Eponine de Langres – Wikipedia

Eponine ( Eponina ) is a Gauloise of the Lingons tribe (Langres) who lived in I ^is century. She supported her husband Julius Sabinus in her fight against the Romans. Defeated by the Allied Séquanes des Romans, Sabinus then hides in a cave to escape the proceedings. After nine years of hiding, during which Eponine will have given birth to their twins, Sabinus is betrayed and discovered. It will be put to death by the Romans despite the sponine supplications. The latter will ask the emperor to share the fate of his late husband.

The story of his life is made to us by three ancient authors: Plutarch ^{[ first ]} , Tacit ^{[ 2 ]} and Dion Cassius ^{[ 3 ]} . Their stories however diverge on certain points.

Eponine was the wife of Lingon Julius Sabinus who participated alongside Julius Civilis in the revolt of 69-70. The coalition formed by Civilis, Sabinus, but also Tutor and Classicus wins several victories. Sabinus, who says he is descended from Julius Caesar in person, proclaims himself “Caesar”; his attempt to create a The government of France Turns short when the Sequanes, still loyal to Rome, defeat the Lingons: Sabinus flees, simulates a suicide and burns his house. He then hides. The nature of its hiding place diverge according to the authors: Plutarch evokes an underground and a cave, while Dion Cassius speaks rather of a tomb. His eponine wife pretends to mourn the day, but joined her husband at night. From the Union of Sabinus and Eponine will soon be born two children: Plutarch describes how eponine succeeds in hiding his pregnancy from other women: “But what is even more difficult to believe that everything else is that we do not never realized that she was fat, how much she was wins up and bathed with the other ladies: because the ointment of which women rub and oil their hair to make it blond like fine gold, I don’t know fat Who swells and makes the flesh rise, so much that he makes her more tired, and using this medication, to ourselves all the other parts of her person, she hid by this means of swelling of her belly which is ‘raised by the day, and supported the pains of his childhood on his own, without any help of midwives, having descended into the vault with her husband ” ^{[ 4 ]} .

After spending nine years hiding (according to Tacitus), Sabinus ends up being discovered and led before Vespasian. Eponine then pleads to obtain the grace of her husband; She ends up asking to die with him if we believe Plutarch. The latter also tells us about the fate of their two children: one will be killed in Egypt; the second, bearing the same nickname that his father would have passed through Delphi.

It appears in Plutarch under the name of Underwriting , (which he translates by heroine), in Dion Cassius as Melon , but it is undoubtedly tacit that gives us its real name, In the eppon . Far from the whimsical translation of Plutarch, his name would confirm his Gallic origin: he would be forged on the name of the goddess Epona (theme-epo = horse + theonymous suffix in –ono/-ona) to which we add the anthroponymic suffix in -O ^{[ 5 ]} .

We cannot confirm or deny the citizenship of Eponine by the sole absence of duo appoints among the three authors (one can quite imagine that Sabinus married a wander: this marriage being considered as just a wedding , the children of Sabinus would not have lost their citizen status.) We can however assume that it was an isogamic marriage and that Eponine also belonged to the upper class. Her marriage to the citizen Romain Julius Sabinus allows us to consider her as part of the Romanized elites of the I ^is century AD. J.C.

From the Renaissance to the Revolution [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Eponine was presented in ancient texts as an example of virtue to follow. But legend does not seem to be very successful before the translation of Plutarch by Jacques Amyot at XVI ^{It is} century.

In 1695, a century after the translation of Jacques Amyot, the first play having for subject Sabinus was written by François Passerat. This piece is also an opportunity for the first representation of the heroine in the engraving of the frontispiece of the work.

From the Renaissance and until XIX ^{It is} century its history becomes a obligatory passage of collections of “Examples . Thanks to its virtue and its courage, it is presented alongside other great female figures, holy and heroines of antiquity. On the eve of the Revolution and especially after, the way the couple is perceived will change. Sabinus and Eponine will become the symbols of revolt in the face of oppression and the struggle for independence. The successful novel by Delisle de Sales, Eponine or the Republic , (1793) is a good example of this change.

Eponine au XIX ^{It is} century [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

It is paradoxically the Celtomania emerging at XIX ^{It is} A century that will almost make you forget the story of Eponine and Sabinus. New figures, emerging from the numerous historiographical studies of that time, will supplant the figure of Sabinus: Brennus, Ambiorix, Camulogen and especially Vercingétorix. Sabinus is gradually fading from popular memory: it is the figure of chef Arverne who replaces him in The Tour of France by two children by G. Bruno, while Sabinus still appeared in 1876 in 1876 The history of France de Guizot.

The figure of Eponine will experience the same fate as that of her husband and will be replaced by others, such as Celto-Ligure Gyptis, but also by the Allegorical Gallia and other representations of anonymous Gauls. But it will especially be supplanted by the figure of Velleda, priestess Bructère, which actively participated in the revolt of Civilis ^{[ 6 ]} Before being taken prisoner and brought to Rome ^{[ 7 ]} . This Velleda figure is put forward for the first time by Chateaubriand, in his work The martyrs : Velleda is taken prisoner and taken to Rome for having participated in the Civilis revolt; She then fell in love with a Roman officer converted to Christianity, Eudore. He rejects her and she ends up committing suicide. Following Chateaubriand, several painters, sculptors and writers will stage the figure of the druidse which also had the advantage of corresponding to the romantic taste for ossianism.

Eponine posterity in the arts [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Since the Renaissance, the story of Eponine has been very successful as a subject for many works of art: poems, news, novels, pieces, paintings, sculptures or engravings or engravings ^{[ 8 ]} . About twenty plays were devoted to Eponine and her husband, as well as thirty paintings, and about eight operas. But from the XIX ^{It is} A century, there are almost no more representations of this story, artists preferring them to the couple the figures of other Gauls.

• In the poem The little old de Baudelaire, a fallen eponine appears in the Parisian paintings : “These dislocated monsters were once women, / eponine or secular”.
• In Wretched , Hugo calls the daughter of the Thénardier Eponine. Although the narrator explains that the mother of Eponine and Azelma would have found these names for her daughters in successful novels, it seems that the choice of the author is symbolic. The drafts prove that he knew the legend of Eponine; It seems that he chose this name after having decided to kill the eponine on the barricades.
• A Eponine appears in Abbé. De Georges Bataille: The young woman pursues her advances an abbot to divert him from his faith.
• The Norma From Vincenzo Bellini to inspire it: a Gauloise, united a Roman citizen of which she has two children. But it is interesting to note that the figure of Velleda is also present: a Druidic priestess, in love with a Roman which repels it, and which ultimately, desperate, commits suicide.
• A joyfully parodic song, entitled the Virgin Eponine, which takes many liberties with historical truth, stages a particularly delightful eponine defying Caligula even when it was thrown into the lions. Sung by the Jacques brothers, the lyrics would have been written by filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot ^{[ 9 ]} .
• Picasso, Eponine and Puma , made for the collection of poetry bearing the same title, published by Louis Foucher in 1961.
• Eponine is a character of Asterix’s Gaul Tour D’UDERZO and GOSCINNY.
• In journey to the Edge of the Night , a church dedicated to Sainte-Éponine in Toulouse is invented by Céline.

Eponine is often presented as a Holy Christian, victim of the Vespasian emperor. She would be celebrated the first ^is November ^{[ ten ]} . However, there is no mention or any clue in the ancient texts of the Christian eponine faith.

For Jacques-Remi Dahan, Saint Eponine would be a recent error arising from a confusion between the Gallo-Roman woman and the holy collections samples In which she appears: “We will not be surprised, of rest, that the virtuous of a pagan wife is quickly tinged with a pious color, the ultimate stage of this Christianization being the co -managed canonization of Eponine operated shamelessly by our contemporaries. »»

• Bellini Vincenzo and others Norma , France: Guilde Éditions Atlas, 1990. 336 p.
• Bergaria Havier, Eponine, opera in 3 acts and 4 tables , France: the French house of art and publishing, 1919, in-12.
• Bruno G., The Tour of France by two children : duty and homeland, France: France Loisirs, 1877, Red. 2007, 322 p.
• Callet Antoine-François, Eponine and Sabinus condemned by Vespasian , oil on canvas, 1764, Paris, National School of Fine Arts.
• Chabanon Michel-Paul; Sabinus, lyrical tragedy in four acts, represented before His Majesty in Versailles, December 4, 1773 , and for the first time by the Royal Music Academy, Tuesday, February 22, 1774, France: Impr. de Delormel, 1774, 47 p.
• Dahan Jacques-Remi and others Eponine & Sabine , France: Dominique Guéniot, 2011, 67 p.
• Delisle de Sales Jean-Baptiste-Claude, Eponine or the Republic , France: Literary Annals of the University of Besançon, 1990, 775 p.
• Dion Cassius, Roman history , trad. E. Gros and V. Boissée, France: Firmin Didot, 1870-1845, 10 vol.
• Foucher Louis, Eponine and Puma : COVER … DE PICASSO, France: P. Seghers, 1961, 67 p.
• Goscinny René et uderzo albert, Asterix’s Gaul Tour , France : Dargaud, 1975, 48 p.
• Guizot François, The history of France from 1789 until 1848: told to my grandchildren , France: Hachette et Cie, 1878, 789 p.
• Lambert Pierre-Yves, The Gallic language: linguistic description, commentary of chosen inscriptions, France: ed. Wandering (“Hesperides collection”), 1997, 239p.
• Passed François, Works by Mr. Passerat, Pays-Bas: Henry van Bulderen, 1695, 302 p.
• Pelletier others, Woman in Gallo-Roman society , France : Picard, 1984, 142 p.
• Plutarch, Works mixed with Plutarch , trad. by Jacques Amyot, France: Janet and Cotelle, 1820, 508 p.
• Quiret Julien and Combret Pierre, “Eponina”. The Celtic tree, URL: http://www.arbre-celliique.com/encyclopedie/eponina-3305.htm . Accessed March 19, 2013.
• Charles-Emmanuel-Henri Sené, Eponine at the feet of Vespasian, Painted sketch, 1914, Paris, National School of Fine Arts.