MONTANER, Alberto, «Auri sacra fames: un tópico épico en La Austríada», Creneida: Anuario de Literaturas Hispánicas [ISSN 2340-8960], vol. 6 (2018), pp. 199-234; accesible en línea en... more
The criticism of greed is an element common to La Araucana de Ercilla and La Austríada de Rufo. Although the latter was inspired by the former, the presence of this topic does not depend on its influence, but responds to the proven Virgilian aphorism auri sacra fames, an idea that is recurrent in the Spanish Early Modern epics, as in Oña’s Arauco domado and Lope de Vega’s La Dragontea. However, this common place covers various situations, because, while in the poems on Mapuche wars it involves a censure of the collective greed of the conquistadores, which threatens the social order, in the other two poems it implies a criticism of the particular greed of the soldiers, which puts in check the good order and decorum of the militia.
