186 GIANPIERO ROSATI
and Nature will leave it to you to determine what deity you wish to be,
and where to establish your universal throne.^28The encomiastic cliché shared by the two poets establishes that at the
deification of the emperor, after his death (which, in accordance with
the topos, the poet hopes will be as far removed in the future as possi-
ble), the new god occupies in heaven the space that the other gods
grant him, either by leaving, or reducing, their own space. In the
words of Lucan, Nero can choose what position to occupy and which
god he will be: he may be either Jupiter (who wields the sceptre of
absolute power) or Apollo, whose flaming chariot sweeps across the
heavenly vault. The likening of Nero to Apollo will undoubtedly grat-
ify the emperor’s desire to be identified with this god: we know from
Suetonius (Nero 53) that he was celebrated as the “equal of Apollo in
music, and of the Sun in driving a chariot”;^29 as regards the sun, a
heavenly body which is generally associated with a complex symbol-
ogy of monarchic power,^30 of Oriental origin, it is a well-known fact
that during Nero’s reign there was a widespread increase in the use of
its image in connection with the young emperor.^31 However, the speci-
fication that the earth will not have anything to fear from the ‘new
Sun’, together with the description of the ‘wandering’ (uago) of its
fiery chariot, inevitably evokes memories of the story in which the
earth was afraid for its survival, in the face of the blaze provoked by
the Sun’s chariot running out of control, and invoked the intervention
of Jupiter, who, in order to save the cosmos from destruction, flung a
thunderbolt at the inexperienced charioteer of the ‘new Sun’, that is to
say Phaethon (Ov. Met. 2.272ff.).^32
In fact, raising the spectre of Phaethon while addressing the em-
peror-leader of the world seems hardly an opportune move;^33 and the
cautionary reassurance that earth will not have to fear from his leader-
ship seems to reveal the poet’s consciousness of running a risk. It is as
if, after rendering due homage to the emperor by calling him the ‘new
28 Translation by Duff 1928.
29 Translation by Rolfe 1914. Cf. Lebek 1976, 86; Narducci 2002, 26f.
30 See Bergmann 1998.
31 Cf. Bergmann 1998, 133ff.
32 The reference to Phaethon, already caught by the scholiasts, is beyond doubt
(pace Dewar 1994, 211), and is clearly confirmed by Statius’ imitation, as we will see
later. On this much debated passage cf. also Hinds 1987, 28f.; Lovatt 2005, 38f.
33 Cf. Hinds 1987, 28.