The Touch and Taste of War in Latin Battle Narrative

Abstract

Abstract Latin battle narratives exhibit visual, auditory, and even olfactory phenomena: swords glint, steel clangs, and the stench of blood permeates battlefields. These manifestations of multisensoriality are often implicit, as exemplified by the prominence of the ‘gaze’ in epic poetry. This article focuses on the two other senses, which have received less scholarly attention in discussions of battle narrative: touch and taste. In the former category are expressions such as ‘biting the dust’ (Hom. Il. 2.418) along with depictions of cannibalism in epic and historiographic texts. In the latter category are experiences such as Jocasta’s breast being scratched by Polynices’ armour (Stat. Theb. 7), along with a pervasive discourse on the ‘roughness’ of war and the ‘handling’ of casualties in aftermath episodes; these conceptual metaphors generate ‘partial altermedial illusions’ by enhancing, but not replacing, the primary medium of the literary text which they inhabit. As this chapter highlights, therefore, appeals to sensory perception are ambivalent in character: on the one hand, they facilitate audience engagement with the text via immersion, enactivism, and embodiment, but on the other hand they alienate readers by underscoring the fundamental ‘untellability’ of war.