Retour En Gaule

In 415, Rutilius Namatianus left his beloved Rome on a sea voyage to return to his native land, in all likelihood Gallia Narbonensis. What ensued was a poetic journey, brimming, between each stop, with nostalgia for his eternal homeland, panegyrics in honour of relatives or friends, invectives against those who would threaten the Empire’s perpetuity, and didactic digressions. The poem nonetheless has retained a highly elegant writing style, thanks to the linearity of the course, this iter which led the Gallic senior official to follow in the wake of an ovidian elegy. Thus, the first-person narrative account of Namatianus’ navigation takes on the written spontaneity and vitality of a travel journal, while transforming it into “a reality experienced as a work of art” (Introduction, XXII), notably by his mastery of the elegiac couplet. His great distance from home stirs moving echoes between the imaginary and real landscapes he traverses: Rome appears radiant and timeless, in contrast to the abandoned cities encountered on his course. His stopovers reveal shores which occasionally seem welcoming because of their high mountains and pure thermae, but, at other times, are shrouded in darkness and vices. A stirring portrait of the coast emerges from Namatianus’ descriptions. From Spezia to the port of Augusta, the author invites readers to come aboard as judges and travel companions, citizens and poets.