Furor as Failed Pietas: Roman Poetic Constructions of Madness through the Time of Virgil

Roman poetic portrayals of mad characters through the time of Virgil construct a fundamental opposition between madness, an ipso facto self-absorbed or egoistic condition, and sanity, which duly fixes its gaze outside of itself, on parents, forebears, and the walls of state. The poets conceptualize furor less as what a modern sensibility would label insanity or mental illness than as a passion-fueled state antithetical to social order, able to be held in check only by rigorous adherence to the duty-oriented cultural code of pietas. In thismoralized conception of madness, erotic furor is not a metaphorical by-path but a primary model for the hormonal and accordingly anti-rational forces that rob their victims of the outward focus demanded by the social