Staging Orbitas in Ennius’ Andromacha
This chapter takes a new look at Ennius’ Andromacha and particularly at her self-description as arce et urbe orba sum (23 TrRF II). Scholarship has well explicated how the formulaic words arce et urbe characterize Andromacha, to quote Jocelyn, as “a stateless person in terms of Roman law” (Jocelyn 1967). But scholarly focus on the religious formula has obscured the equally poignant allusion encoded in her choice of verb. Orbus is a word whose primary definition is of a child deprived of their parents or, conversely, of a parent who has lost a child. This chapter explores how Ennius boldly harnesses these familial connotations to create an arresting metaphor that totalizes Andromache’s loss. In doing so, he subtly genders Andromacha’s meditation on the loss of her recent past as well as significantly prefiguring the greater loss that the audience (but not yet Andromacha) knows is coming by the tragedy’s end, the tossing of Astyanax from the arx of Troy.
