably
intended to allude to a paradigm that can be extended to world’s entire ‘geography’. It is
tempting to view this detail as a way of saying that the goddess’s shoulders support the entire
heritage of tales about figures of the past, be they from history or myth. For a different
interpretation that sees ‘both the worst and the best aspects of the pagan pursuit of glory’ in
these figures, see Koonce 1966, 214.
364 Word of Mouth

memory of someone ‘on the shoulders’ of Fame might also be connected to a

famous line of Virgil’s that concludes the episode of ‘Aeneas’s shield’ in book 8
of the Aeneid. Aeneas has just finished admiring the magnificent weapons given
to him by his mother Venus, but he cannot understand the meaning of the
images that Vulcan chiselled on them, which represent the glorious future of the
Roman people about to be born from the Trojan warrior’s race (626: ‘res Italas
Romanorumque triumphos’). Thus, although unaware of it, Aeneas is placing
the future of Rome on his shoulders when he dons the shield (731):
attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum32
raising upon his shoulders the fame and fate of his descendants.
Chaucer’s Fame does something similar.33 This image is reused again when
the poet turns his gaze from the sovereign’s throne to the strange metal pillars
surrounding it. These pillars support the writers who, in turn, bear the fame of
the greatest legend cycles of the past on their shoulders.34 Chaucer only
describes seven of these pillars, naming the literary figures standing on
them: Flavius Josephus is the leader of the authors who uphold the renown
of Jewish antiquity (‘And he bare on hys shuldres hye / The fame up of the
Jewrye’, 1435–6);35 Statius sustains the fame of the Seven against Thebes;
Homer that of the Trojan War;36 Virgil that of Aeneas; Ovid—called ‘Venus’s
clerk’—that of the god of Love;37 Lucan that of Caesar and Pompey;38 Claudian
that of Pluto and Proserpine. At this point the list of pillars is interrupted: the
narrator explains that, in short, the hall was so full of writers of ancient deeds
that it would be too confusing to hear or even name all these stories.39

32
In his notes ad locum, Servius glosses famam as gloria, and points out that, in his times, the
variant facta (deeds) was attested instead of fata.
33
This is just a suggestion of mine. The origin of this detail could also be connected to other
well-known medieval motifs, like that of the Apostles on the Prophets’ shoulders, or that of the
dwarfs on the shoulders of the giants (see Panofsky 1960, 110 and n. 2).
34
It has been suggested that the inspiration for this narrative invention may also have come from a
classical source: a passage from Horace’s Ars poetica (38–40: ‘Sumite materiam uestris, qui scribitis,
aequam / uiribus et uersate diu quid ferre recusent, / quid ualeant umeri’): see Havely 2013, 206.
35
Besides Flavius Josephus, a further seven unidentified authors are mentioned.
36
The very same function is performed not only by Homer but also by Dares Phrygius, Dictys
Cretensis, Guido delle Colonne, the Englishman Gaunfride (probably Geoffrey of Monmouth), and
the debated figure of a certain Lollius, whom Chaucer also mentions in Troilus (1.394 and 5.1653): in
my opinion, the most convincing theory about the identity of this last figure was proposed a century
ago by Kittredge 1917. For a discussion of Helen Cooper’s recent hypothesis (Cooper 1999, 58–60) of
seeing Chaucer himself in Gaufride (Gaunfride), see Rossiter 2015, 32–4 and Havely 2015, 48–9.
37
The literary figure of Ovid is the one nearest the author’s self-representation on ll. 615 ff.
(see sec. 10.1.2).
38
In addition to Lucan, there is also a collective mention of the ‘clerkes’ who wrote of the
‘myghty werkes’ of Rome, whom Chaucer avoids listing (1503–6).
39
1514–19: ‘The halle was al ful, y-wys, / of hem that writen of the olde gestes / As ben on
treës rokes nestes— / But hit a ful confus matere / Were al the gestes for to here / That they of
write, or how they hight.’
 Chaucer, House of Fame 365

Chaucer describes the great authors of the past in the act of ensuring lasting
fame to ancient mythological and historical deeds. In other words, these
writers are not necessarily famous themselves: instead, they must secure the
renown of the heroes of events from the distant past.40 In the same way, Lady
Fame also provides support to the memory of the people and events of the
past. As we shall see, however, she does this in an extremely peculiar way.

10.2. FAME AND F ORTUNE: A CAPRICIOUS

JUDGMEN T

10.2.1. Sister of Fortune

In the great hall of the House, the narrator sees postulants of all kinds, who,
like swarms of bees, begin to parade before the sovereign, asking her for
favours. This is the longest section of book 3 (1520–1867), and in it Fame’s
true nature is revealed. For the first time we come face to face with a
personification of Fama acting as a judge; this is also the first time we ‘hear’
her speak. The rulings of this figure determine the renown of the various tales
that reach her court.
The goddess responds to the groups of individuals approaching her throne
in one of three ways: she grants some requests, refuses to fulfil others, and
sometimes does exactly the opposite of what is requested (1538–41). The
reason why the sovereign of the palace has such a capricious attitude towards
these characters, all of whom are explicitly said to deserve good reputation,41
remains groundless and unpredictable. She behaves like Fortune, whom Chaucer
explicitly identifies as Fame’s sister.42 The establishment of this kinship
between the two allegorical figures is certainly a complete novelty, but as we
have seen, it has its roots in a long-standing tradition that for several centuries
consistently considered worldly glory as one of the ephemeral, fleeting things
susceptible to the unpredictable upheavals to which human lives are subject.43

40
See Fyler 1979, 62–3. 41
1545: ‘They had good fame eche deserved.’
42
1547–8: ‘Ryght as her suster, Dame Fortune, / Ys wonte to serven in comune.’
43
Various literary examples of the close ties between Fama and Fortune in medieval tradition are
mentioned by Patch 1967, 110–12. Suffice it to remember a passage like Roman de la Rose, 4823–34,
which Chaucer knew well as he had translated it (The Romaunt of the Rose 5415–30, fr. B). We have
already been able to observe the close link between the vision of Worldly Glory and Fortune
in Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione (31.16–30): see Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.5, Wallace 1983, 144 and 160 n. 13, and
1985, 20–1. For the relationship between Fama and Fortune in post-Boethian tradition, see Sypherd
1907, 126, Koonce 1966, 42–5, Joukovsky-Micha 1968, 6–13, 211–14, 224–35; Tilliette 2003, and
above all Wirth 2003 (esp. 109 and n. 11, 113, 118), Flannery 2012, 15–18.
366 Word of Mouth

With this simple classification, Chaucer slips his Fame into a new role,
which lets him justify characterizing her with a series of narrative clichés that
authors like Boethius and Alain de Lille had already used to describe the
untrustworthy schemes of Fortune. Thus, Fame becomes a character who
grants or refuses fame to people who seek her, but she does so in a fickle
way, without making decisions based on merit.44

10.2.2. Oblivion, Good Fame, Bad Fame

Another innovative move that emerges from the long scene that unfolds inside
the House of Fame is Chaucer’s presentation of renown as something with
two opposing values. In the texts I have examined so far, the theme of worldly
glory always revolved around the desire to enjoy a good and long-lasting
reputation. Indeed, since Cicero’s definitions, the concept of gloria was firmly
connected to praise (laus).45 In contrast, Chaucer’s fame is ambivalent, as it
can be considered positive or negative. In The House of Fame, the goddess can
issue three kinds of verdict: the cut-and-dried choice between obscurity
and fame is replaced by the ability of the goddess to randomly dispense total
oblivion or a reputation that may be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.46 This reveals that
we are no longer dealing with the moralistic discourse that medieval authors
reserved for worldly glory: Chaucer is concerned with the continuation of any
form of fame that lasts over time.
In line with this ‘tripartite’ conception of memory, nine different groups of
petitioners present themselves to Fame, asking to be remembered for their
merits or faults, or declaring their wish to remain unknown. We should not
forget, as the eagle has already explained,47 that these groups are of figures that,
despite having the appearance of unique individuals and speaking of themselves
as human beings with specific desires, are not people but personifications of
stories about times gone by. The various stories that aspire to live on are

44
On Fama’s unusual genealogy, see Sypherd 1907, 122–5 and Hardie 2012, 597. It would be
useful to consider the impact this association had on later tradition (for the Lydgate case, see at
least Flannery 2012, 130–41). The poem mentions both Boethius and Alain de Lille by name (see
972 and 985–6). For a good description of the characteristics of Boethian Fortune, which had
enormous impact on medieval literary tradition, see Jefferson 1917, 49–60 and Métry 2003.
Various elements in the presentation of the House of Fame recall the description of the House of
Fortune at the beginning of book 8 of the Anticlaudianus (see Doren 1922–3, 92–5 and, above all,
Foehr-Janssens 2003), which had already been revived in Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose: see
Bennett 1968, 105–7, and Whitehead 2003, 162–5. On Fame’s fickle rulings, see Jefferson 1917,
87–9 and 140–1. When people ask Chaucer’s Fame the reason for her decisions, she replies ‘For
me lyst hyt (noght)’ (see 1564, 1665, 1821; see also 1577 and 1582).
45
See Ch. 7 sec. 7.1.3. For instance, when Dante mentions Cimabue’s ‘dark’ fame (Purg.
11.96), he is surely not referring to a ‘bad reputation’, but to the fact that his renown was
overshadowed by the rise of Giotto.
46 47
See Kittredge 1915, 95. 1073 ff., see sec. 10.1.2. See Paxson 1994, 61 and 85.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 367

treated as genuine individuals, whose appearances tend to match those of their

central characters.48 Nevertheless, Chaucer remains skilfully reticent about the
exact identity of these figures. He does not so much present us with a line-up
of individual figures as with an anonymous mass of characters, divided into
groups according to what they are asking of Fame.
In any case, renown, which this composite crowd strives so hard to acquire,
involves the survival of what is being said (and what will continue to be said)
about heroes and feats of the past. Irrespective of the legitimacy of their
requests, the sovereign chooses different outcomes for similar groups of
character-events: three will enjoy good fame;49 three bad repute;50 and three
will fall into obscurity.51 The lady of the House declares her decisions abruptly,
as can be seen from how she addresses the first group that offers itself up for
judgment. Strangely enough, this is the first time in our character’s long
history that we see a personification of Fama ‘speak out’ (1559–61):52
‘I werne yow hit,’ quod she anon,
‘Ye gete of me good fame non,
Be God—and therfore goo your wey!’

10.2.3. An Unexpected Herald

When Fame decides to spare some of these petitioners from obscurity, her
verdict is proclaimed by a very special herald: Aeolus, the god of the winds.
Of all the characters of ancient myth, Aeolus was particularly suited to

48
An obvious example is Herostratus, as we will see further on: see sec. 10.2.4. Paxson 1994,
61 missed this element and instead thought they were generically ‘personified verbal utterances
(rumours, complaints, petitions, praises)’.
49
These are, respectively, the third group (1657 ff.) of figures, whose actions and merits are
unspecified and whose aspirations to fame are satisfied; the fifth group (1702 ff.), composed of
pious people who have expressed the desire not to be remembered; and the sixth group (1727 ff.),
on which Chaucer dwells at length. This last group includes the indolent, who, despite never
having earned anything in their lives, especially with regard to love, wish to be remembered as
fortunate lovers. They request this reputation as a sort of compensation for never having known
the bodies of the women they desired in life (Fame grants their request).
50
These include the second group (1606 ff.), composed of worthy, noble characters whose
requests Fame rejects; the characters of the seventh group (1771 ff.), who, despite having the
same characteristics as the indolent who preceded them successfully (see n. 49), are not only
condemned by Fame, but also jeered at; and those in the last group (1823 ff.), knaves attired as
fools and satisfied with their own wickedness, who want to be remembered for what they are
(Fame grants their request).
51
These include the first group (1551 ff.) of characters, whose actions are good and worth-
while, to whom Fame denies any kind of renown; the fourth, small group (1689 ff.) of selfless
altruists, whose desire to remain unknown is satisfied; and the eighth group (1811 ff.), composed
of wrongdoers who aspire to have a good reputation.
52
Cf. Ov. Pont. 4.4.11 ff.; see Ch. 6, sec. 6.4.4.
368 Word of Mouth

performing such a role. In fact, in medieval culture the light, ephemeral nature
of worldly glory was regularly associated with a breath or a current of air.53 But
the features of this figure had to be adapted for his new task of acting as
assistant to Fame.
First of all, a herald of this kind required suitable equipment. Chaucer
provides Aeolus with two powerful trumpets (‘clarions’) for the occasion.
We have seen that these instruments were almost constantly associated with
the figure of Fama in the late medieval period.54 Since antiquity, the figurative
arts had depicted the winds moving the air in extremely diverse ways, such as
blowing into trumpets, horns, and variously shaped shells.55 The figure of
Aeolus does not seem to have been associated with such instruments in
antiquity,56 but it should be noted that by the Middle Ages the ruler of the
winds had already been described as holding wind instruments, so Chaucer
may have found inspiration in this kind of representation.57 The figure that
most closely resembles Chaucer’s trumpeter god can be found in chapter 13 of
the Libellus de deorum imaginibus, falsely attributed to Alberic of London,58
where Aeolus is actually described in the act of blowing into two horns, with
six winds issuing from each.59 The god of the winds is also depicted similarly
in an illustration (made famous primarily by the studies of Liebeschütz and
Panofsky; see Fig. 10.1) from a few decades after the poem was written.

53
See Minnis 1995, 190–1 and see Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.3. In his poem Mirour de l’Omme Gower also
compares ‘Veine gloire’ to an ‘estorbuillon desmesuré’ (1345–6).
54
See Ch. 8, sec. 8.2, 8.5.3 and passim. On the invention of Aeolus the trumpeter, see Bennett
1968, 150–4. Juvenal spoke of a ‘bucina famae’ (14.152); Alain de Lille mentioned Fama’s ‘cornu’
in book 9 of the Anticlaudianus (139–40: ‘cornu quo Fama sue preconia laudis / Intonat’). Aeolus
still has this role in Skelton’s Garlande of Laurell (see Cook 1916, 9–10 and Boffey and Edwards
2015, 95–6).
55
This iconographic motif was retained in Christian tradition, in contexts like the Book of
Revelation. See Ch. 8, sec. 8.5.3 and n. 121 . On the connection between Chaucer’s Aeolus and
this ‘apocalyptic background’, see Koonce 1966, 230–4.
56
See Giudice 1981.
57
Boitani 1984, 136, mentions that, in the early 1300s, Thomas of Ireland already associated the
image of the trumpet with vainglory in his Manipulus florum. The ‘tuba uox saecularis potestatis’
as a symbol of ‘fauor humanus’ had already been recalled in a context that refers to vainglory, in
Rabanus Maurus’s Allegoriae in uniuersam sacram scripturam (PL 112 1069A), with the warning
that one should not boast of one’s own good works (see also Koonce 1966, 21, n. 18).
58
See Lounsbury 1892, II, 381–2. On the Libellus (a late fourteenth-century work that should
not be confused with the Liber imaginum deorum, the so-called Third Vatican Mythographer)
and its relationship to Bersuire’s work, see Liebeschütz 1926, 58–64, and Seznec 1953, 170–9,
who dates it to c.1400. On the identification of Albericus, see Rathbone 1941 and Sjöström 1968.
Wilkins 1957, 520–2 expresses doubts about the possibility that the Libellus may have been
Chaucer’s source for Aeolus.
59
‘In manu autem utraque tenebat cornua, que ad os ponens cum eis suflare videbatur, et ab
unoquoque cornuum sex ventos emmittere videbatur’ (I quote from Liebeschütz 1926, 121–2).
The text continues, adding that Aeolus was crowned from the height of a cloud by Juno. See
Panofsky 1939, 45–6 and fig. 24.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 369

Fig. 10.1. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica. Reg. Lat. 1290, fol. 4r (detail). Aeolus.
© 2015. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, with all rights reserved).

Chaucer uses the connection between the spread of fame and the trumpet
like no one before him. His strategy is to have Aeolus hold two trumpets with
opposite functions,60 which Fame explains when she sends a messenger to
Thrace, ordering him to summon the god to her presence (1573–82):
And bid him bring his clarioun
That is ful dyvers of his soun
And hyt is cleped Clere Laude, 1575
With whiche he wonde is to hiraude
Hem that me list i-preised be.
And also bid him how that he
Brynge his other clarioun
That hight Sklaundre in every toun, 1580
With whiche he wonte is to diffame
Hem that me liste and do hem shame.

60
Accompanying Aeolus—and carrying his trumpets—is Triton (a sea-character traditionally
associated with Neptune’s realm). The idea may originate from a passage of Ovid: in the episode of
Metamorphoses dedicated to Deucalion and Pyrrha, Jupiter commands none other than Triton to
announce the end of the deluge and the return of the world to its original state by blowing into his
sea trumpet (‘concha sonans’, ‘caua bucina’, Met. 1.330–8). In later mythographical tradition, Triton
is often presented as ‘tibicinator maris’ (a definition found in a short mythographical text from the
early fourteenth century, edited in Hankey 1989, 123). In the introductory chapter of Ouidius
moralizatus (Reductorium morale, book 15), also known as De formis figurisque deorum, Bersuire
speaks of Neptune and introduces the Tritons (‘pisces qui tubas in ore portant’), who should be read
as an allegory of the ‘mundi tubicines’ (trumpeters), namely the flatterers (I quote from Engels 1966,
[no pagination]). In Le imagini de i dei de gli Antichi, Cartari defines the Tritons as ‘the trumpeters
and heralds of the sea’ (‘i trombettieri e gli araldi del mare’, Cartari 1996, 214–15).
370 Word of Mouth
The functions of the two instruments are later described in great detail:
‘Sklaundre’, the trumpet used to proclaim someone’s ill-repute (1636 ff.), is
dark and made of bronze. The speed of the sound that issues from it is likened
to that of a bullet from a firearm,61 with the ensuing release of an infernal
cloud of foul-smelling smoke.62 ‘Laude’ (1678 ff.), on the other hand, is made
of gold and used to announce someone’s good reputation. Its sound is as
powerful as thunder, and is accompanied by aromatic fragrances and the scent
of roses.63 The contrast between the ugly ‘negative’ and the precious ‘positive’
instruments clearly belongs to a system of antitheses that serve to represent the
contradictory effects of Fame, who, like her ‘sister’ Fortune, subjects people to
diametrically opposed fates.64

10.2.4. Fame and Literature

So far, we have witnessed a sort of parody of the Last Judgment,65 in which an

impulsive and contradictory pagan deity announces her decisions about the

61
1643–4: ‘As swifte as pelet out of gonne / Whan fire is in the poudre ronne.’ This
association between the propagation of condemnation and the shot of a firearm re-emerges in
a strange (and entirely independent) way in later tradition. In Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de
Séville, ou la Précaution inutile, Bazile’s tirade about Slander (Act II, scene viii) is, in many ways,
a simple metaphorical processing exercise, from a musical perspective, of the concept that Virgil
devoted to how the dimensions of Fama’s body expand. In fact, the spread of slander is presented
as an unstoppable crescendo, going from an initial pianissimo to a universal fortissimo. In Cesare
Sterbini’s libretto for the opera that Gioachino Rossini based on Beaumarchais’s comic play, this
crescendo peaks in the famous ‘cannon shot’ simile (‘come un colpo di cannone’), absent in the
French original. In this case, the tertium comparationis is the volume and not the speed, as in
Chaucer.
62
Further complicating the image, Chaucer uses a simile with multicoloured smoke that is
discharged by the melting lead (1648–9).
63
Chaucer may have developed his solution using an idea present in John Gower’s Mirour de
l’Omme (22129–52: see Fisher 1965, 213–14, Bennett 1968, 152–3). Gower also related the
spheres of Fame and Fortune, introducing the latter’s handmaidens as the two opposing figures
of Renomée and Desfame, shown in the act of spreading good and bad reputations, each with her
own horn. However, some critics believe it more likely that Gower picked up the idea from his
friend’s work (see Tatlock 1907, 38–40 and Benson 1986, 11).
64
Lydgate continued to indicate these two trumpets as the specific instruments for diffusing
renown (see Flannery 2012, 132–5 and Boffey and Edwards 2015, 91). This kind of contrast has
been represented in many different ways. Just one example would be the lead and gold arrows
used by Cupid to generate Apollo’s unrequited love for Daphne (Ov. Met. 1.469–71: ‘fugat hoc,
facit illud amorem; / quod facit, auratum est et cuspide fulget acuta, / quod fugat, obtusum est et
habet sub harundine plumbum’). This is a motif revived in the ‘triumph’ of the god of Love that
Boccaccio proposes in Am. Vis. 15.28–9 (‘In man tenea una saetta d’oro / ed un’altra di piombo’);
see Ch. 7, sec. 7.2.5, n. 77. See also the lengthy list of contradictions Alain de Lille used in his
Anticlaudianus (8.1–56) to introduce Fortune and her house (see also Foehr-Janssens 2003,
esp. 136–41).
65
Some details explicitly allude to the apocalyptic context of the Last Judgment: for example,
to end his presentation of the last verdicts pronounced by Fama and proclaimed by the trumpet
of Aeolus, Chaucer describes the god beginning ‘to puffen and to blaste / Til hyt was at the
 Chaucer, House of Fame 371

future of the various stories that come before her, issuing random verdicts at
whim. The peculiarity of her decisions becomes most evident at the end of the
long episode. After declaring her final judgment, Fame turns to the silliest of
the fools that compose the last group of character-events and asks who he is.66
Although he does not give his name, the man admits to being responsible for
the fire at the temple of Isis in Athens, and to doing this so that he would be
remembered. This is a distorted version of an old anecdote that involved a
certain Herostratus, said to have set fire to the temple of Artemis in Ephesus
(not that of Isis in Athens), in 356 BCE.67 In the entire sequence of nine groups
of postulants, this is the only character singled out by Chaucer, who is notably
the central figure of a story that appears in ancient sources as the paradigm of a
perverse desire for glory.68 Chaucer’s Fame assigns a fortunate fate to this very
sort of story. The meaning of the emblematic episode in question already
seems obvious in Valerius Maximus’s account of it. After recalling how the
Ephesians had rightly decided to efface the identity of the sacrilegious arsonist
with a damnatio memoriae, Valerius recalls that the historian Theopompus
frustrated their intentions by recounting the story with documentary precision
that did not omit the man’s name.69 In this way, although people had taken all
necessary precautions to make the memory of this event disappear, the power
of fame had unpredictably managed to overcome every obstacle.
Building on Valerius Maximus’s words, we could add that literary writing
was what made such an unexpected extension of the memory of a name and
an event possible. This also seems to be the most obvious conclusion to be
drawn from Chaucer’s scene, which, we have seen, is populated by many
writers. However, this deduction remains implicit, because Chaucer does not
pause to specify how literature steps in and bestows a written form on hearsay
and stories, filling its pages with different stories whose good or bad repute
Aeolus diffuses with his trumpets.

worldys ende’ (1866–7: see Havely 2013, 24 and his comments ad loc.). Koonce strained to
interpret the sentences given by Chaucer’s Fame as an actual reversal of the ‘Apocalyptic pattern’
(1966, esp. 225–44). See also Minnis 1995, 198, and Hardie 2012, 589.
66
The character is dressed like a fool: ‘thow . . . / That werest on thy hose a pale / And on thy
tipet suche a bele’ (1839–41).
67
Valerius Maximus’s version (8.14ext.5) attributes this action to an anonymous figure, while
Solinus says his name was Herostratus (40.3–5: ‘Herostratus, ut nomen memoria sceleris
extenderet, incendium nobilis fabricae manu sua struxit, sicut ipse fassus est, uoto adipiscendae
famae latioris’). These sources had already been used to illustrate the theme of vainglory by John
of Salisbury in the twelfth century and by Thomas of Ireland in the early fourteenth century (see
Boitani 1984, 137, Borowitz 2005, 6–8 and 20–3). On the clear ironic intent behind the use of this
anecdote, see Bennett 1968, 162–4.
68
Val. Max. (8.14ext.5) speaks of ‘gloriae cupiditas sacrilega’, as the man desired ‘ut opere
pulcherrimo consumpto nomen eius per totum terrarum orbem dissiceretur’.
69
‘Ac bene consuluerant Ephesii decreto memoriam taeterrimi hominis abolendo, nisi
Theopompi magnae facundiae ingenium historiis eum suis conprehendisset.’
372 Word of Mouth

10.3. WHERE TIDINGS ARE BORN

10.3.1. The House where ‘Tydynges’ Form

As he watches the various groups parade at Fame’s feet, the narrator is

addressed by an onlooker who asks his name and whether he has come in
search of fame (1871–2). In all likelihood, we are intended to imagine that
Geffrey has been mistaken for one of the many event-characters milling
around the ruler of the place.70 But Cupid’s unlucky servant is out of favour
with his god, and he does not possess a tale he wishes to see persist over time,
nor does he bring one with him. So not only is he quick to deny that he
harbours any desire to earn fame, but he also reveals a staunch yearning for
self-determination and says he hopes no one will ever have any power over his
name (which he does not share with the other speaker), his actions, or his
thoughts.71 After Geffrey reveals that he is there to hear and see (1892: ‘here
and se’)72 new love stories, as the eagle promised (1886–9), the stranger
informs him that he is in the wrong place, and indicates the direction he
must follow to find what he seeks: none other than the place where news
originates.
What we have witnessed so far is not the birth of information, but the
process during which various existing and consolidated tales are assigned
fame, understood as renown and permanence over time. The House of
Fame is, of course, the reign of renown.73 The source of the love stories sought
by the narrator is elsewhere. A clear line of demarcation is drawn between the
respective spheres of jurisdiction governed by what I have called Fama-Glory
and Fama-Rumour, only assigning the name ‘Fame’ to the former.74 It cannot
be a coincidence that the term ‘fame’ is repeated in the poem frequently only

70
On this see also Havely 2013, 214–15 on ll. 1907–9. The role of ‘bearer of tidings’ (‘these
tydynges / That thou now hider brynges’, 1907–8) attributed to Geffrey by the unknown speaker
is not very clear, as the latter’s remark (1907–9) is obscured by a textual corruption that is
difficult to amend. Nonetheless, it seems clear that the House of Fame is not a place where news
is heard (‘heren’) but where it is brought (‘bryngen’).
71
1876–82: ‘Sufficeth me, as I were dede, / That no wight have my name in honde. / I wote my
self best how y stonde— / For, what I drye or what I thynke, / I wol my selfe alle hyt drynke, /
Certeyn, for the more parte, / As ferforthe as I kan myn arte.’
72
The perception that results from hearing acquires particular importance in this circum-
stance: see the recurrent use of the verb ‘here’ on ll. 1892, 1909, 1911, 1915 (see also 1998,
2025, 2134).
73
Chaucer uses the term ‘Renoun’ as a synonym for Fame (see 1406: ‘Goddesse of renoun or
of Fame!’).
74
Some clarification is required here. It is certainly true, as Boitani states (1984, 159), that
‘The Middle English meaning of the word “fame” covers . . . those of “renown”, “rumour” and
“ill-repute”, and Chaucer basically respects this division.’ But this does not apply to the text of the
House of Fame, where the term (et pour cause) never means ‘rumour’ or ‘news’, as it does
elsewhere (e.g. in The Man of Law’s Tale, 995–6: ‘The fame anon thurgh Rome toun is born, /
How Alla kyng shal comen in pilgrymage’).
 Chaucer, House of Fame 373

up to line 1900. From this point on it no longer appears, and instead the term
‘tydynge’ repeatedly recurs.75 We are now entering the world of information,
rumours, and tales spread by word of mouth.
The stranger leads Geffrey out of the castle and shows him another building,
in a valley below, whose intricate structure is explicitly compared to that of
Daedalus’s labyrinth (1920–3).76 This new ‘house’ invented by Chaucer partly
resembles the castles or the rotating towers of medieval tradition, and for the
rest displays several features that Ovid attributed to his house of Fama.77 The
narrator describes a giant spheroidal cage, sixty miles in diameter, whose walls
resemble the tangled branches of a dense forest. It rotates at extraordinary
speed, emitting a noise that can be heard from far away.
The walls and the interior of this building share the greatest similarities with
the edifice described by Ovid: the former are strewn with countless openings
that allow sounds to escape, and the latter is crowded with all manner of
rumour (1945–58):
And eke this hous hath of entrees 1945
As fele as of leves ben in trees
In somer whan they grene been;
And on the rove men may yet seen
A thousand holes, and wel moo,
To leten wel the soune out goo; 1950
And be day, in every tyde,
Been al the dores opened wide,
And be nyght echon unshet—
Ne porter ther is noon to let
No maner tydynges in to pace. 1955
Ne never rest is in that place,
That hit nys filde ful of tydynges,
Other loude or of wisprynges.
Like Ovid before him, in his depiction of the place where information gathers,
Chaucer mainly concentrates on describing the production and dissemination
of information, rumours, and hearsay. They have their origins in a generalized
mumbling that permeates every corner of the house and concerns all topics
imaginable:78 wars, marriages, professions, travels, love, hate, and so on,

75
As Howard recalls (1976, 45–6): ‘According to the OED a tiding is something that has
happened, an event—and more often the announcement of such an event, in other words a piece
of news.’ In the last 200 lines of the poem, the term ‘fame’ appears only once, on l. 2111, and, not
coincidentally, indicates the name of the owner of the House.
76
See Doob 1990, 326–30.
77
On the originality of Chaucer’s invention compared to the models available to him, see
Sypherd 1907, 138–55. Stevenson (1978, 18–19) observes that the dubious stability of the two
‘houses’ described in Chaucer’s poem, together with their implicit connection to the world of
chance, is a clear indication of Fame’s ephemeral nature.
78
See also l. 1960, which mentions ‘rounynges’ and ‘jangles’.
374 Word of Mouth

appear in a deliberately long list that suggests the all-encompassing pervasive-

ness of the narratives developing in this place (1960–76). Geffrey has finally
reached the source of every possible story. Once again, everything takes place
in an environment where Chance (‘Aventure’), unequivocally indicated as the
universal source of all news, plays a decisive role.79

10.3.2. Expanding on Ovidian Motifs

With the help of the eagle, which conveniently reappears at this point of the
narrative, the poet is thrown inside the rotating cage through one of its many
openings and finds himself in the midst of an immense crowd, immersed in a
vast sea of chatter.80 We might say that this scene systematically develops the
main elements that Ovid uses to describe the rumores populating the house of
Fama.81 Geffrey initially finds himself facing a mass of anonymous individuals
without clear identities, who are busy whispering in each other’s ears, along a
chain of progressively distorted chatter (2043–80):82
And every wight that I saugh there
Rouned in others ere,
A newe tydynge, prevely, 2045
Or elles tolde alle oppenly
Ryght thus, and seyde: ‘Nost not thou
That ys betydde, late or now?’
‘No,’ quod he, ‘telle me what.’
And than he tolde hym this and that, 2050
And swore therto that hit was sothe:
‘Thus hath he sayde,’ and ‘Thus he dothe,’
And ‘Thus shal hit be,’ and ‘Thus herde y seye,’
...
But al the wonder-most was this:
Whan oon had herde a thinge, y-wis, 2060
He come forthright to another wight
And gan him tellen anon-ryght

79
1982–4: ‘Aventure / That is the moder of tydynges, / As the see of welles and of sprynges.’
80
Among other things, the eagle’s speech confirms that it is precisely inside this revolving
cage that the ‘depressed’ Geffrey may be consoled and entertained, thanks to the strange news
that Jupiter wants him to have (2007–26).
81
Ov. Met. 12.53–8: ‘ueniunt, leue uulgus, euntque / mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta
uagantur / milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant; / e quibus hi uacuas inplent sermonibus
aures, / hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti / crescit, et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor’.
See Ch. 6, sec. 6.4 and Hanning 1986, 147–9.
82
As Boitani 1984, 171 wrote, ‘Anonymity reigns supreme in the House of Rumour.’ Further
on, Chaucer specifies that this anonymous throng includes sailors, pilgrims, beggars, and
messengers, with bags full of lies (2121–30).
 Chaucer, House of Fame 375

The same that him was tolde,

Or hyt a forlonge way was olde—
But gan somwhat for to eche 2065
To this tydinge in hys speche
More than hit ever was.
And nat so sone departed nas
Tho, he fro him, that he ne mette
With the thrid, and, or he lette 2070
Any stounde, he told him als.
Were the tydynge sothe or fals,
Yit wolde he telle hyt natheles,
And evermo with more encres
Than yt was erst. Thus, north and southe 2075
Went every [mote] fro mouthe to mouthe,
And that encresing ever moo,
As fir ys wont to quyk and goo
From a sparke spronge amys,
Till alle a citee brent up ys. 2080
Chaucer does nothing more than show us how rumours and gossip are
transmitted within a crowd that has just learned of them (2044–5). Each of
the few barely mentioned elements that underpinned Ovid’s rapid description
seem to be taken up again.83 However, they appear within the much broader
framework of an analytical and extraordinarily vivid description. Chaucer
meticulously illustrates each stage of the exchange of information that travels
by ‘word of mouth’ (‘fro mouthe to mouthe’, 2076), gradually becoming
distorted. The narrative is even enhanced with the phrases and oaths by
which gossips usually attempt to prove themselves reliable sources, referring
to what they have seen or ‘been told’ (2050–4). The increasing flow of rumours
is then compared to a fire that starts from a tiny spark and goes on to burn an
entire city.84

83
‘Veniunt, leue uulgus, euntque’: ‘a congregacioun / Of folke as I saugh rome aboute, / [some
wythin and some wythoute]’ (2034–6). ‘Mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur’: ‘Were
the tydynge sothe or fals’ (2072: the idea will be developed in more detail later). ‘E quibus hi
uacuas inplent sermonibus aures’: ‘rouned in others ere, / A newe tydynge’ (2044–5). ‘Hi narrata
ferunt alio’: ‘Whan oon had herde a thinge, y-wis, / He come forthright to another wight / And
gan him tellen anon-ryght / The same that him was tolde’ (2060–3). ‘Mensuraque ficti / crescit, et
auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor’: ‘But gan somwhat for to eche / To this tydinge in hys speche /
More than hit ever was’ (2065–7), ‘Yit wolde he telle hyt natheles, / And evermo with more
encres / Than yt was erst’ (2073–5).
84
For the passages from the sacred scriptures in which similar images appear, see Koonce
1966, 260–1.
376 Word of Mouth

10.3.3. ‘Tydynges’ and Fame

Chaucer’s portrayal of the process that allows news to survive over time is also
highly imaginative. Ovid did not dedicate any space to this because, in
describing the house of Fama, he was only interested in illustrating the
circulation of fama-rumour, as fama-renown was not relevant to his narrative.
The bronze house he describes was just conceived of as a place for collecting
and processing information: there is not even a hint of how this information
was then ‘relaunched’ around the world.85 In contrast, Chaucer aims to
explain how news created in the way we have seen reaches the House of
Fame (that is, Fama-Renown), the real protagonist of his poem. It is certainly
no coincidence that the narrator avoids describing this rotating building where
rumours are born and from which they depart as the ‘House of Fame’; there is
no trace of Ovid’s elusive personification, who never revealed herself yet
supervised the chaotic flow of information sorted inside her palace.
To describe the transfer of various pieces of information to the capricious
court of Fame, Chaucer again exploits Ovid’s ambiguous description of
rumores, which in book 12 of the Metamorphoses are portrayed almost
like actual people.86 Chaucer remains reticent on the distinction between
news and the figures busy communicating it to each other. Once such
‘tydynges’ have been well established through wide circulation, they them-
selves become the individuals, as undefined as they are self-sufficient, who
try to escape the chaotic crowd through one of the many openings in the
rotating cage. Imperceptibly, without their characteristics being described
in any way, these pieces of news begin to behave like autonomous beings
and attempt to squeeze through the chinks in the cage walls, in order to
throw themselves out of the crowded labyrinth where they were conceived,
like unborn children pushed towards the light by an unstoppable force
(2081–7):
And whan that was ful y-spronge
And woxen more on every tonge
Than ever hit was, and went anoon
Up to a wyndowe out to goon—
Or, but hit myght oute there pace, 2085
Hyt gan out crepe at some crevace
And flyght forth faste, for the nones.

85
Ovid only says that Fama announced the imminent arrival of the Greek fleet (64–5:
‘Fecerat haec notum, Graias cum milite forti / adventare rates’), without specifying in any way
how that information reached Troy in advance.
86
We are essentially returning to a vision of speech considered in the strange ‘anthropomorphic’
light explained by the eagle on ll. 1074 ff. See sec. 10.1.2.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 377

The narrator even claims he personally witnessed the process that mixes true
and false in many of the rumours that rush forth from the rotating house.87
Struggling to be the first to leave through one of the openings in the cage, a
truth and a falsehood (‘A lesyng and a sad sothe’, 2089) grabbed one another
and merged into a single ‘tydynge’, which eventually flew away in that
composite form (2088–109).
As the eagle has already explained to Geffrey (830–52 and 1073–82), the
House of Fame is the natural place to which all sounds seek to return. In
particular, the spoken sounds (‘spech’, 1074) that succeed in reaching it
assume the shapes of whoever articulated them. The labyrinth-house acts as
a sort of engine, from which stories and rumours—after assuming some
individual form—fly towards the House of Fame, their final destination.
Chaucer reiterates this very clearly in a passage that we might consider
essential for understanding his conception of the distinction between fama-
rumour and fama-renown (2110–20):
Thus oute at holes gunne wringe 2110
Every tydynge, streght to Fame,
And she gan yeve eche hys name
After hir disposicion,
And yaf hem eke duracion—
Some to wexe and wane sone 2115
As doth the faire white mone—
And lete hem goon. Ther myght y seen
Wynged wondres faste fleen,
Twenti thousand in a route,
As Eolus hem blew aboute. 2120
The distance each ‘tydynge’ must fly to reach Fame (2111, ‘Every tydynge,
streght to Fame’) is an effective representation of the gap that exists for
Chaucer between the separate spheres of fama-rumour and fama-renown.88
The former is dominated by speech that travels via word of mouth.89 Origin-
ating as a telling of an event,90 it then undergoes a series of manipulations,
gradually acquiring an autonomous but still anonymous form. Only in some
cases does it manage to obtain an extension in time and space, granted at
whim by Lady Fame. It is in the sphere dominated by this figure that stories

87
‘Thus saugh I fals and soth compouned / To-geder fle for oo tydynge’ (2108–9).
88
According to the incisive synthesis proposed by Delany (1994, 107): ‘In the movement of
tidings from the House of Rumour to Fame’s palace, we see histories becoming history, and
rumour becoming renown . . . In the allegory of Fame’s judgement, Fame is the agent by which
tradition is made from facts.’
89
On this point see Erzgräber 1985, 115–16.
90
On the centrality of the ‘distinction between event and tiding’ in Chaucer’s poem, see
Taylor 1989, 26–7.
378 Word of Mouth

can acquire name and duration,91 thereby also entering the ‘written’ universe
of literature.

10.3.4. An Abrupt Conclusion

Chaucer’s narrative now draws to a close. Gradually moving away from the
world of books, Geffrey has finally arrived at the very source of the stories in
which he is interested. He has also observed that they are nothing but a jumble
of talk, assembled by chance, and subjected to endless variations as it proceeds
by word of mouth. So far, it does not seem that the narrator has been able to
achieve the goal the eagle rather cryptically outlined in book 2. Indeed, he has
not yet succeeded in hearing those ‘tydynges’, those ‘wonder thynges . . . of
Loves folke’ (674–5), that he was promised.92 Only now does Geffrey begin to
search for a specific news item, which he says he has already heard, but which
he also declares he does not want to reveal to his reader before it inevitably
becomes public knowledge.93
Suddenly, a loud noise issues from a corner, where there is finally talk of the
long-awaited love stories (‘love-tydynges’, 2143). Geffrey joins the large throng
crowding there, and sees a stranger (2155–8):
Attelast, y saugh a man
Whiche that y nat ne kan,
But he semed for to be
A man of grete auctorite . . .
With these words, the poem breaks off abruptly.94 Critics are divided about
this ending: some believe the current form of the text is due to its being
unfinished, while others imagine Chaucer wanted his poem to have a blatantly

91
2112 and 2114: ‘name’ and ‘duracion’. We should not overlook the fact that Chaucer
regularly (partly out of necessity) rhymes the term ‘fame’ with ‘name’: see Harwood 1994, 100.
92
On the elusiveness of this news throughout the poem, see Benson 1986, 3–6.
93
2131 ff. These enigmatic lines led a number of critics to imagine the possible historical
circumstances that Chaucer is referring to, not least in order to date the poem. For an idea of the
kind of conjectures proposed, see Benson 1986, 6–8.
94
The mystery surrounding such an abrupt ending has given life to many theories on the
possible identity of this man (a list of the various suggestions can be found in Overbeck 1975,
157, Stevenson 1978, 10, n. 2, Havely 2013, 221–2 ad loc., Minnis 1995, 239–40, Lynch 2007, 41).
There is no point in speculating further on this subject here. Instead, we should pay attention to
the literary contexts in which similar expressions to the one closing Chaucer’s poem are used.
Bennett (1968, xiii) recalls that in Troilus the seer Calchas is defined ‘a lord of gret auctorite’
(1.65–6); Boitani 1984, 83 mentions the expression used by Dante to introduce the procession of
‘spiriti magni’ into Limbo (‘di grande autorità ne’ lor sembianti’, Inf. 4.113); the St Augustine of
Petrarch’s Secretum is introduced with the expression ‘uirum iuxta grandeuum ac multa maies-
tate uenerandum uideo’. In Boccaccio’s description of Florio’s dream (Filocolo 3.19), Love
appears to the unhappy lover as ‘un gran signore . . . di mezza età, né giovane né vecchio . . . e
nell’aspetto di grandissima autorità’.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 379

enigmatic ending.95 A discussion like this can only remain speculative. What-
ever the case, however, it is truly curious that the narrative bubble surrounding
Chaucer’s fantastic cage of rumours should be burst by the sudden (intentional
or chance) appearance of an auctoritas.96

10.4. A P LAYFUL FICTIONAL UNIVERSE

10.4.1. A Chaotic World Governed by Chance

Chaucer’s poem, with its complex architecture, has elicited a lively debate
among modern critics that is increasingly focused on the possible metaliterary
implications of the text. I cannot dwell on such a broad debate, as it would lead
us too far from the focus of this book. Here, analysing the structure of The
House of Fame is mainly a way of understanding how the phenomena of
rumour and renown, which I have referred to as primary components of the
ancient concept of fama, become intertwined in the poem. Combining various
motifs that were handed down to him by existing tradition, Chaucer was able
to build both his original, composite personification of Fama and a fictional
vision of the process by which stories are born, grow, and endure (or vanish)
over time.
In brief, one might say that Chaucer’s vision of the universe of speech
revolves around the linguistic production that feeds not only all information
exchanges but also literature itself. This vision is only revealed in its entirety
when the poem’s sophisticated narrative journey has almost reached its end.
Reversing the order of the sequence according to which he imagines the
development of the creation and tradition of tales, Chaucer first describes
the House of Fame, where stories finally acquire a stable form (their ‘name’) in
time, and then the tumultuous process of manipulation that increasingly alters
the original material (‘tydynges’) that generates such stories and gives them
substance.97

95
The various types of theories about the possible conclusion of the poem are clearly outlined
in Stevenson (1978, 12–13). In addition, Paxson 1994, 61 suggested that this figure ‘structurally
complements the other two chief personification figures we see: Fame and Aeolus. Perhaps he is
the figure Rumor.’
96
In order to give completeness to Chaucer’s construction, a number of things would remain
to be explained: in particular, we do not know what role the writers in Fame’s court play in
transferring the events whose renown Aeolus has already spread everywhere to the pages of their
works. The possible relationship between the names engraved on the castle’s ice foundations and
stories entrusted to literature also remains undefined.
97
See Howard 1976, 47 (‘The helter-skelter process we observe is presented in a retrospective
structure . . . What we learn is that poems are made of tidings which are compounded of truth
and falsehood [2108] and which are given names and durations by Fame [2110–14]’), Taylor
380 Word of Mouth

In Chaucer’s poem, the two environments where the circulation of tales (in
various, progressively changing forms) occurs are traversed by noisy, disorder-
ly, frantically moving groups. Moreover, the entire landscape described by
Geffrey is at the mercy of Chance, if we may use this word to summarize the
common nature of Aventure (said to be the mother of ‘tydynges’ in 1982–3)
and of Fortune, who is identified as capricious Fame’s sister (1547). Nothing
we witness follows a linear path governed by logic. Indeed, not only do the
stories that have their origins in events change immediately in a confused way
as they are passed along a chain by word of mouth, but also their eventual fate
depends on Fame’s incomprehensible whims. In short, both the realm of
chatter and the one where such talk is dignified are described as worlds
essentially governed by totally random principles that can never be shown to
have a reliable, enduring foundation.

10.4.2. Chaucer’s Fame and her House

In describing Fame’s inconsistent verdicts, Chaucer offers us a vivid picture of

the path that leads from the phase in which stories circulate verbally to the
moment their tradition is consolidated over time. This is a particularly
effective way of demonstrating that a story becomes a part of cultural memory
for unpredictable reasons. Chaucer constructs the figure of Fame and her
court by ingeniously adapting the motifs he drew from earlier literary trad-
ition, beginning with those he read in the poems of Virgil and Ovid, the first
poets to describe fama’s body and ‘operational network’, respectively.98
It would be tempting to say that the character at the centre of Chaucer’s
imaginative construction is a new version of Worldly Glory but, as we have
seen, this strange ruler assigns stories and characters from the past either
‘good’ or ‘bad’ reputation at whim. Physically, Lady Fame is essentially what
results from grafting the most striking monstrous attributes of Virgil’s Fama-
Rumour onto the regal image of a sovereign.99 This is another example of
the integrating operations that we have already observed in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century iconographic tradition. Virgil’s paradigmatic description had
become closely linked to the notion of Fama, even stimulating its reuse for a

1989, 31–3 (‘In sum, The House of Fame records the imaginative process by which tidings are
received and created, combined with other tidings, and remembered or forgotten’), and
Whitehead 2003, 179–80.
98
See Koonce 1966, 33.
99
When I refer to a ‘regal image of a sovereign’, I mean a figure similar to the one described
by Boccaccio in the Amorosa visione and depicted in the illustrations of Petrarch’s Trionfi.
However, it is impossible to prove that Chaucer was familiar with the poems of Boccaccio and
Petrarch or the illustrations of Worldly Glory that were beginning to emerge at the time.
 Chaucer, House of Fame 381

personification that recalled the universe of renown rather than that of

rumour. In this way, the distinguishing characteristics of the monster described
in the Aeneid are revived, but remain disconnected from their original symbolic
motivation, which depended on the direct link between the organs of com-
munication scattered all over Fama’s body and the diffusion mechanism of
rumours.100
Chaucer has drawn elements from the lines that Ovid dedicated to the
house of Fama in book 12 of his Metamorphoses, primarily in order to
illustrate the communication mechanisms that give rise to rumours, and
recycled them in a more complex fashion.101 Depending on their functions,
these elements are partly employed to describe the Palace of Lady Fame and
partly to describe the rotating house where rumours and tales are formed. The
location of the palace that Geffrey visits, on the border of the three elements of
the universe,102 is once again used to point out Fame’s ability to attract all the
sounds produced in the world,103 and serves as a base from which the eagle
can present its ambitious acoustic theory. On the other hand, the presence of a
large number of openings in the walls of the building (Met. 12.44–5)—the
other detail that Ovid included to represent Fama’s role in the collection and
broadcast of sounds—is attributed by Chaucer to the rotating house (1945 ff.).
Even the description of the noise coming from the House of Fame is a
reworking of an Ovidian idea, although the muted noise described in the
Metamorphoses (12.48–52) is, in this case, turned into a great racket
(1034–42).104 Obviously, none of the elements concerning the movement of
hearsay by word of mouth (Met. 12.53–8) would have made much sense had
they been applied to the setting of the house ruled by the capricious lady of
renown. Indeed, Chaucer reuses them to describe the dense interweaving of
chatter inside the ‘House of Tydynges’ on two different occasions (1956 ff. and
2043 ff.).

100
Then, of course, there is the case of the odd pair of partridge wings, which certainly do not
seem designed for easy movement through space (see sec. 10.1.3 and n. 29).
101
Bennett (1968, 72) rightly identifies in the excerpt from Ovid a primary source of
inspiration for the entire conception of Chaucer’s poem. In at least one case, Chaucer alludes
to Ovid’s model in book 12 explicitly (‘so thyn oune boke hyt tellith’, 712). On the attribution
of Ovidian traits to both the House of Fame and the ‘House of Tydynges’, see Cooper 1988,
72–3. Chaucer was most likely referring to the poet’s Latin text and not to later allegorizing
works, like the Ovide moralisé or Bersuire’s Ovidius moralizatus (the links between these works
and The House of Fame identified by critics are flimsy: see esp. Delany 1968 and Boitani 1984,
135–6).
102
712 ff.: cf. Ov. Met. 12.39–42.
103
But not to put them back into circulation, as Ovid says on l. 47 (‘tota fremit uocesque
refert iteratque quod audit’).
104
A loud noise can also be heard in the revolving house (1927–34), which is permeated by a
constant ‘Ovidian’ agitation (cf. 48, ‘nulla quies intus nullaque silentia parte’, and 1956: ‘Ne never
rest is in that place’).
382 Word of Mouth

Lastly, for a medieval author, any treatment of Fama-Renown inevitably

entailed confronting a literary tradition that had regularly classified human
glory as a perishable, misleading asset,105 and was based on paradigmatic classical
texts like the Somnium Scipionis and Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae.
Even with respect to these precedents, Chaucer reveals an original and
eclectic approach, reviving various ancient motifs from a decidedly original
perspective.106 Suffice it to think of how he transforms Fame directly into
Fortune’s sister, or of his invention of the names of the famous etched in
ice, which may only very indirectly refer us to a Boethian theme like the
fleetingness of both worldly glory and writing.107

10.4.3. An Eccentric Fama

In Chaucer’s cultural frame of reference human glory is viewed from a

perspective not so different from that of authors like Boethius, who believed
fama and writing only granted the memory of individuals an ephemeral
extension over time.108 Chaucer also presents renown as something unreliable
and of little value. But unlike much of the medieval literary production
dedicated to these topics, his story does not have a moralistic slant. As Boitani
demonstrated thirty years ago, although they constitute unavoidable cultural
points of reference, Chaucer does not build his image of Fame around models
of Vainglory or Worldly Glory.109 Instead, the poem seems to centre on a
disillusioned (and often clearly amused) observation that the world of stories
(and literature) is governed by chance.110 Geffrey’s own character expresses no
disapproval of the desire to extend memory of oneself over time, although he
firmly asserts that he wishes to be the complete master of his name—in other
words, to decide for himself what will be said about him. Such a statement
allows us to easily gauge the immense distance between Chaucer’s attitude and
that of an author like Petrarch, who seemed to fluctuate between a proud
striving for glory and the tormented attempt to subdue it.
Chaucer’s fictional universe is immersed in a disenchanted atmosphere that
leaves no room for austere forms of moralism—particularly not those of a

105
See Watts 1973, 87–9.
106
There is little point in lingering on topical motifs, like the world seen from above (see
906–7 and 916–18, and Havely 2013, 186–7 ad loc.).
107
Cf. 1136 ff. and Boeth. Cons. 2.7 Metr.17–18 (‘Signat superstes fama tenuis pauculis /
inane nomen litteris’). See Ch. 7, sec. 7.1.5.
108
See Koonce 1966, 24–33 and Havely 2013, 195 ad 1136–64.
109
Boitani 1984, 159–66.
110
Whitehead 2003, 179–80 sees the House of Fame also as a sort of ‘ambitious spatial
representation of the entire literary canon’, only partially described (and then summarized in its
entirety on ll. 1513–19).
 Chaucer, House of Fame 383

religious nature. The literary canon evoked by the crowd of writers raised on
metal pillars, who sustain the memory of the great events of the past over time,
refers to a cultural context that has room neither for philosophical production
nor for the sacred scriptures. In this case, too, it is easy to visualize the great
abyss that separates Chaucer’s way of referring to an ancient literary heritage
from that of a poet like Dante, who places the setting of Homer’s ‘bella scola’ in
Limbo, or of a writer like Petrarch, who chooses none other than St Augustine
to be his own critic. The peculiar and essentially frivolous character of Fame
thus becomes the ideal pivot on which to turn this playful fictional universe.
Her figure is an object of derision rather than harsh disapproval, and is
certainly never taken seriously.
The caprices of Chaucer’s Fame, however, still tell us something serious
about the unpredictable filters that time and chance impose on the fate of
literary texts and on the configuration of cultural memory: namely, that
narratives manage to reproduce only a small part of what has happened and
are subject to all sorts of manipulation as they pass along the various links of
the communicative chain. What is entrusted to a community’s memory through
the ‘spoken’ word has an unstable—and often even deceptive—bond with things
‘as they really were’.111 Information, born in the magmatic vortex where the
multiple reproduction of stories occurs, must overcome random or contentious
selections before assuming the stable physiognomy that tradition or writing
attempt to extend through space and time. Whatever is really at the origin of
all this is often lost in a dense web of words. And it is precisely on these
insubstantial words that the great machinations of fama are founded.

111
See Boitani 1984, 209–11.
 Conclusion

In this book, I have examined only a very limited number of personifications

of Fama. Continuing to study this theme and its part in the culture of the late
medieval and modern periods would mean tackling the analysis of an enor-
mous and extremely diversified repertoire. The representation of Fama/Fama/
Renommée has experienced a substantial number of variations; and often
characteristics rather far from the iconographic schemes that I have outlined
thus far have been ascribed to this figure, both in figurative and festive
contexts.1
To get a general idea of this, I can limit myself to a brief overview of a few
examples. As far as the Petrarchan triumphal figure is concerned, I could
mention the majestic Triumph of Fama painting that Lorenzo Costa com-
pleted in 1490 for the Bentivoglio chapel in the church of San Giacomo
Maggiore in Bologna. The scene depicted shows the goddess, surrounded by
the usual procession of illustrious men (among whom we find members of the
Bentivoglio family). She does not exhibit the usual ‘Boccaccian’ traits: in her
right hand she bears a slender sceptre in the form of a caduceus and in her left
a horn. Looming above the triumphal procession is an enormous ring, in
which a sequence of scenes that summarize mankind’s past is shown. A rocky
landscape that opens up into a stretch of water displays an original combin-
ation of episodes, in part derived from the sacred scriptures (beginning with
the creation of Eve from Adam’s body, right at the centre of the circle) and in
part from Roman historical sources.2

1
It is difficult to have a precise idea of the physical form that the figure of Fama assumed in
celebratory parades and processions, like for example the one that received Henry VI at Paris in
1431. According to an anonymous account of the time, on 2 December the king, after stopping at
the Saint Denis chapel, headed towards the city of Paris, where he was greeted by the ‘déesse
nommée Fama’, who was mounted on a horse covered in the emblems of the city and
accompanied by people attired as the Neuf Preux and the Neuf Preuses. The herald that led
them presented these figures to the king, explaining that they represented Paris, which deserved
the sovereign’s love ‘car cele ville ainsi famee / est digne d’estre biene gouverné’ (I quote from
Guenée and Lehoux 1968, 64–5).
2
See Marr 1991, 522–5 in particular.
386 Word of Mouth

I might cite various artworks from France that are rather different with
respect to the tradition examined in this book. For example, one could recall
the figure of Bonne Renommée from the beginning of the sixteenth century
that appears in a drawing from a Paris manuscript, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal,
Ms. 5066, fol. 7v: a winged woman who, while resting her feet on the bodies of
the three Fates whom she has subdued, holds a book in her left hand and a
mirror, where her face is reflected, in her right.3
A typology that is similar in many ways can be found in a splendid tapestry,
probably completed in Brussels in the early years of the sixteenth century,
acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 1998. Here, too, the
centre of the scene is occupied by winged Fama, with the legend ‘Veterum sic
acta per Famam fiunt redacta’ (‘Thus are the deeds of the ancients brought
back to life through the work of Fama’) above. Around her is a group of
women and scholars concentrated on reading, writing, and conversing. Several
eminent figures, whose names are indicated, are visible among them: not only
Virgil and Ovid, but also Dares Phrygius, Justin, and Flavius Josephus. In her
right hand Fama is holding a globe topped by a cross, while with the fingers of
her left she peruses the lines of a volume placed on a high lectern. She too is
stepping on the three Fates, one of whom, Atropos, is figured both beneath
Fama’s feet and above her, as she deploys her wings to fly towards the entrance
of a hellish cave from which the heads of two dragons emerge.
Another interesting representation of Fama can be found in an engraving
that appears in the second edition of the Canterbury Tales published in 1526
by the English printer Richard Pynson, with the addition of Troilus and
Criseyde, The Book of Fame, and other minor works by Chaucer.4 At the
beginning of The Book of Fame there is an image of Fame, crowned and richly
dressed, who is standing on a monstrous beast with many heads and vaguely
apocalyptic features. In each hand, the goddess holds a book with seven stars
drawn above it. At her right we can see a group of armed and crowned figures,
led by a crowned lion rampant. The lion also rests its feet on the many-headed
beast and, with a spear, attacks another heraldic animal, placed to the left of
Fame. It is a dog, also crowned, which leads another group of figures in
common attire.
There are also many examples of figures that rework Petrarchan and Virgilian
traits in very original combinations. For example, we might think of the
Triumph of Fama, datable to 1502, that can be seen on one of the stained
glass windows of the collegiate church in Ervy-le-Châtel. The allegorical figure is

3
This detail could recall the mirror that we saw in the hands of Vain Glory and other ‘lustful’
figures (see Ch. 8 sec. 8.1.3), or the typical attribute of Prudence, widely attested throughout that
Virtue’s traditional iconography (see Grabes 1973, 182–4).
4
See in part. The Boke of Fame made by Geffray Chaucer: with dyvers other of his workes,
London 1526? (on this edition see Boffey 1988, 339–42).
 Conclusion 387

shown frontally, standing on a low wheeled platform pulled by an eagle and a

winged hound, under which we can see the three Fates crushed by the triumphal
figure. In her right hand Fama has a globe, while in her left she carries a ship;
her body is covered in eyes, ears, and mouths.5 Or we might recall a famous
painting by Sodoma (which can be dated between 1505 and 1508 and is housed
in the Chigi-Saracini collection in Siena)6 that portrays Fama writing FAMA
VOLAT on a shield. Here we are looking at the reworking of a specific classic
iconographic model, that of winged Victory recording the deeds of a sovereign
or a hero on a shield.7 Sodoma has inserted a detail into this scheme that
clearly recalls Virgil’s Fama: a great number of eyes is visible on the figure’s
wings. Such an original mixture of iconographic elements would seem designed
to highlight the extraordinary qualities of Fama-Glory, portrayed in a sort of
‘auto-celebratory’ gesture.
A handful of examples like this just barely gives a vague idea of the
numerous iconographic solutions that attempted to represent a suggestive
and multifaceted figure like Fama. It would obviously be impossible to fully
discuss the meaning that should be attributed to these images—each of which
represents a readaptation of earlier literary models and iconography—in just a
few words. Only an expert on art and modern culture could attempt a
comprehensive study of such a complex argument.
The aim of this book was simply to show how, from the semantic ‘tree’ of a
polysemous concept like the one the Romans expressed with the term fama,
the extensive series of personifications I am discussing began to take shape.
I have especially concentrated on two branches that gave rise to the main
models from which later tradition drew inspiration in order to develop its later
variations: that of Fama-Rumour and that of Fama-Glory. These two branches
are driven by the two fundamental semantic values of the Latin term fama,
which refers to the forms of talk (fari) that propagate both the information
circulated by word of mouth and the opinions expressed about the behaviour
and actions of individuals.
Antiquity seems to have produced only literary personifications, primarily
aimed to give shape to the idea of a ‘word of mouth’ that is diffused along a
chain, putting rapid and unreliable information into circulation. Virgil created
a monstrous figure, to which he assigned the role of a paradoxical messenger
who also represents the ‘formation’ of the information that she spreads. This is
an ingenious and memorable way of capturing the process of progressive
growth that information experiences while being passed along by word of
mouth and advancing threateningly, ‘invading’ distant regions. As we have
seen, it is difficult to undervalue the importance of this foundational inven-
tion, which was destined to act as a nearly constant reference-point not only

5
See Masséna and Müntz 1902, 205 and Riviale 2013, 23–6.
6 7
See Bartalini 1996, 106, n. 2. See Hölscher 1967, 19–20.
388 Word of Mouth

for the reflections dedicated to the fama concept over the following centuries,
but also for anyone looking to give a body to the personification of that same
concept.
An even more sophisticated invention came from Ovid. He used a different
strategy to focus the reader’s attention on the formation and propagation of
news and rumours. It is not so much Fama as her palace that is described: it is
imagined as a sort of distribution centre of pieces of information that take
form starting from a dense network of conversations between anonymous
persons: their individuality is so unstable that it is even confused with that of
the news they communicate. Ovid’s Fama seems primarily characterized by its
elusiveness.
The most important modern figurative model of the Fama personage seems
rather to have originated in the medieval period, according to a specific
process in which literary and iconographic tradition are inextricably inter-
twined. The role of this figurative model is to represent the source of the
renown and reputation that famous men enjoy, even after death. The inven-
tion of such a personification is closely linked to the ‘worldly’ conception of
Glory that seems to have been at its origin. In fact, it is in the lines of the
Amorosa visione where Boccaccio describes a fresco portraying ‘Gloria del
popol mondano’ that we first find a figure of this kind. In all likelihood this
regal personage, who bestows renown on the illustrious men of the past,
became the model for late-fourteenth-century artists wishing to give corporeal
form to the personifications of both Fama and ‘Gloria Mundi’. Fama-Glory
generally appears in triumphal settings, in strict relation to reflections on the
value of memory among posterity. Such representations obviously have a very
different function from those that serve to give shape to the idea of talk that
produces and spreads information and rumour.
These are the fundamental models from which, through later processes of
readaptation and contamination, the extraordinarily rich fortune of the Fama
character developed over the centuries. Perhaps the most elaborate and
original example of those handed down to us by medieval tradition was
Chaucer’s ‘Fame’, to whom the last chapter of this book is dedicated: a
capricious sovereign who reviews the stories of men, impulsively selecting a
limited number of tales, chosen by chance from the few that manage to escape
the magmatic simmer of gossip stirring up the cage of branches located below
her palace. Chaucer successfully created a portrait where both the distinctive
traits of the most ancient personifications of Fama and the main semantic
roles of the Latin term fama find their appropriate placement. Stories that are
a tangled mixture of true and false emerge confusedly from the jumbled swirl
of gossip that anonymous persons exchange in the rotating cage of branches at
the foot of Lady Fame’s palace. It is only some of these stories, without any
specific reason, that Fame allows to survive over time, thanks to the work of
the writers and artists that populate the halls of her court. Rumours and
 Conclusion 389

renown, writing and orality, are thus found combined in a playful fictional
universe where the most diverse forms of human communication collaborate
in the production of a crowded and random collective memory. Stirring at the
foundation of everything we know about our past is a changeable intertwining of
talk in which ‘word of mouth’, that pervasive process of human communication,
performs an unclear and mysterious, yet always essential, role.
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 Index Locorum

Achilles Tatius Bacchylides

6.10.2–6: 89n34 Epinicians
6.10.4–5: 34 2.1–5: 159
Aeschines 10.1: 159n16
De falsa legatione Bible
144–5: 70–1 Psalms
145: 161 113.9: 203n40
In Timarchum Isaiah
125–30: 68–9 42.8: 205
128: 161–2 66.1: 300n100
Scholia ad In Timarchum Matthew
128: 161–2 5.34–5: 300n100
Aeschylus 6.1–4: 201
Agamemnon John
268–74: 37n63 5.44: 201
280–3: 37–8 Paul, 1 Corinthians
Alain de Lille 1.31: 203n40
Anticlaudianus Paul, 2 Corinthians
8.1–56: 370n64 1.12: 203n42
11.139–40: 310n120, 368n54 10.17–18: 203n40
[Alberic of London] Paul, 1 Thessalonians
Libellus de deorum imaginibus 2.4: 203n42
13: 368 John, Revelation
Andocides 4.6 and 8: 363n29
De mysteriis 8.2–5: 269–72
130: 69n4 Boccaccio
Archpoet of Cologne Amorosa visione
Carmina 1.49–51: 213
2.1–3: 310n120 2.67: 213
Aristides, Aelius 3.16–21: 213–14
Orationes 4.12–17: 214n69
26.11–13: 16 4.25–30: 214, 291
Aristophanes 5.70–6.18: 214, 294n90
The Birds 6.13–15: 214n71
719–21: 156–7 6.27: 214
Aristotle 6.43–75: 214–16
Rhetorica 6.49–61: 362n28
1355b: 71, 72n10 6.70–2: 278n52
Augustine 7.76–81: 217
Confessions 7.80: 278n54
10.38.63: 201n37 8.33: 216n75
De ciuitate Dei 8.54: 216n75
5.12–20: 200–3 10.5–6: 216n75
5.20: 209 10.16–21: 216n75
Enarrationes in Psalmos 10.43–8: 217
118, sermo 29.1: 202n38 10.45–6: 278n54
149.10: 200 11.14–15: 216n75
426 Index Locorum
Boccaccio (cont.) 700–6: 358
12.4–6: 216n73 712–24: 358, 381n102
12.7–9: 216n75 729: 358
12.58–81: 217 782–842: 358–9
15.1–36: 246n132 830–52: 377
15.13–33: 217n77 840–2: 359n18
15.28–9: 370n64 843–52: 359
29.31–45: 218n78 875–84: 359n19
30.15–17: 218 1025–42: 359n21
30.19–33: 218 1034–42: 381
30.49–57: 219 1073–82: 360, 377
31.16–21: 219n 1086: 360n23
31.17: 219 1091–1109: 360
37.49–53: 220 1120–64: 361
Expositions on Dante’s Comedy 1136 ff: 382n107
ad Inf. 2.58–60, 86–108: 336–8 1200: 361
Genealogie deorum gentilium 1288–92: 361
1.10: 333–6 1309–13: 361
1.10.1–2: 176n58 1360–7: 362n28
1.11.1: 334n27 1368–92: 362–3
7.59.3: 338n36 1403–6: 361–2
9.3: 338n36 1406: 372n73
10.27: 338–40 1410–13: 363
11.2.8: 338n36 1435–6: 364
15.6.8: 333n26 1503–6: 364n38
Boethius 1514–19: 364n39
De consolatione Philosophiae 1538–41: 365
2.7 Pr.2: 196n24 1547: 380
2.7 Pr.6: 196n26 1547–8: 365n42
2.7 Pr.8: 196n25 1551 ff: 367n51
2.7 Pr.13–15: 196–7, 234n 1559–61: 367
2.7 Pr.18–19: 196–7 1573–82: 369
2.7 Metr.: 197–9 1606 ff: 367n50
2.7 Metr.17–18: 231, 382n107 1636 ff: 370
2.7 Metr.24: 231 1643–4: 370n61
1657 ff: 367n49
Caesar 1678 ff: 370
De Bello Civili 1689 ff: 367n51
2.29: 146 1702 ff: 367n49
De Bello Gallico 1727 ff: 367n49
5.53.1: 116–17 1771 ff: 367n50
6.20.1: 55 1811 ff: 367n51
Cassius Dio 1823 ff: 367n50
51.22: 312 1839–41: 371n66
Chaucer 1866–7: 370n65
The House of Fame 1871–2: 372
305–10: 357n9 1876–82: 372n71
345–61: 357n9 1886–9: 372
378–80: 357n8 1892: 372
619: 358 1907–9: 372n70
643–60: 358 1920–3: 373
663: 358 1927–34: 381n104
672: 358 1945–58: 373, 381
674–5: 378–9 1956 ff: 381
674–98: 358 1960–76: 373–4
675–6: 358n15 1982–4: 374n79, 380
 Index Locorum 427
2007–26: 374n80 Dante
2034–6: 375n83 Inferno
2043–120: 374–8, 381 2.58–60: 336
2121–30: 374n82 Purgatorio
2131 ff: 378n93 11.88–117: 210–12
2143: 378 Demosthenes
2155–8: 378 De falsa legatione
The Man of Law’s Tale 243–4: 69–70
995–6: 372n74 Disticha Catonis
Troilus and Criseyde 1.12: 146n58
1.394: 364n36 Donatus, Tiberius Claudius
4.659–65: 363n29 Interpretationes Vergilianae
5.1653: 364n36 1.378 Georges: 149, 168n35,
Cicero 169n38
Pro Cluentio
126: 74n15 Ennius
De diuinatione Varia
1.101: 164n29 17–18 Vahlen2: 60
2.69: 164–5 Euripides
Ad familiares fr. 1044 Nauck: 32n50
12.4.2: 126
12.9.1: 131 Faba, Guido
12.10.1–2: 122, 131 Summa de uitiis et uirtutibus
16.21.2: 310 III: 209
De inuentione Flamma, Galvano
2.46–50: 74n16, 75n18 Opusculum de rebus gestis ab Azone
2.166: 188, 237 pp. 16–17 Castiglioni: 279–80
Pro Marcello Florus
26: 189, 237 1.28.14–15: 52n
Pro Murena Francesco da Barberino
35: 207–8 Documenti d’amore
De natura deorum 6240–51: 256–7
2.6: 50–2 Fulgentius
3.11–13: 52 Mythologiae
De officiis 1.15.48: 338n36
2.31: 189n9 1.21: 338–9
Philippicae 3.1: 340n41
1.29: 189–90
In Pisonem Giles of Rome
57: 120 De regimine principum
Pro Plancio 1.9: 199n30
56–7: 143–4 Gower
De re publica Mirour de l’Omme
6.13–25: 194–5 1345–6: 368n53
Pro Sestio 22129–52: 370n63
139: 190
Topica Herodotus
76: 73n12 9.100: 28n30
Tusculanae disputationes Hesiod
1.28: 50n Opera et dies
3.3–4: 190 760–4: 56, 68–9, 157–9
In Verrem Theogonia
2.1.1: 115–16 26–8: 118n78
2.3.49: 122, 150 265–9: 27n28
Curtius Rufus 566: 37
10.10.5: 133–4 820–35: 175–6
428 Index Locorum
Hesychius Justin
Lexicon II, 140 Latte: 32 20.3.4: 51n84
Homer Juvenal
Iliad 6.408–9: 119
2.91–4: 153 14.152: 310, 368n54
4.70: 69n5
4.439–45: 6–7 Livy
4.442–3: 175 5.32.6–7: 163
6.168–9: 36 5.50.5: 163–4
14.225 ff: 19, 38 24.21.5: 117
15.168–72: 26–7 28.27.9–11: 143n
24.112: 69n5 35.23.2: 126
Scholia D in Iliadem 37.48: 123–4
1.201: 32 37.51.8: 132
2.7: 32n48 40.57.3: 118
Odyssey 42.30.4: 208
1.122: 31–2 44.22: 44n78
1.282–3: 154 45.1.1–10: 48–50
2.35: 61n20 Lucan
2.216–17: 154 Bellum civile
5.43–54: 25 1.484–6: 146n59
20.100: 61n20 Luxorius
20.100–21: 155–6 Anth. Lat. 312 Riese2: 255
20.105: 61n20 Anth. Lat. 313 Riese2: 255
Scholia vetera in Odysseam
1.122: 31–2 Macrobius
Homeric Hymn to Hermes Saturnalia
550–63: 174n54 5.13.31–3: 175n56
Honorius of Autun Manilius
Imago mundi Astronomica
1.118: 339n39, 353 2.808–19: 253n5
Horace Martial
Ars poetica 3.95.7–8: 60n16
38–40: 364n34 5.60.3–7: 59n15
Carmina
2.5–8: 167 Nozze di Costanzo Sforza e Camilla
3.2.21–4: 226n93 d’Aragona
4.9.25–30: 223 Triumphus Fame
Epistulae 10–27: 347–8
1.18.69–71: 33–4 37–9: 348
2.1.177–8: 254 Invitation to the Victors of the Joust
Satires 1–10: 348–9
1.6.23–4: 253–4
Hugutio of Pisa Ovid
Deriuationes Amores
C 123.15–16 Cecchini: 204–5, 303n103 1.2.19–52: 246
F 12.6–9 Cecchini: 101–2 Epistulae Heroidum
17.207: 182n77
Ilias parua Ex Ponto
fr. 27 Bernabé: 69n5 4.4.11–20: 182n77, 183–4, 367n52
Isidore of Seville Fasti
Etymologiae 4.311–12: 118
2.30.2: 189n9 6.527–8: 121, 182n77
5.27.26–7: 86–7, 102n38 Metamorphoses
10.2: 127n9 1.330–8: 369n60
 Index Locorum 429
1.468–71: 217n77, 370n64 3.130–2: 236
1.722–3: 176n57 3.188–214: 237–41
9.137–9: 181n74 Triumphi
11.666–8: 149–50 Triumphus Cupidinis
12.39–63: 177–83 1.10–30: 244–5
12.44–5: 381 Triumphus Pudicitie
12.47: 381n103 118–24: 246n134
12.47–52: 181, 359n20, 381 Triumphus Mortis
12.53–8: 181, 359n22, 374n81, 381 1.31: 246n134
12.56–8: 145–6 Triumphus Fame
12.64–8: 178n64, 376n85 1.4: 304n106
14.726–8: 150n 1.4–5: 246n134
15.877–9: 60 1.8–9: 246, 304n106
Tristia 1.10–13: 246
3.7.50–4: 60n16 1.23: 246
1.26–33: 246n135
Palladas 1.29–31: 304n107
Anth. Pal. 10.89: 160 1a.19–22: 246n135
Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus) 2a.1–2: 246n135
Epitome Festi de uerborum significatu Triumphus Temporis
9.7 Lindsay: 119n85 6–12: 247n136
76.26 Lindsay: 53 109–45: 242–4
333.2 Lindsay: 119n85 Triumphus Eternitatis
Pausanias 43–5: 247n137
1.17.1: 162 76–81: 247
Petrarch 127–34: 247
Africa Plautus
1.154–2.557: 229–36 Amphitruo
2.361–3: 239 325–6: 33
2.431–2: 239n122 587–8: 55
2.464–5: 239n122 Aulularia
2.486: 240 555: 176n57
9.404: 232n Trinummus
Collatio laureationis 98–9: 142n53
7: 223 199–222: 142–3
10.16–11.20: 223–5 Pliny the Elder
De remediis utriusque fortunae Historia Naturalis
1.92: 226n95 5.12: 134
De uiris illustribus 8.1: 283n68
Praef. B.8: 249 8.4: 283n68,
Praef. B.11: 249 305
Praef. B.24: 250n143 8.28: 283n68
Praef. B.33: 250n144 17.93: 140n49
Praef. B.39: 250n145 Pliny the Younger
Epistole familiares Epistles
5.17.1–2: 227–8 5.8.1–2: 193
Epistole metrice Plutarch
2.18.14–16: 227 De garrulitate
2.18.36–40: 227n99 503D: 47
Itinerarium Syriacum 507A–B: 32–3
38: 281 509B: 43
Rerum uulgarium fragmenta Life of Aemilius Paulus
119: 225–6 24.4–25.7: 43–7
264: 236–7 Life of Camillus
Secretum 14.2–4: 165n32
Prohem.22: 236n116 30.4: 165–6
430 Index Locorum
Plutarch (cont.) 55–86: 341–3
Life of Nicias 105–7: 343n45
30: 43n76 126–8: 343n45
Polybius 139: 343
10.46.1–6: 39 143–53: 343–4
Porphyrion Seneca the Elder
Ad Hor. Epist. Controuersiae
2.1.177–8: 254n7 2.7.9: 168n37
Ad Hor. Sat. Seneca the Younger
1.6.23–4: 254n6 Apocolocyntosis
Procopius of Gaza 1.1–3: 141
Epistles 5.1: 141
40: 161n22 Epistulae morales
Propertius 78.16: 310n119
3.1.7–14: 251–2, 263n24, 304n108 Naturales quaestiones
Prudentius 3.25.10: 208n54
Psychomachia 4.3.1: 141–2
439–40: 259n17 Servius
Ad Vergili Aeneidem
Quintilian 3.551: 149
Institutio oratoria 4.170: 168n37
5.1–9: 71–2 4.176: 169n38
5.3.1: 102n38, 238n120 4.179: 175n55
5.11.41: 73n12 4.181–3: 173n49
9.2.36: 7, 167–8 4.188: 173n48
11.1.39: 6n4 8.90: 119n82
ps.-Quintilian 8.132: 119n82
Declamationes maiores 9.78: 140n49
XI.6: 73n12 9.471: 28n29
XVIII: 76–81 10.510–12: 132
XVIII.3.2: 77n21 11.708: 208
XVIII.4.2–5: 77–8 11.854: 207
XVIII.5.6: 78 12.159: 127n9
XVIII.6.3–4: 79 Silius Italicus
XVIII.6.6: 77 Punica
XVIII.8.2–4: 78–9 4.1–11: 177n61
XVIII.12.5–13.2: 80 Solinus
XVIII.16.2–3: 78n23 40.3–5: 371n67
XIX: 81–3 Sophocles
XIX.1.1: 81 Oedipus Rex
XIX.3.1–3: 81n26 40–3: 156n9
XIX.5.2: 81n25 42–3: 62
XIX.8.6–9.1: 82 Statius
XIX.10.4: 82 Siluae
2.7.107–12: 252–3
Rhetorica ad Herennium 5.1.105–7: 45n
2.12: 74–5 Thebaid
4.66: 6n4 3.425–31: 177n61, 328, 338n36
9.281–3: 130
Sallust Strabo
Iugurtha 6.1.10: 50n84
9.3: 117–18 Suetonius
17.7: 140n49 Life of Augustus
Sannazaro 49.3: 36
Il triunfo della Fama Life of Domitian
13–14: 341 6.2: 45n
 Index Locorum 431
Tacitus 14.3 Bode: 339
Annals [Vincent of Beauvais]
3.16.1: 122n92 Speculum morale
4.10–11: 122–3 3.3. Dist.VIII: 206–7
Tertullian Virgil
Ad nationes Aeneid
1.7.1–33: 84 1.379: 327
1.7.2: 85n 1.453–7: 324n11
Apologeticum 1.516–19: 323
7.8–12: 84–6 3.551: 149
Thucydides 4.169–97: 168–77
7.8.2–7.10: 36 4.174: 84, 357n9
4.178–9: 149
Valerius Flaccus 4.180: 363n29
Argonautica 4.203: 119
2.115–25: 177n61 4.221: 168n37
Valerius Maximus 4.238–61: 25–6
1.6.7: 129 4.321–3: 168n37, 357n9
1.8.1: 50n84 8.626: 364
3.2.24: 133 8.731: 364
8.14 ext. 5: 371 9.1–22: 27
Varro 10.510–12: 132
De lingua latina 12.234–5: 60n18
6.52–5: 54 Georgics
7.36: 55n3 1.27: 128
Vatican Mythographer III 3.8–9: 60n18
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/12/2016, SPi
 General Index
Figures are indicated by f. Greek words are alphabetized as if they were in roman transliteration.
Personifications of abstract concepts are indicated by an initial capital letter (e.g. fama vs. Fama).
Aeneas 25, 119, 132, 168–74 passim, 280n63,
323–5, 327, 356–7, 364
Aeolus, see Chaucer, The House of Fame;
trumpets
Aeschines 67–71, 161–3
Aeschylus 37–8
Agrippa 16
Aius Locutius, Aius Loquens 163–7
Alain de Lille 310n120, 366, 368n54,
370n64
Albanzani, Donato degli 274
Alberic of London 339–40, 368
Alexander the Great 217, 224, 278n54,
296n94, 345, 350n59, 363
Alighieri, Dante 214, 219, 293–4, 336–7,
357, 383
on vainglory 210–13
Alighieri, Pietro 212
Allport, Gordon W. 92, 109, 114n70
Altichiero 262–7, 272–4, 281, 283, 287n77,
289n83, 294–6, 310–11
Glory and the Illustrious Men 263, 264f,
266f, 267–8, 269–70, 313
Ambrose Autpert 258
angels, see iconographic elements and
patterns; trumpets
animals pulling triumphal chariots, see
iconographic elements and patterns
Apollonio di Giovanni 286–7
Triumph of Eternity 300, 302 f
Triumph of Fama 276, 277f, 282, 287, 288f,
300–1 et f
Aquinas, Thomas 212n66, 306n114
Archpoet of Cologne 310n120
ἀρχή, see auctor/auctores
Argos (mythological figure) 176n57, 345
Aristides, Aelius 16–17
Aristotle 71, 72n10, 196n23, 293–4, 296
Armstrong, Lilian 276n51, 290n86
auctor/auctores (source(s)) 48–9, 52, 121–4,
125–34, 135, 137
ἀρχή 43–8, 52, 125–7
etymology and meaning 125–31
identification of 71, 72–3, 77–9 passim, 96,
113–14, 134–5, 139, 148–50, 182–3
multiplication of 144–7
and reliability of information 51–2, 83–8,
89, 131–4, 138–9, 140–4, 148–9, 150, 335
and testimonial chains 137–8, 144–7
Augustine, Saint 199–204, 209, 212,
236–41, 383
Augustus 22n22, 36, 217, 254, 293,
296n94, 312
aureole, see iconographic elements and
patterns: mandorla
Bacchus, Triumph of 283n68, 305
Balzac, Honoré de 41–2
Barbazza, Andrea 326–7
Barberini diptych 313, 314f
Battaglia Ricci, Lucia 246n135, 274n44
battles, see victory, news of
Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron
de 89n34, 370n61
Bellosi, Luciano 297n95
Benveniste, Émile 55–7, 62, 128
Bergmann, Jörg R. 93n8, 98, 106n49
Berlin Painter 23, 24f
Bersuire, Pierre 369n60
Birck, Sixtus 320
Bloch, Marc 91, 96
Boccaccio, Giovanni
Amorosa visione 213–21, 275–83 passim,
287, 291, 296, 311, 333, 370n64,
380n99, 388
Chaucer and 362
Expositions on Dante’s Comedy 336–8
Genealogie deorum gentilium 176n58,
333–6, 338–40, 351, 353
and Giotto 278–82
Boethius 196–9, 212, 230–4, 239, 244, 278,
366, 382
Bögel, Theodor 130n21
Boileau Despréaux, Nicolas 7n8
Boitani, Piero 204n45, 206, 356, 361nn25–7,
362n28, 368n57, 372n74, 382
Book of Revelation, illustrations of 260, 271–3
et ff, 300, 315, 323, 328n19, 363n29,
368n55
books, see iconographic elements and patterns
Branca, Vittore 220n81
Brant, Sebastian 319–20, 352
434 General Index
Braudy, Leo 63, 187n3
Braun, Ludwig 182
Buffalmacco (Buonamico di Martino): The
Last Judgment 315, 316f
Caesar 55, 116–17, 146, 293, 294, 296, 304,
345, 350n56, 350n59
calumny, see slander
Calumny (Calumnia), personified 320–3 et f;
see also Slander (Διαβολή), personified
Carothers, John Colin 35
Cartari, Vicenzo 328, 369n60
cartography, ancient 16–20
Cassé, Marie-Claude 14
chariots, see iconographic elements and
patterns; Triumph(s)
Chastity, personification of 241, 246,
282, 305
Chaucer, The House of Fame 355–83, 388
Aeolus in 367–70
Chance (‘Aventure’), see Fortune,
personified
and Dante’s Divine Comedy 357,
360n24
Fame, personified 361–7, 370–1, 377,
380–2
Fame’s palace 360–1
Fortune 365–6, 374, 380
and Ovid 357, 358–60, 373–6,
380–1
renown 366–7, 372, 382
sound and speech 358–9
Tydynges (House of ) 372–9
and Virgil 356–7, 362–4, 380
Christian iconography, see Book of Revelation,
illustrations of; Eternity, Triumph of;
iconographic elements and patterns:
angels, Last Judgment, Maiestas
Domini; saints, Triumphs of
Cicero 50–2, 212, 223, 293–4, 310
on Aius Loquens 164–7
definition of gloria 188–92, 198–9, 204,
206, 237, 303n103, 366
on rumours and hearsay 73n12, 74n16,
115–16, 120, 122, 126, 130n20, 131,
143–4, 150, 198n29, 199n30, 207–8
Somnium Scipionis 194–5, 196, 198,
229–31, 238, 253, 278, 299
Cicero the Younger 310
Cimabue (Cenni di Pepo): Scene from the
Book of Revelation 269–70, 271f
circles, circular forms, see iconographic
elements and patterns
Claricio, Girolamo 214n70
Claudian 176
Clément-Tarantino, Séverine 58n9, 171n41,
183n80
communication
chain-like propagation 22, 46–7, 83–4,
88, 103, 106, 112, 135–9, 145–7, 181,
185, 380
and digital technology 13–14
journeys 13–15, 17–20
light signals 37–8, 39
networks of 14, 16–17, 22, 40
and transport 13–15
see also oral communication; relay systems;
telegraph systems
Costa, Lorenzo: Triumph of Fama 385
Courcelle, Pierre and Jeanne 319, 323
Cupid, see Love, personified
Cupids, see iconographic elements and
patterns; trumpets
Curtius Rufus 133–4
Dares Phrygius 386
Darnton, Robert 109–10
Death, personified 7, 246, 304, 315, 317f
Triumph of 282, 305, 315
Della Seta, Lombardo 249, 262–3
Delmarcel, Guy 349n52, 353
Demosthenes 68–71
Διαβολή, see Slander (Διαβολή),
personified
Dido 4, 25, 119, 168–74 passim, 218n78,
320, 323–6, 326, 337, 356–7
digital technology 13–14, 105–8
Dolce, Lodovico 183n81
Dyer, Robert Rutherford 173n49
ears etc. multiplied, see iconographic elements
and patterns
Echo 338
elephants, see iconographic elements and
patterns; Triumph(s)
Emler, Nicholas 99–100
Ennius 7, 60, 232, 234
ἔπεα πτερόεντα, see winged words
Ernout, Alfred 128
Estius (Franco van Est) 1–3
Eternity, Triumph of 242, 282, 299–302
et f, 305
Euripides 69
eyes etc. multiplied, see iconographic elements
and patterns
Faba, Guido 209
Fabbri, Paolo 96, 101n36
Fachechi, Grazia 323–4
fama
as autonomous process 59, 67, 101, 121,
139, 147, 172
etymology and meaning 53–60,
101–2
 General Index 435
fama-glory, fama-renown 63–4, 186–7, Fontanier, Pierre 7–8
192–3, 213, 222, 235, 248, 377 Fortune, personified 196, 219, 365–6, 370,
fama-rumour 63–4, 102, 147, 376, 377 380, 382
and fari 5, 53–7, 59, 65, 101–2 Francesco da Barberino 246n132, 256–7
and gloria 187–92, 196, 282 Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara 249, 263,
as impersonal communicative 265, 290
process 56–7, 58, 59, 65, 72–3, 101, 145, family emblems 266–7
150–2, 171n40, 186 Fulgentius 338–40
mixing truth and falsehood 84–8, 126, 173,
181, 182, 335 geniuses, see iconographic elements and
movement of 101, 116–17, 172, 176 patterns
as oral communication 59, 64–5, 84, 85–6, Ghiberti, Lorenzo 280
88, 173, 176 Gilbert, Creighton E. 280n64
popularis 190–1 Giles of Rome 199n30
rhetorical use of fama’s testimony 72–83 Giotto 214, 268–9, 272n42, 279, 280–1
speed of 5, 67, 84–5, 88–9, 101, 116–17, Justice 290, 292f
121, 172, 255, 283, 310, 335, 339, 370n61 The Last Judgment 269–70, 270f
uncertainty/unreliability of 83–4, 86–8, Giovanni da Firenze, see Malizia Barattone
101, 115–18, 131–4, 148–50 Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, see Scheggia
and writing 59, 64 Gladhill, Bill 179n67
see also φήμη globes, see iconographic elements and
Fama, personified 2f, 3–5, 9–10, 23, 167–84, patterns
244–8, 251–6 passim, 282–302 et ff, 303–4, ‘Gloria del popol mondano’, see Worldly
318, 321f, 324–7 et ff, 329f, 331–8 et ff, Glory, personified
341–4, 345–8, 351f, 362–6, 380–9 passim Gloria mundi, see Worldly Glory, personified
as daughter of Earth 149, 174–6, 333–5 glory 4–5, 64, 65, 120, 185–99, 204–5
earthly domain of 299–302 Augustine on 199–204
Fama-Glory, Fama-Renown 241–2, 251–6 Cicero’s definition of gloria 188–92
passim, 280–1, 286–7, 318, 328, 331, 333, as divine privilege 203–4
335, 340–1, 348, 355–6, 372, 376, 382, fama and 187–8, 196, 199
387–8 gloria martyrum 203–4
Fama-Rumour 174, 319–20, 326–8, 340–1, Petrarch and 221–41, 248–50
355–7 passim, 362–3, 372, 380, 387 and wind 207, 228, 230–1, 235–6,
iconography 254–6, 276, 282–318, 319–31, 238, 254
349–53, 385–7 see also vana/inanis gloria; worldly glory
Mala Fama 351–2 Glory, personified 253–4, 256–7, 313, 331, 332f
‘Petrarchan’ 4, 185–6, 216, 283–4, 311, 313, Boccaccio and 214–17
318, 328, 331, 342–3, 347, 352, 385–7 and Giotto 278–82
passim iconography 256–7 et f, 262–74 et ff
Triumph of 276, 277f, 282–318 et ff, 340–4, in the Middle Ages 256–63
345–9 et f, 351f, 385, 386–7 Petrarch on 225–6
Virgilian 4, 5, 7, 42, 61, 84, 167, 168–77, Triumph of 275f, 288f
180, 182, 185, 251, 262, 319–31, 331–7, triumphal chariots of 253–4, 263,
340–9 passim, 352, 357, 362, 363, 380, 266, 267, 269
386–7 and Virtue 225–8
see also Chaucer, The House of Fame: Fame, and wind 254
personified; Φήμη, personified; trumpets see also Vana Gloria, personified; Worldly
fari, see fama: and fari Glory, personified
Fenzi, Enrico 222n84, 226, 227n97, 229 Gluckman, Max 97
Fera, Vincenzo 249, 263n23, 265 Goltzius, Hendrik: Fame and Virtue 1–5
Feyerabend, Sigmund 328 et f, 328
Flamma, Galvano 279–80, 281 Gombrich, E. H. 9n13
flight 19, 23, 40, 60 Goody, Jack 103
arrows metaphor 30–1, 33, 34 Gossaert, Jan 349
birds metaphor 19, 30–1, 34–5 gossip 40–2, 58, 63–5, 72–3, 89, 118–20,
modern technology and 105 135–6, 146, 171, 181
and poetry 30–1 modern theories 91–9
436 General Index
gossip (cont.)
and multimediality 105–8
and orality 102–4
and reputation 99–100
rhetorical use of 76–83
see also rumour
Gower, John 368n53, 370n63
Greene, John T. 20n17
Grüninger, Johann 319–20, 352
Halitgar of Cambrai 258
haloes, see iconographic elements and patterns
Hardie, Philip 4–5, 58n9, 59n14, 63, 171n40,
172n44, 178n64, 181n74, 254n6, 326,
328n19
hearsay, see gossip; rumour
Hegelund, Peter 320
Hermes 20, 23–6 et f, 28, 31, 150; see also
Mercury
Herodotus 22n22, 28
Hesiod 37, 56, 61, 68–70, 157–9, 175–6
Homer 293–4, 364
Homeric poems 13, 37, 61, 69, 111
ἔπεα πτερόεντα, see winged words
description of Eris 175
description of Hera’s flight 19
description of Hermes 25
description of Iris 26–7
ὄσσα and φήμη in 153–4, 158
personifications in 6–7
Honores tapestries cycle 349–53 et f
Honorius of Autun 339n39, 351, 353
Horace 33–4, 167, 223, 235, 253–4
horses, see iconographic elements and
patterns
Hugutio of Pisa 101–2, 204–5
iconographic elements and patterns
angels 267–8, 269, 289n83, 290, 300, 305,
306, 311n121, 313, 315
animals pulling triumphal chariots 283,
304–6
books 284, 287, 291–4, 296, 306, 327,
349, 386
chariots 251–4, 263, 267–8, 269, 274, 283,
293, 297, 299, 304–6
circles, circular forms 216–17, 274–8, 283,
284, 287n78, 296–300, 311, 318
Cupids and winged geniuses 263–4, 266,
269, 274, 283, 284, 287–9, 291, 294–6,
299, 304, 311, 313
ears, eyes, mouths, and tongues
multiplied 4, 42, 173–4, 175–6, 319, 320,
323, 324–5, 328, 331, 335–6, 342–3, 345,
350, 352–3, 363, 387
elephants 283, 289n83, 293, 297, 304,
305–6, 341, 350
globes 216, 276, 283, 287–9, 299, 311–13
passim, 386–7 passim
haloes 276, 284, 293, 294, 299, 306,
311, 313
horses 216, 245, 263, 266, 269, 274, 283,
287n77, 304, 305; see also Pegasus
Last Judgment 267, 269–70, 270f, 300, 315,
316f, 318, 350
laurels 263, 266–7, 269, 274, 276, 304,
311–13, 327
Maiestas Domini 266, 267, 272, 300
mandorlas 266, 267–9, 272, 313
mirrors 260, 386
prisoners 287n80, 299
scales 283, 287, 290
swords 216, 274–6, 283, 284, 286–7, 293
Triumphs 267, 269, 303–18
Victories 275, 289–90, 311–13
wind(s) 311n121
wings/winged figures 3, 4, 5, 22–9, 260,
263, 266–8, 269, 274, 283, 287, 293–4,
299, 310–15, 320, 326–8, 331, 338–9,
341–3, 345, 352, 386, 387; see also
Triumph(s); trumpets
Illustrious Men, see viri illustres
Inanis gloria, see vana/inanis gloria; Vana
gloria, personified
information
official 46–7, 48–9, 50–1, 52
recipients of 87–8
reliability of 43–4, 47, 50–1
self-generation of 45, 88
sources of 43–4, 46, 87–8
transmission of 5, 20–1, 36, 88, 93, 94,
100–8, 112–13, 135–40, 144–50
verification of 40, 50–1, 87–8, 113–15, 137,
138–40
see also orality; writing
Iris 23–4 et f, 26–7, 173
Isidore of Seville 86–7
Janni, Pietro 17
Josephus, Flavius 364, 386
journeys 13–15
ancient 17–20
and messengers 20–1
Justice, personified 287, 290, 292f
Justin 386
Juvenal 119, 310, 368n54
Κληδών, personified 166
Knapp, Robert H. 92
Lackey, Jennifer 136nn35–6
ps.-Lactantius Placidus 130
Laird, Andrew 171n40
Larran, Francis 61n21, 63, 111–12, 115
 General Index 437
Last Judgment, see iconographic elements and Octavian, see Augustus
patterns Ong, Walter 64
laurel(s), see iconographic elements and orality, oral communication 20–1, 64, 91,
patterns; Triumph(s) 102–8, 142, 147–9, 176, 388–9
Leone de Castris, Pierluigi 272n42, fama as 59, 101–2, 238, 356
280n64 rumour/gossip and 93, 94, 99, 104,
Leumann, Manu 127 112–13
Levi, Primo 94n11, 98 unreliability of 46, 52, 83–4, 101,
Livy 48–50, 117, 118, 123–4, 126, 132, 163–4, 117–18, 145
166, 208 see also multimediality; writing
Lorenzetti, Ambrogio: Allegory of Bad organs for the acquisition and reproduction of
Government 260–1 et f information, see iconographic elements
Love, personified: Triumph of 217–18, 220, and patterns
241, 244–6, 282, 305 Ὄσσα 153–4
Lucan 176, 252–3, 293–4, 364 Ovid 60, 118, 121, 149–50, 176, 183–4,
Luxorius 255–6 193n18, 217n77, 223, 246, 345, 364,
Lydgate, John 370n64 369n60, 386, 388
Chaucer and 357, 358–60, 373–6 passim,
Maestro delle Vele: Gloriosus Franciscus 380–1
(Triumph of Saint Francis) House of Fama 145–6, 177–83,
306–8 et f 185, 388
Maiestas Domini, see iconographic elements
and patterns Pacca, Vinicio 283–4
Malizia Barattone (Giovanni da Firenze) 280 Paine, Robert 97
Malta, Caterina 265–6 Palladas 160
mandorlas, see iconographic elements and Paul, Saint 203
patterns Paul the Deacon 53
Marcus Aurelius 308 Paul of Perugia 333
Mariani Canova, Giordana 268, 275n46 Pausanias 162
McLuhan, Marshall 14, 15, 21, 152 Paxson, James J. 180
McMyler, Benjamin 136–8, 140 Payne, Tom 63
Meillet, Antoine 128 Pegasus 338–40, 351, 352
Mercury 23, 25, 33, 171; see also Hermes Penthesilea 293, 350, 352
messenger 9, 20–9, 35–6, 48–9, 86, 117–18, Peretti, Aurelio 19
311–12, 331, 334, 387 Perseus 338–9, 351
divine 23–9, 38, 50–2, 173, 313 persona (πρόσωπον) 6, 8–9
hearsay as 122, 147–50, 153–4, 159 personification 5–9, 153–4, 166
and journeys 20–1 prosopopoiia (personarum fictio) 6–9,
winged 22–9, 38 167–8
Metastasio, Pietro 33 Peter of Blois 209
mirrors, see iconographic elements and Petrarch 220–50, 280–1, 304, 382
patterns Africa 229–36, 238–40
modern technology, see digital technology; Canzone on Glory 225–6
multimediality; telegraph systems Collatio laureationis 222–5
Mommsen, Theodor E. 263n23, De uiris illustribus 221, 229, 236, 238, 240,
276n51 248–50, 262–7, 274, 278, 281, 282
Moran, Richard 136n34, 138n40, 139 and Fama personified 244–8, 282
Moussy, Claude 87 and Giotto 280–1
mouths etc. multiplied, see iconographic Secretum 200, 222, 236–41
elements and patterns Trionfi 4, 220–2 passim, 241–8, 278–9,
multimediality 105–8; see also orality; writing 282–4 passim, 286–7, 300, 304–5, 315
murmur (talk) 50, 64, 74n17, 119n79; see also and worldly glory 221–2
rumor Petronius 176
Phaeton 268–9 et f
navigation 14n4, 15, 18, 22 φήμη 28, 32, 43–4, 155–7
Neubauer, Hans-Joachim 63 chain-like mechanism of 46
Νίκη, see Victory, personified collective production of 70–1
438 General Index
φήμη (cont.)
as divine and prophetic form of speech 62,
70–1, 155–7
etymology and meaning of 53, 56, 61–2
legal use of φήμη’s testimony 67–72
mixture of truth and falsehood 44, 48
movement of 43–8, 62, 68
self-generation of 45, 48–9, 68, 70
speed of 44–5, 62
see also fama
Φήμη, personified 34, 89n34
altar of 62, 69, 161–3
as goddess 69, 153, 157–60, 165–7
see also Fama, personified
Plato 293–4, 296
Plautus 33, 55, 142–3
Pliny the Elder 134, 305
Pliny the Younger 193
Plutarch 32–3, 40, 43–8, 68, 113–14,
139, 165–6
Pompey 283n68, 294, 296, 304, 305, 350,
352, 364
Postman, Leo J. 92, 109, 114n70
pride 205–6, 210, 213, 254
Pride, personified 258n15, 260
prisoners, see iconographic elements and
patterns
Propertius 251–2, 304n108
prosopopoiia, see persona
Proto Pisani, Rosanna 294–6
Prudentius 259
Pynson, Richard 386
Pythagoras 293–4
Quintilian 6, 7, 8, 131, 167–8
on probationes 71–4
ps.-Quintilian: on hearsay 76–83
Reed, Joseph D. 179n67, 180n69
relay systems 35–42
light signals 37–9
Persian 22, 38
Roman 22, 35–6
renown 4, 58–9, 63–5, 185–99, 210–13
passim, 248, 249, 251–2, 282–3, 296, 310,
313, 327–8, 331–8 passim, 340, 360–7,
372, 379–82, 388–9
and reputation (q.v.) 4–5, 58, 59, 65, 99,
185–7, 388
see also fama; Fama, personified
reputation 4–5, 58–65 passim, 99–100, 107,
120, 171, 185–7 passim, 191–2 passim,
310, 327n15, 352–3, 365–71 passim,
370, 380
see also renown
Reumaux, Françoise 144
Rhetorica ad Herennium 74–5
Riepl, Wolfgang 20, 101n35
Ripa, Cesare 260n20, 331, 340n42
Rossini, Gioachino 89n34, 370n61
rumor, rumores 58n12, 72, 74–83, 118–24,
126, 131, 145–6, 148–50, 235
fama and 115–16, 121, 126–7, 130–2,
134, 139
meaning of 118–21
in Ovid’s House of Fama 181, 182–3,
359–60, 374, 376
personified 121, 176n60
see also fama; murmur
rumour 40–2, 58–9, 87, 88–9, 91–7, 108–24
ancient and modern 111–13
chain-like propagation of 88, 112
identifiable sources, lack of 71, 88, 96,
113–15, 121–4
impersonality of 95–6
instability of 108–9, 110
modern theories 91–100
multiple production of 70, 91, 95–6, 115–16
networks of 94
oral circulation of 88, 91, 94, 104, 112–13
as premonition 48–50
renown and 10, 63–5, 185–7, 379
self-generation of 45, 48–9, 68, 88–9
spread of 5, 40, 43–9 passim, 59, 61, 65,
72–3, 84, 94, 112–16 passim, 185
unreliability 67–72, 83–4, 87–9
volatility of 96–7
see also gossip
Ruskin, John 14–15
saints, Triumphs of 306–8 et f
Sallust 117–18
Sannazaro, Iacopo 340–4
Santagata, Marco 236n115, 248n139
Savelli, Sperandio 326–7
Sbisà, Marina 92, 95–6
scales, see iconographic elements and
patterns
Scheggia (Giovanni di Ser Giovanni) 286
Palazzo Davanzati panels 293–8 et ff, 311
Triumph of Fama (New York) 298–9 et f, 313
Triumph of Fama (Siena) 296–7 et f
Scipio Aemilianus 194
Scipio Africanus Maior 194–5, 229–30, 232,
293, 296, 304, 337, 345
Scot, Michael 268
second-hand knowledge 135–40
Seneca 140–2
Servius 119, 132, 149, 207, 208
Severi, Carlo 135n30
Shibutani, Tamotsu 95, 97, 108, 109, 110,
114, 174
 General Index
Shorr, Dorothy 287
Silius Italicus 176
slander 70–1, 98, 107, 370n61
produced by single individual 71, 73n12,
78–9, 83
Slander (Διαβολή), personified 34, 89n34
see also Calumny (Calumnia), personified
Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi) 387
Solove, Daniel 107
source(s), see auctor/auctores
Spacks, Patricia Meyer 99, 106n49
Statius 130, 176, 252–3, 328, 338, 364
Sterbini, Cesare 370n61
Stimmer, Tobias 328
Strozzi, Zanobi: The Triumph of
Fama 284, 285f
Stuttgart panels (stories from the Book of
Revelation) 272, 273f
Suetonius 36
Sun, personified 268 et f
swords, see iconographic elements and patterns
Tacitus 122–3, 124
telegraph systems 22, 36–7, 40–2
ancient 39
Tertullian 84–7, 89, 113–14, 170
Theopompus 371
Thomas, Jean-François 187
Timarchus 68–70
Time, Triumph of 242–4, 282, 305
Timor Domini, personified 258 et f
tongues etc. multiplied, see iconographic
elements and patterns
Triumph(s) 205, 220–1, 244–8 passim, 251–4,
267–9 passim, 289, 303–18, 340–1, 349,
350, 352
of Bacchus 283n68, 305
chariots 252–4, 263, 267–9, 283, 293, 299,
304–8 passim, 341, 345–8 passim
elephants 283, 289n83, 304, 305–6, 350
laurels and 205, 216, 222–5, 266, 303n103,
304, 311–13
of saints 306–7 et f
see also iconographic elements and patterns
triumphal chariots, see Glory, personified;
iconographic elements and patterns;
Triumph(s)
trumpets 4, 283, 300, 304, 308–11, 328
Aeolus and 368–70 et f
angels/Cupids and 263–74 et ff, 291n87,
302f, 304, 306–7 et f, 310–11, 313, 315–17
et ff, 345–7 et f
Fama and 2f, 4, 276, 277f, 283–5 et f, 293f,
294, 298–304 passim et ff, 308–11, 315,
317f, 327–32 et ff, 341, 343, 345, 346f,
347n, 350–1 et f, 368
439
Glory and 263–6 et ff, 267–8, 269, 313
and Triumph 263–4, 304–5, 308–10 et f
winged 4, 263, 267–8, 276, 283, 284, 294–6,
298, 299, 300, 304, 310–11, 313
Tyranny, personified 260
Ubi sunt topos 197–8, 230–1
vainglory, see vana/inanis gloria
Vainglory, personified, see Vana gloria,
personified
Valerius Flaccus 176
Valerius Maximus 129, 133, 371
van Aelst, Pieter 349
van Orley, Bernart 349
vana/inanis gloria 202, 203, 204, 205–13,
227, 260
and wind 206, 207–9, 212, 228
Vana gloria, personified 256–62 et ff,
279–80
Inanis gloria 258 et f
Varro 54–5, 57, 59
Victoria, see Victory, personified
victory, news of 28, 39n69, 44, 46, 48–51
passim, 97n21, 116–17, 159–63 passim,
166–7, 267
Victory, personified 28, 205, 252n3, 255–6,
274–5, 289–90 et ff, 299n97, 311–15 et ff,
318, 387; see also iconographic elements
and patterns
Νίκη, personified 28, 29f, 159n16, 163, 173,
252n3, 312
Vincent de Beauvais 206
Virgil 132, 149, 293–4, 336, 337, 364, 386
Chaucer and 356–7, 362–3, 364, 380
description of Iris 27
description of Mercury 25–6
Fama, see Fama, personified (Virgilian)
viri illustres 1, 4, 303–4, 313, 318
in illustrations of Petrarch’s works 262–7,
269, 274, 278, 283–4
painting cycles 279–81, 290
Petrarch and 248–50
Virtue(s), personified 1–4 et f, 7, 209, 225–8
passim, 258, 306, 308, 311, 313
Visconti, Azzo 279–80
voice, see Aius Locutius; fama: messengers;
φήμη; rumor; rumour
Wackernagel, Jacob 30–1
wind(s), see Aeolus under Chaucer, The House
of Fame; see Aeolus under trumpets; see
glory; Glory, personified; iconographic
elements and patterns; vana/inanis gloria
winged geniuses, see iconographic elements
and patterns
440 General Index
winged words (ἔπεα πτερόεντα) 5, 13–15,
30–5, 39, 42, 59, 101
wings/winged figures, see iconographic
elements and patterns; trumpets:
winged
Wisdom, personified 214, 291
worldly glory 186, 196, 199–201, 212, 213,
308, 310, 339–40, 367–8
Petrarch and 221–6, 228, 229, 240, 244,
248, 253
see also glory
Worldly Glory, personified 214–16, 220–1,
264, 269, 272–8 passim et ff, 282–3,
303, 331, 353, 388; see also Glory,
personified
words, see Chaucer: sound and speech; flight;
information; orality; winged words (ἔπεα
πτερόεντα); writing: and visibility of the
spoken word
writing, written texts 102–8
and dissemination of fama 59
and information 108–13
instability of 109–10
messengers and 20–1, 22, 35, 36, 148
and multimediality 105–8
and orality (q.v.) 64, 102–4, 105, 107
reliability of 44n78, 46, 50, 101, 117–18, 142
telegraph systems and 36–7, 40–1
verification processes 52, 84
and visibility of spoken word 35