Julia-jokes at Macrobius’s Saturnalia: Subversive decorum in late antique reception of augustan political humor

This article argues that the sassy, sexy comebacks of Augustus's daughter Julia, preserved for us by Macrobius's  Saturnalia , contribute vitally to the dialogue's moral and literary aesthetic of collaboratively appropriating the past. The argument falls into four sections: (I) The interactive style of reading that the  Saturnalia's  literary frame promotes makes reception of classical tradition and active endeavor: the reader engages with the text in tandem with the decorum it models. (II) The Saturnalia  introduces joking as a valuable social tool. (III) The jokes before Julia's establish the political context for her jokes. Still more importantly, they demonstrate joking's humane virtues. (IV) Macrobius carefully negotiates the delicate problems of reception and decorum posed by Julia's jokes so as to preserve decorum and yet acknowledge the place of sexuality within human society and cultivated Roman tradition.