The Geloni: a town on the borders of the Roman Empire

Abstract

The Geloni are a frontier people who appear in the literature of Virgil and Horace. Many suppose that this emergence is due to the triple triumph that Augustus celebrated in the year 29 BC. In that triumph an episode of aemulatio occurs, in which Augustus competes with the triumphs of Pompey and Caesar. I try to show that both poets actually recall Catulus 11 because of their use of two adjectives, pharetrati and sagittiferi, applied to Geloni, which hide a history of literary aemulatio with each other and Catullus. Poem 11 by Catullus reflects the influence of the triumph of Pompey; correspondingly, the Augustan poets reflect the influence of Augustus, but in their poems, they use iconicity to show how frontier peoples of the Empire also occupy the frontier positions of poetry books and individual poems. The conclusion is that aemulatio and tradition are forces that move both literature and triumphal celebrations, but each one uses their own procedures.