Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium

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OVID'S FASTI

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Ovid's Fasti Historical Readings at its Bimillennium

Edited by GERALDINE HERBERT-BROWN

OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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OXJFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press 2002 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover And you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 978*0-19-815475-4

PREFACE

THAT nearly 5,000 lines of a poem on the Roman calendar should survive for 2,000 years is reason enough for celebration; that that same poem should generate ever-increasing comment and spirited controversy at its bimiUennium is double cause for celebration. This volume of papers on Ovid's Fasti was conceived for that dual purpose. The exact date of the poem's inception of course cannot be known, but it can be narrowed down to the early years of the first decade of our era. Book 4 refers to Augustus' restoration of the temple of Cybele in AD 3, so the poem was in progress after that. Ovid himself claimed that its composition was interrupted by his exile to Tomis in AD 8. He also claimed in the same breath that the entire 12 books existed (Jr. 2. 549-52). Nevertheless he subsequently revised sections of the first six in the period between the death of Augustus in. AD 14 and his own in 17. It is these first six books, covering January to June, which have lived to see their third millennium. This volume is also a tribute to the expanding readership of Ovid's Fasti and the increasingly varied ways of looking at it. During the last two decades of the twentieth century readerresponse criticism, which focuses upon the active engagement of the reader with a text, has developed alongside the more traditional quest for authorial intent and target audience as a valid basis of literary interpretation. The meaning of the text is created by the reader, which makes it open to the play of innumerable meanings and the creating of tension between conflicting yet equally valid interpretations. The advantage of this approach is that it makes the text larger than the personality of the poet and the strictures of his culture, and thus provides a variety of exciting new observation points. As a demonstration of that advantage I have invited Fasti scholars representing a range of different approaches: traditionalist, reader-response,

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and eclectic, to offer a reading on a subject of shared interest: the Fasti as a sign of its times. Ovid's Fasti is the product of a period for which extant contemporary evidence is scarce. Yet even now, despite its growing popularity, the poem has still to make an impact outside the small circle of Ovid devotees. Not enough historians are appreciating the poem as a mine of information about Roman culture in the late Augustan and early Tiberian Principates. The essays here are an attempt to redress the balance. I wish to express my gratitude to all the contributors who have joined in the spirit of this project. Some scholars are well established and internationally known, others are high achievers with a lower profile. Others again are new to the field, but no less insightful for that. They all bring their considerable but diverse talents and interests to bear in trying to reconstruct the value-systems which informed the poem. This project did not arise from a conference and some contributors have not seen all papers. Cross-referencing of subjects and themes is to be found in the index: the calendar, politics, women, mime, myth, cult, religion, astronomy, astrology, intertextuality, gender, speech, time, and space are among such topics discussed. Some papers, while different in approach, may complement each other; others, similar in approach, may contradict each other. There is overlap in some of the passages discussed, but where this occurs, there is no repetition of construction. There is no party line in this collection, no neat tying up of themes. The tension arising from the discrepancy in interpretation and approach is an apt reflection of the tension arising from the contradictory and elusive nature of the Fasti itself. Yet whatever colour lens one chooses to use we are all still, as modern readers trying to make sense of an ancient culture, a sign of our times. The history of interpretation of a text constantly shifts and evolves. The reader-response critic, in constructing either the anonymous 'Augustan reader' working inside the ideological system, or the 'disembodied reader' stationed outside it, always risks imposing a modern western Judaeo-Christian frame of reference upon the poem, or reading a democratic distaste for totalitarianism into what is being said. The same applies to the seeker of authorial intent. Many of Ovid's 'intentions' can be found to be compatible with

PREFACE

vii

the ideology of animal liberationists, social critics, Marxists, feminists, anti-fascists, or environmentalists, to make the poet come across as a thoroughly modern man. This, of course, is no bad thing in itself, as it simply adds a universal dimension to his work. But whether we focus on the author or the reader, a distorted view of his culture will be inevitable, despite our best intentions. There is no need to despair, however. It is the continued quest, the constant debate, which is keeping the Fasti—and our cultural past—alive. It is hoped that this volume will play its part to that end by inspiring its own readers with the desire to join in the dialogue. So who will those readers be? Everyone who is interested in the early Roman Principate. The undergraduate student or first-time reader of the Fasti, however, would be advised to seek essential background details about Ovid and his environment elsewhere, as there is not the space to include them here. Literature on the subject is vast, but the introduction by Peter Green to his translations of the Erotic Poems (1982), and to the Poems from Exile (1994), and by Elaine Fantham to her commentary to the Fasti Book IV(1998), are especially recommended for that purpose. And as a survey of recent work on the Fastihas been conducted no less than three times in the last decade-by Miller (1992 Fasli 1. 536: 'sic Augusta novuin lulia uuineti erit'. 4

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appears again on 16 January, as 'tua genetrix' and restorer of the altar of Concordia,7 This is Livia herself, adopted in Augustus' will as Julia Augusta, so both passages originate in Ovid's remodelling after AD 14. Livia of course was unique, and no other Augustan lady, not even Augustas' sister Octavia, who shared her extraordinary religious status as 'sacrosanct',8 had any prospect either of becoming a deity or of dedicating an altar. Just as Ovid himself returns to Livia Augusta towards the end of the extant poem, so this discussion will need to return at the end to the woman extraordinary, Livia, and her contribution to Roman cult. Perhaps these two honorific references are sufficient to explain why Ovid does not again mention Livia on 30January, her own birthday, and the commemorative anniversary of the Ara Pads Augustae. Instead he follows his brief tribute to the altar by turning" to the deity Pax herself: at the imagined moment of sacrifice he addresses her priests with a request that they ask the favourable gods for the perpetuation of both Peace and the imperial dynasty: (1. 721): ' u t , . . domus quae praestat earn cum pace perennet'. Where Ovid is silent, however, we can turn to one of Rome's best-preserved monuments to see Livia with other women of the imperial family in the procession of dedication depicted on either of the long sides of the Ara Pacis: there, Livia,9 Augustas' sister Octavia,10 his married daughterJulia," and his ' 1. 649: 'hanc tua constituit genetrix et rebus etara'. In this revised section of Book 1, Ovid's addressee is Germanicus, Livia's grandson, adopted by her son and his uncle Tiberius to be joint heir with Tiberius' natural son Drusus. Appropriately, the most recent authorities to cite I jvia's interest in Concordia. are women: Flory (1984) and Herbert-Brown (1JW4) ch. 4, esp. 162-7. Both treatments build on Levick (1078). * On their early elevation to sacrosanctity in 36 tic:, and Livia's subsequent preeminence in Roman secular and religious life, see Purcell (1986), 9 Livia is surely the woman wearing a laurel wreath over her head, veiled like that of Augustus, perhaps because of her role as 'regina sacrorum'. She follows Agrippa and the 'flamioes* on the relief of the right long waif; see Simon (1SM>8} 16 and pi. 13. For other, more controversial identilications, see following notes. 19 Simon (1968) 21, ps. 15 suggests that the matronly woman on the left long wall could be Octavia, u Simon (1!)68) 21 (ps, 17, 1, ID, I) identifies as Julia the 'heavily veiled young woman ... wearing a thin diaphanous veil through which the folds of her garment are visible*, in the procession of the left long wall. She is wearing the widow's fringed garment, the 'ricinium', but the figure is damaged, and faceless, so Simon bases her deduction on the figure's position in the procession. By an ironic twist her figure has

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daughter-in-law, Antonia Minor,12 proceed with their children to make offerings in thanks for the Augustan peace at the altar's dedication in 9 BC, just as Horace describes them in Odes 3. 14.3-12: Caesar Hispana repetlt penates victor ab ora. unico gaudens mulier niarito prodeat iustis operata sacris et soror clari duds et decorae supplice vitta iarn virginum mates, iuvenumque nuper sospitum. vos o pueri et puellae iam virum expertae, male nominatis parcite verbis, Caesar is returning to his household gods as victor from the Spanish shore. Let his wife, rejoicing in her exceptional husband come forth, after performing the due rites, with the sister of the glorious leader and adorned with suppliant headband the mothers of maidens and the young men newly restored. As for you, boys and girls innocent of a man, avoid ill-named [or 'ill-omened': the text is contested] words.

But these women of the imperial family are still laypersons, 'profani', and would normally be expected, to stop short of either altars or temples at a moment of public sacrifice. Apart from Livia13 none of them is 'iustis operata sacris': like the boys and girls, their contribution to the cult occasions will have been only to abstain from words of ill omen, and any sacrifices they have made will be private and domestic.14 It is rather their male kinsmen, many of them augurs, priests, been replaced in plaster on the Altar itself, but the original has found its way to the Louvre, (I like to think of Julia escaping from the dynasty to end up in Paris,} 12 Simon (1968} 19 and pi. 15 notes that the figures behind Livia and Tiberius on the right long wall have been generally identified as Dnisus and his wife Antonia Minor. ^ If she is *opefata' it will he in her special capacity as 'regina sacroruni*, who is known to have performed sacrifices on the Kalends oi each month, 14 To quote Beard, North, Price (1998) i, 297; 'In general, however, although the eiMsndMnce \$i(\ of women at most religious occasions (including ludi] was not prohibited, they had little opportunity to take any active religious role hi stale cute . . . niuch more fundamentally (although the evidence is not entirely clear) they may have been banned... from carrying out animal sacrifice; and so prohibited from any officiating role in llw central defining ritual of civic religious activity.1 On the ancient tradition excluding women from blood sacrifice, see de Cazenove (1987),

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15

and flamines, who would be officiating. Certainly women were encouraged to supplicate the gods, and to give them thanks—also referred to by the same word 'supplicatio'. The married women of the Roman elite were even authorized after the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 to ride to the temples in thanksgiving in their special covered wagons (carpenta, pilenta). This is how Vulcan in Aeneid 8 depicts the ladies on the shield of Aeneas, riding in their wagons arnid the rejoicing Salii after the Gauls had been driven off in defeat.1'1 In the alarms and triumphs of the Hannibalic War the Senate decreed on several occasions that women and children should go together in procession as suppliants or in thanksgiving. But their participation in thanksgiving can be and often is taken for granted by ancient writers. We more often hear of such processions—found also in the heroic world of Homer—in times of emergency when supplication is a desperate appeal: thus Virgil describes the Latin women, led by Queen Amata and her daughter Lavinia, riding to supplicate the goddess Athena to restore her favour and victory, just as Hecuba and the Trojan women had supplicated in Iliad 6, This is so typical of women's role in cult that the only scene in which women are represented on the reliefs of Dido's temple in Aeneid 1 is the Homeric supplication of Hecuba and the women to Athena.17 When the women supplicated, it was, of course, for the whole community, not just for themselves, and we should also imagine their private devotions as being made on behalf of their whole household, rather than just their personal needs. The ordinary woman seems to have been free to visit temples privately to make a personal offering of incensew or flowers, even if Ovid in another less devout poem ironically 1/1 Simon (1968) 18 distinguishes Livia, perhaps in the role as 'regitia sacrorum' (the altar was even dedicated on her birthday), together with Augustus, Agrippa, and the flamines from 'the latter part of the procession, which also includes women and children*. She suggests that, this, like the procession of the opposite wall, is of a less official nature, "' Aen. 8. 66,5-6: 'castae ducebant sacra per urbem pifentis mattes in mollibus'. '' See Aen. 1. 479-82 (the relief showing Trojan suppliants) and II. 477-82 for the Latin queen riding to the temple escorted by the matrons 'nee mm ad tumplum surnrnasque ad Palladia arces I subvehitur magria matrum regina catcrva dona ferens.,, succedunt matres et lemptuin lure vaporaut | et maestas alto fimduut de limine voces.* " Cf. Aen. II. 481 quoted n. 17 above,

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suggests to Augustus (Tristia 2, 287-300) that visits to the temples of Venus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus or Mars Ultor, or even the virgin Pallas, might provoke respectable matrons with dangerous or envious thoughts about the mythical sexual adventures of the gods. But when women's role in public religion at Rome is raised for discussion we probably think first of the special category of the Vestals, those six selected women of noble birth who were taken up before puberty (usually aged 10) to give thirty years of service to the virgin goddess of generation and the hearth: they naturally feature at Ovid's celebration of the Vestalia,19 but he also mentions their ritual acts at the Fordicidia, when the chief Vestal burned the embryos of the sacrificial pregnant heifers, and six days later, when the people celebrated the Parilia with a compound based on. the ash from, these embryos.a" But Vestals lie outside the limited religious role of ordinaiy women. Their special status as neither wife nor maiden, female nor male, has received two full scholarly treatments in recent years.21 The calendar brings Ovid to some of the most important aspects of religion in women's lives in the books of February and March, Books 2 and 3. I am talking about marriage, chastity, fertility, and childbirth. Chastity naturally appealed less to Ovid than the positive aspects of sexuality. But he gives prominence, like his older contemporary Livy, to the great Roman foundation myth of chastity, the voluntary suicide of the raped victim Lucretia.22 Lucretia's vindication of her honour supposedly caused the fall of the monarchy and origin of the Republic, just as the chastity of another woman, the girl Virginia, caused the revolution that ended the powers of the Decemviri in the fifth century. Livy is also the primary source for the original patrician cult of Pudicitia, chastity, or better fidelity in marriage, attested from the early Republic, and the >y On !) June Ovid explains Vesia's choice of virgin attendants because of her own choice of virginity in 6. 283-90. M For the Fordicidia. see Fasti 4. 629-4-0; Ovid's commemoration of the Parilia mentions Vesta rather than her human ministers, the Vestals: 4. 725-34. 21 See Beard 1980, 1995. Staples (1!)96) 129-56 does not really advance beyond Beard. 22 Fasti'2, 721-852. But Lucretta's last words (82.5-30) omit her mural message to the women of Rome as celebrated by Livy 1. 59: 'no woman henceforth will be immoral hecaase of my ex*t0ip!0**.

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foundation of a rival cult of Pudicitia Plebeia in the late fourth century.23 But fertility was even more vital to society and to the woman's self-respect than fidelity. In his account of the festival of the Lupercalia in February Ovid turns to the Roman bride who wants to become pregnant, urging her to welcome the fertile blows from the goatskin whips of the Luperci, and so gratify her father-in-law.24 The poet's account of the origin of this practice conveys the urgent need for fertility in those days of heavy infant mortality. According to his aetiology, after Romulus had procured wives for his Romans by the rape of the Sabines he found that there was still a dearth of pregnancies, so he sent husbands and wives to the sacred grove of Juno on the Esquiline.25 There husbands and wives alike prayed to the goddess and her voice was heard to order with oracular ambiguity 'Italidas matres sacer hircus inito' ('let the sacred he-goat penetrate the Italian mothers'). The suppliants were naturally shocked, until an augur, guessing the riddle, slew and skinned a he-goat so that women could offer their backs to be lashed with strips of its hide: as Ovid tells it, in ten lunar months the 'vir' and 'nupta' of 437 became a father and mother (2. 445-8): ille cuprum mactat; iussae sua terga puellae pellibus exsectis percutienda dabant. luna resumebat decimo nova cornua rnotu, virque pater subito nuptaque mater erat.

K> See Livy 10. 23. Virginia, daughter of a patrician, had married a, plebeian and was excluded from the patrician cult ol Pudicitia. She retaliated by founding her own cult of 'Pudicitia Plebeia*. However, as we will see below, there is good reason to identify the cult of Fortmia discussed by Ovid in Fasti 6. 561) f. (the 'Aedes Forlunae in foro Boario') with 'Fortuna Virgo', also identified with the original 'Pudicitia Patricia*. 24 2, 427-8: 'excipe fecundae patienter verbera dextrae, | iam socer optaturn nomen babe-bit avi*. Women are usually seen in terms of male interests; when a man has no sons, he must hope that his daughter will, give him a grandson. As for his daughter-inlaw, unless she conies from an important family with whuni a political bond is desired, she has no other function. '^ 2, 4-25—52. Mote that concern for fertility is used as a,n alternative fiiiion for the feast ol" Carmenla in L 619-3b. According to this talc- the matrons were so angry when deprived of the use of their padded vehicles (an etymological pun on Carmenta/Carpenta) that they refused to carry their babies full term (i.e. aborted them}-. So the Senate restored their privilege and instituted two rites, one for boys and one for girls, to Carmetila and the midwife goddesses Porrima and Postverta.

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He ends his account with a choice of etymologies for Juno Lucina, protectress of childbirth, either because she was goddess of the 'lucus' or because she controlled the child's first experience of the light ('lucis').28 This tale of barrenness must surely be Ovid's own fiction. Certainly from at least the time of Ennius* historical drama The Sabine Women, the legend was canonical at Rome that when the parents of the Sabine women 'raped' by Romulus attacked Rome in retaliation, the new brides rushed onto the battlefield clutching their babies to stop the fighting between their fathers and husbands: and Ovid himself had exploited the tale in An Amatoria, 1. 101-32. The women's infertility cannot be reconciled with their legendary role as intercessors, yet Ovid has woven the battlefield reconciliation scene into his double celebration, of 1 March, when the anniversary of the dedication of Lucina's temple coincides with the Matronalia. March was the month of Mars and Ovid opens the book by addressing the god and retelling the story of his son Romulus. He passes from the god's rape of Silvia and fathering of Romulus and Remus, to their adolescence and Romulus' establishment of the Roman calendar, in which he made his divine father patron of the first month. All this is leading up to a puzzle based on a paradox: 'since you are so fitted to manly activities', Ovid asks the god, 'why do the married women observe your feast day?' (3, 169-70): cum sis officiis, Gradive, virilibus aptus, die mihi matronae cur lua festa colant.

Unfortunately for our concerns, although Mars offers a full and vivid narrative of both the rape and the reconciliation—neither of which were supposed to have occurred on 1 Marchhe adds nothing to the understanding of women's rites at the Matronalia. Instead, the god's speech offers both rape and reconciliation as unlikely explanations for the women's celebration: 'The wives of Italy have no frivolous duty in celebrating my Kalends, either because they terminated the wars of Mars by their tears, or in thanks for Ilia's successful -'' Forjuno Lucina and her connection with the moon, see Plutarch, Roman Questitms 77, which may also derive from the learning of Ovid's chief source, Verrius Flaccus.

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motherhood.' Through a hymn to the fertility of spring, season of their service as childbearers,27 Ovid glides back to Lucina, and the anniversary of her temple at the site of the Esquiline grove. The women should bring her flowers and pray for ease in labour. As a nice instance of the merging of religion and magic he adds an injunction: if any woman is already pregnant when she prays to Lucina, she should unbind her hair so as to release her child with ease.28 How literally can Ovid's language be interpreted? He claims that Lucina's temple was dedicated (or given to the people) by the Latin 'daughters-in-law': 'a nuribus lunoni templa Latinis | hac sunt... publica facta die' (3. 247-8). But there were strict controls in Rome of the historical period over who could vow or dedicate a temple—it required official authorization from the Senate—and very few instances of any woman being associated with this honour.*" And when are they supposed to have done this? The poet has already reported the new mothers assembling in this temple ('conveniunt nuptae dictam lunonis in aedem': 3. 205) before the battle in the year after their rape. The tale is neatly told, but it is no use looking to Ovid for a historical record. We have seen that Ovid tends to pass over what women actually do on public festivals, but he does describe a women's custom on the Ides of March at the popular festival of Anna Perenna—a goddess associated with the renewal of the year. At this early spring festival couples went picnicking at Anna's shrine by the Tiber setting up tents, dancing, singing songs ^ 3, 243—4; 'Ternpora itirts coiuni Laiiae lucunda parentes | cruarurn niiMtiam votaque partus hahet', formally answers 170 'cur tua festa, colant?' hut glosses several questions. Spring is fertile, but not necessarily Ihe human breeding season. On the other hand it is a fair analogy to present childbirth as woman's 'militia'> national service, and so time for the making and fulfilment of vows: one is reminded of Medea's boast in Euripides that she would rather fight three times in battle line than bear one child, "^ 3, 255—8: 'dicite "tu uobis lucetn, Lueina, dedistT': [ ditlie "iu votu parturientis ades." | siqua tamen gravida est, resolute crine precetur ut solvat partus molltter ilia suos'. Unbinding was normal before attempting to perform prayers and spells. For the negative corollary—deliberate binding to delay an enemy's childbirth—compare the gesture of Juno crossing her arms to hold back the birth of Hercules in Alemene's tale of her labour at Met. 9. 281-315. ^ See below for the legendary dedication by women of the temple of Fortuna Publica in the 5th cent.

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from the theatre, and praying for long years as they drink abundantly (3. 523-40). All this sounds more like a party than a cult act, but the poet adds that he should explain (3. 675-6): 'cur cantent... obscena puellae ... | . . . certaque probra' ('why girls sing dirty songs and traditional abuse'). This is his pretext to tell a comic tale about old Anna's deception and frustration of the lecherous Mars, but there is surely something more specific here than the general partying; there must have been some kind of fescennine song, mocking men and wishing or forecasting the frustration of misplaced lust. More than that we cannot say.3" Since the month of April is so rich in festivals of goddesses— for Venus (Veneralia, 1 April, and Vinalia, 23 April), for Cybele (4-10 April), and for Ceres (12-19 April), there is rather more evidence for women's cult activities in Ovid's fourth book. Ovid gives the fullest attention to the major festivals of Cybele and Ceres, each including" public games which both men and women attended. He opens his account of Cybele's festival with the goddess's ritual procession and the games in theatre and circus—all part of her public celebrations, but of no specific concern to women. Then he introduces two mythical narratives, for the Greek origin of the cult of Cybele as Rhea when she saved Zeus by deceiving Kronos, and for the Phrygian origin of Attis worship. But the largest part of his attention is given to the coming of the goddess to Rome, as a frame for a miracle performed by the goddess on behalf of a woman. Ovid 's account agrees with that of Livy in many respects. When the Senate formally decreed the invitation to the goddess, it was delivered by a distinguished group of envoys to her shrine at Pessinus in Asia Minor. The temple kingdom gave them an aniconic symbol of the goddess, a meteoric stone, which they escorted on shipboard from the Asian coast to the seaport of Rome at Ostia. But once the ship arrived at Ostia Ovid's and Livy's narratives diverge. According to Livy the elite women of Rome collectively proceeded to Ostia to welcome the sacred symbol of the goddess; it was * See now the chapter on 'The Poet, the Plebs, aud the Chorus Girls' in Wiseman (1998). Cf. Miller (1991) 138; 'the word certa makes it clear that the obscene verses were traditional in a "fixed" form, like other religious formulae'.

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taken from the ship by the most virtuous man in Rome, young Scipio Nasica, and then passed to the matrons, who reverently passed it from hand to hand until it reached the city some ten miles inland,35 But the version Ovid tells is far better known, and was known even before him. Propertius alludes in his last elegy to the miracle of Claudia Quinta pulling the sacred barge: Ovid gives a full narrative in which the sacred ship sticks at the shallow mouth of the Tiber until it is dislodged when Claudia prays to the goddess to vindicate her chastity32 by following her as she towed the barge. This timely miracle was probably a Claudian family legend, and Ovid himself claims that it was staged in the theatre. Peter Wiseman has argued cogently that it was part of a drama regularly offered to the goddess at the theatre games of the Megalesia.33 But near the end of Ovid's more or less historical account of Claudia escorting Cybele to Rome he introduces a diversion for a cult ceremony by the little river Almo, where the image and ritual equipment of Cybele were washed under Claudia's supervision. Ostensibly only the report of what happened on this first occasion, the washing of the goddess, relates awkwardly to what we know of the full ritual in imperial times. By the time of the emperor Claudius, there was a whole long festival of Attis and Cybele held in March, at which amongst other things, the goddess's image was washed in the pure running water of the river. This may well have happened in Ovid's time too; it is not marked in the calendar, but as John Scheid has convinced me, religious acts would not be listed in any calendar unless they were a public responsibility, and such an act by women, and women who were not public priestesses,34 31 See Livy 29. 14, 10-14 and Fantharn (1998) with introductory note on Fasti 4. 255-349 for more detail, J ** Prop. 4. 11.51 -2. Claudia Quinta is a matron in Livy and Ovid, but seems to have been thought of by Propertius, as by several, later sources, as a Vestal virgin {'minislra deae'); for a Vestal the issue would be suspicion, not of adultery, but of *ineest'—any sexual contact at all. 33 See Wiseman (W85) 36; (1979) !»4~1J; (1SWH) 3, 23. ^ Unlikt' the Greek cities Rome had no priestesses for her native cults. Apart from the Greek priestesses of Ceres/Dcrnetcr mentioned below, we know priestesses only of Cybele and Dionysus: the Bacchanalia banned in the, early '2nd cent, had originally been women's rituals conducted by women priests; the scandal arose from the inclusion of men as priests and votaries. But there were women priests of Dionysus like

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would not be recorded: if this is so, Ovid's only distortion is to report in April a cult act which was normally performed by the women in late March.35 But this is not the only ritual washing ascribed by Ovid to this month. Partly as homage to Augustus, Ovid has made Venus patron of the whole month of April as Venus Genetrix, ancestress of the Julian imperial family. But 1 April is a festival of not one but two Venuses, In the thirty lines that celebrate the religious activities of the day Ovid uses these two rites for different aspects of Venus to frame another women's rite in honour of a most unlikely deity—Fortuna Virilis, or Manly Fortune, His account of the day's rituals is framed by an address to the women of Rome ('Latiae matresque nurusque': 133) and a parting request to Venus to protect the women in their capacity as her daughters-in-law ('tuas . , , nurus': 162), and descendants of Aeneas/* To recall Mars' approving" explanation of women's cult in the previous book he begins this whole section with an echo of 3. 234 'rite colunt matres sacra diemque rneum'. 'Rite deam colitis', the poet affirms at 4. 133-4, 'Latiae matresque nurusque | et vos, quis vittae longaque vestis abest.' 'You are acting properly to worship the goddess, both you mothers and daughters-in-law, and you others who go without the vittae and long stola.."1 So there are two kinds of women, the respectable ones, brides and their mothers-in-law, wearing the formal ribbons binding their hair and long over-gown, and the others. The poet exploits this group address and his speech of instruction in the successive rituals to blur asocial issue; did all women perform each of the three rituals he will describe, or were they socially stratified? First he honours the Veneralia by giving instructions (4. 135-8: 'dernite, lavanda est, reddite, danda est') for the AgrippiniUa, leader of a thiasus of over 400 recorded on a 2nd-cent. AD inscription south'of Rome. (See Beard, North, Price {1.998} i. 271, 298.) 35 See, however, Forte (ii)84a). at> Since 'Aencadae' in Latin is the regular m. plural echoing the Greek patronymic, ^Aeneadas* ace- in 151 must come from Greek V^oeadejs'. W^ note again 'nums\ dciughiers-in-law, where Ovid could have distinguished ihc young brides as I0upta€\ He may have had in mind the foreign origin of Rome's first Sabine wives, hut since he cells the women 'descendants of Aeneas' it is more likely that lie thinks of the 'nurus' as under the authority of their dowager mothers-in-law. 'Matres* is commonly used as a synonym of 'inatronae', and can be applied to all but the newest brides.

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ritual washing of the goddess's cult image. The women must remove the golden necklaces of the goddess and all her jewellery so that she can be washed all over. Once she is dry, they are to replace her golden necklace, and give her fresh flowers and a new supply of roses. And the women must wash themselves too, but clutching myrtle branches, 'because she once had to hide from peeping satyrs and used the myrtle to cover her body; that is why you must repeat her action now'.37 So Ovid describes two different rituals of washing a goddess's image in this single book-one of them not attested in any other Roman source. And he seems to be inviting all the women to join in bathing the image, though this kind of ritual was usually only performed by a few attendants, often indeed by virgins. We noted in connection with the washing of Cybele's image that women's rituals would not be listed in public calendars, because they were not required of public officials. But what makes the washing of Venus suspect is less the lack of corroborating evidence than Ovid's close imitation in the consciously stylized artificial language of his instructions of a famous literary model-Callimachus' elegiac hymn called 'the Bathing of Pallas' which celebrates an equally unattested ritual in which women bathe the image of Pallas Athene in Argos. Could he have invented the whole episode as a pretext to imitate the famous Hellenistic hymn? At 145 fdiscite nunc') Ovid begins a new set of instructions to the women. He explains why they give incense to Fortuna Virilis (Manly Fortune), *in a place moist with hot water'.38 What is he talking about? The inscribed Fasti Praenextini of Ovid's expert source, Verrius Flaccus, though damaged, reports this offering to Fortuna Virilis on 1 April: 'women supplicate in crowds to Fortuna Virilis, and the humbler ones even do so in the baths'. When I attempted my own interpretation of these rituals in rny recent commentary,39 I tried to resolve the conflicting implications of Ovid's notice and that of his learned friend Verrius by stressing the normality of women J7 There are other festivals on which women should particularly practise washing themselves, notably 15 Aug.; cf. Hut. Roman Questions 100, '* Here 1 tentatively read 'calida' with Fra/er and Bomer, against the variant 'gclida' adopted by Castigtioni Landi and most recently Alton el at. (1988). 39 There I have ventured to differ from the simpler account given by Sdieict (19924).

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using public baths in Ovid's time. But of course this fits Ovid better than Verrius. It was indeed normal for women to use the public baths, but Verrius obviously envisages his 'humiliores' as doing something too daring for their respectable sisters. I have now been persuaded by Charnpeaux's specialized study of Roman Fortuna40 that we must divide the rites offered to Fortuna Virilis—essentially a fertility deity—so that the respectable women do indeed bathe in the public baths, but at a time set aside for women, while the 'lower' kind of women uninhibitedly bathed along with the men: hence the explanatory footnote in the Fasti Praenestini: 'for this is where men are attracted to the women'. Ovid's last instalment of instructions to the women, marked by a new imperative 'nee pigeat' (151) bids them take a ritual drink of milk, honey, and poppy seeds," because this is what Venus herself drank on her bridal night. When they drink they must pray to Venus, because she preserves beauty and good behaviour and reputation. This surely introduces the third ritual, performed as worship of the aspect of Venus called Verticordia, 'the Changer of Hearts'.42 The phases of this cult are clearly recorded by Ijvy and other sources. As Ovid indicates (4. 157-60), the cult was created in response to a decline in morality 'proavorum ternpore' (more likely towards the end of the third century): one of those lapses which happened periodically in Rome, and which the authorities used to counter *' Cb.ampea.ux (1987) j, ch. 6, 375-409, here 384. She sees the old. cull of Fortuna Virilis in which all the women would have bathed together, probably in the Tiber itself, gradually being displaced by the mid-Republican cult of Verticordia, to which the myrtle and the drinking of the ritual cocetutn belong. By the time of Plutarch (Nianii 19. 3), then Macrobius (Sat 1. 12. 15} and John I.ydus (4, f»5) the cult of Fortuna Virilis is no longer observed and the rituals are fused into homage to Venus Verticordia alone. On the larger issue of why Virile Fortune should apparently be worshipped only by women, Champeaux uses the analogous Fortuna Barbata to argue for an originally masculine cult in which women came to share because of its benefit of fertility: this would then have been abandoned by the men, when the feminine cult of Venus was assigned to the same date. 41 The so-called cocetum, not unlike the Attic kukeon (on which see N. J. Richardson 1974), consumed as part of the cult of Demeter. 'ij 1 have translated as it Venus' new epithet denoted her power to change the hearts or attitudes of others (the women), since this moral improvement was what the Roman elite needed. Ovid himself derives it from Venus' change of her own heart 'verso... corde', that is, her softening of heart towards Rome. I suspect him of deliberate reinterpretatiou, but can offer no conclusive argument.

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43

by establishing yet another cult of Venus. The issue was of course keeping the women under control: there were few limits on male sexual activity. This time the Sibylline Books ordered the Roman Senate to give new honours to Venus, and as a result Venus relented towards them and was named after this change of heart. Here our knowledge of the phases of this cult can be supplemented from Valerius Maximus and Plutarch. When the statue of Venus Verticordia was authorized, the affair was put into the hands of the elite women, who devised a way to choose who would dedicate it. First a hundred married ladies were chosen, then ten out of these were selected by lot, from whom finally the consul's wife Sulpicia was appointed to dedicate the statue for her meritorious chastity.44 A century later, in 114 BC, the Vestal virgin Licinia—herself later accused of unchastity—gave Verticordia, a temple for her worship.4"5 So did all the women observe all these rituals? Hardly. Only a very few women could be involved in washing the goddess's image in the river's running water, but surely anyone could frequent the baths, and do so without loss of respectability: recent studies seem to have established that women did have their own public baths at this time, and so might bathe in respectable circumstances. But would the women who wanted to appeal sexually to men also be concerned to protect their good reputation? It seems that Ovid has deliberately wrapped the three different celebrations together so as to confuse the women's roles in association with each cult or offering. What is he up to? My own suspicion is that he is reacting against the bourgeois insistence on distinguishing honest women from elegiac mistresses, ladies of the night, or even simple working women,. By addressing all the women together with, the same imperatives for each cult in turn he can associate all women together in what may well have been practised by only some of them. We can measure his indulgence for the less respectable ladies in, the care with which he celebrates that other Venus festival, 43 Compare Ijvy's account (10, 31. 9) of Fabius Gurges' new shrine of Venus erected with the proceeds offings for worn^ivs immorality in 29f> BC. 44 See Valerius Maximus 8. IS. 12 and Faolham (1998) on 155-62. 45 See Plutarch, Roman Questions $'& and Fautham (I1W8) on 155-62,

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of Erycina by the Colline Gate, on 23 April.46 For this the street women (volgares paellae) are to honour Venus, who is well disposed to the earnings of licensed ladies (professarum quaestibus). There was only one 'profession' for women in those days: 'profited' means to declare yourself on a public list, and the only public list for women was the aedile's register of public prostitutes. According to the reformed poet of love, 23 April is the day when these loose-living ladies offer incense and garlands of myrtle and mint and roses, and pray for beauty and popular favour and seductive gesture and language. To my mind Ovid has carefully balanced the two feast days of Venus and their celebration within his poetic book, designing the objects of their prayers on 1 and 23 April as complementary; while the well-born ladies ask Verticordia for 'mores' and 'bona lama', the others ask for the seductive airs and graces that are far more to the point and will ensure their continued popularity. I have postponed treating the Cerialia, or feast of Ceres. This was one of Rome's oldest festivals, consisting of a day of cult and sacrifice, followed by three to four days of theatrical performances and a final day of chariot races in the Circus. In Athens the Thesmophoria, one of the major festivals of Ceres' counterpart, Demeter, was exclusively for women, and concerned with the fertility of crop and woman. And women could share with men initiation into the rites at Eleusis, in which, as far as we know, the loss and recovery of Persephone was enacted, at least in symbolic form. Rome had imported a plebeian cult of Ceres with Libera (Proserpina) and Liber (Bacchus or lacchus), as early as the fifth century, giving them a temple on the Aventine. Because of Ceres' association with the grain crop and the later public dole of wheat, she was a favourite image on Republican coins, which may show her wearing a crown of wheat or holding an ear of wheat: some celebrate the games of Ceres, and others illustrate two phases from her search for Proserpina: a myth so significant for cult and so popular that it was told twice by Ovid. In the longer version in 4tl Erycina is Aphrodite of Ml Eryx in Sicily, a cult employing sacred prostitutes, which was brought to Rome by Fabius Maximus during the Hannibalic war as a political gesture towards Sicily.

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Metamorphoses 5 the muse Calliope recounts Ceres' adventures in Sicily as she searched for her daughter. But it is Fasti that tells the version truer to the Greek narrative as we know it from the Homeric hymn.*7 Here Ceres first searches in Sicily by night and day, taking up torches which she kindles from Etna, then flies in her chariot drawn by serpents to Eleusis in Greece, where she is welcomed to the home of young Triptolemus and forecasts his role as inventor of the plough.48 Only after her stay at Eleusis, according to Ovid's version as told here in Fasti, does Ceres discover that Jupiter has agreed to give her daughter to his brother Dis in the underworld. Both here in the Fasti and in Ovid's other version, however, Ceres is given powerful arguments against Jupiter, justifying her right to share in deciding on the choice of her daughter's husband. It is these arguments, rather than,, as in Ovid's other version, the damage inflicted by Ceres on the crops on earth, which determine Jupiter's bargain that Proserpina shall spend part of each year on earth with her mother.49 The symbolic meaning of the myth is taken to be the sowing and spring growth of the grain, but the narrative of Ceres' search and complaints would have a more literal significance for women, who would almost all know the time when they had to lose their daughters to marriage, when they would no longer control their access to a beloved child. Oddly, however, the only references to contemporary ritual acts within Ovid's Proserpina narrative are to Greek practices.-™ Stranger still, our poet has actually anticipated in April the divine narrative which Roman women celebrated much later, after midsummer—the 'sacrum Anniversarium Cereris'.51 This 47

This has been established in detail by Hinds (1998). The bulk of the narrative in Metamorphoses is concerned with Ceres' wanderings in Sicily before she learns of Proserpina's rape and approaches Jupiter to demand her daughter's restoration. Her visit to Attica, and gift of the plough to Triptolemos is only reported parenthetically at the end in Met. 5. 642-56. 4!j Cf. Fasti*. 587-618 with Met. 5. 514-71. '''" The lighting of torches (4. 493) and the breaking of fast at evening (4. 535-6). We might add the ritual drink kukfon which seems to be described by Ovid at 4. 547-8. 51 OB this occasion, which occurs at a point in the calendar, after the six months covered by Ovid, see Spaeth (1996) 12, 13, 105-7, and Fantham (1998) 393 n. This was a night vigil, and the only one expressly approved in Cicero's religions law code of De Leg. 2. 21 and 36. But he also allows for 'those made on behalf of the people in proper form". This category would include the uoctural 'sellistenuuni* of Juno offered 48

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was a specifically women's cult, and Cicero, who calls it a Greek ritual, confirms elsewhere that its priestesses had to be Greeks and were imported from the Greek cities of Velia or Naples.-52 On this summer vigil the Roman matrons re-enacted the loss of Proserpina, crying out to her repeatedly at the street intersections of the city. The Greek practices—of lighting torches at evening, of the ritual drink of milk, honey, and barley—would belong not to the April Cerialia but to this women's summer ritual. In another poem, Amores 3. 10, Ovid throws more light on the ritual. After honouring Ceres for her benefactions he reproaches her because Ms girl is obliged to sleep away from him: 'a feast day calls for sex and song and wine! These are the offerings men should bring to the gods.'53 So the women's vigil probably entailed abstinence from wine as well as from sexual intercourse. Propertius complains about similar sexual abstinence by Ms mistress in honour of Isis, and an earlier passage in the Fasti reports the same 'secubitus' in preparation for the worship of Bacchus.54 It was understood at Rome as in most cultures that men were impure for religious purposes after intercourse, but there is so little interest in women's religion that this seems to be our only evidence for prohibitions affecting them. This is perhaps the best place to mention another restriction on women's sexual activity which Ovid highlights and even personalizes. As he approaches the June Vestalia he claims that he was about to give his own daughter in marriage, and so made inquiries about the right time to do so: (6. 221-2: 'tempera taedis | apta... quaeque cavenda forent'}. Women apparently should not many between 6 and 13 June (the Ides) during the period, when Vesta's shrine was being spring-cleaned, and Ovid's authority is no less than the wife of the flamen Dialis, who confirms that she herself cannot even at the Ludi Saeculares of 17 BC and AD 204, Nocturnal rituals had been part of the indictment against the Bacchanalia in 186 ne. 32

Cic. Verr. 2. 4. 115, Bath, 55. ~'f On tltts poem and distich see Miller (1.991) 4-5—6. '''' Sleeping apart to be pure for Isis, Prop. 2. 31; for Bacchus, fasti 2. 328-30: *p0sitls iuxta secubuere tons J causa, repertory vitis qtsia sacra parabant, | quae facerent pure, cum foret orte dies'.

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consort with her wedded husband, the flamen, at that time.55 Given that Plutarch cites other such restrictions, how many of these taboos on marrying, or married intercourse, may have gone unmentioned in our sources?56 Ovid's half-year of festivals marks one other day which was specially celebrated by women, and this for two different but related cults. On 11 June women gathered to celebrate the Matralia in honour of Mater Matuta, but it was also the day for honouring the shrine of Fortuna in the Forum Boarium: indeed the temples of the two goddesses were adjacent, and both cults were associated with the same legendary king, Servius Tullius. As Ovid expresses it after he has told the legend of the goddess's coming to Rome (6. 569): 'The same day and founder and location are yours, Fortuna', 'lux eadem, Fortuna, tua est, auctorque locusque'. There is evidence in other elders and contemporaries of Ovid, in Varro, Livy, and Festus' epitome of Verrius Flaccus, that associates the two female deities more closely.57 But Ovid treats their cults separately and serially; first he summons the women to worship on this anniversary of Servius' temple to Mother Matuta

55 Why does Ovid use the 'flaminica' as his informant? The flaminica' and her husband the 'ilamen DiahV were subject to multiple taboos, (According to Gellius 10, 1.5 and Plutarch, Roman Questions 40 and 109-13, he would forfeit office on her death.) Besides other taboos affecting her (cf. Gellius 10. 15. 26-7), Plutarch, Roman Questions 86, reports that the 'flaminica' may not bathe or adorn herself during the period of the rite of the Argei in May, a time in which other women may not many; hence perhaps the other requirement mentioned by Plutarch, that she must adopt a stern demeanour ('skuthropazein'). ft is part of Ovid's search for variety that he should not mention this restriction in his discussion of the Argei in May, but introduce it only in one of the two periods concerned. •"' Plutarch actually implies a much wider taboo in stating (Roman Questions 105} that it is not customary for maidens to marry on a public holiday, only for widows. This would seem to exclude even Kalends, Nones, and Ides; see Macrobius, Sat. I . 15. 21, :ii Livy 5. 19, (> confirms Servius as founder of the temple of Mater Matuta: Varro ap. Nonius 189 reports that the Fortuna of the Forum Boariurn was also called * Fortuna Virgo'; who, according to Festus 282 L, was also construed as 'Pydicilia': 'Pudicitiae signum in foro Boario est uhi Aemiliana aedis est Herculis. F.am tjuidam Fortututni esse existimani. Item via Latina ad milliarium 1111 Fortunae Muliebris, nelas est attingi, nisi ab ea quac seme! nupscrit.' It is not clear to what aspect of the two cults 'Hera* applies. As Wissowa (1912) 207 argues, this is also the 'Fudicilia Patricia' from which Virginia was excluded in the narrative of Livy 10. 23. 3f. (see n. 23 above).

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(6. 475-80): Ite bonae matres (vestrum Matralia festum) flavaque Thebanae reddite liba deae: pontibus et magno iuncta est celeberrima Circo area quae poslto de bove nomen habet. hac ibi luce ferant Matutae sacra parent! sceptriferas Servi templa dedisse maims. Go then, good mothers (the Matralia is your feast day), and offer golden honeycakes to the Theban goddess. There is a much-frequented area near the bridges and the great Circus which takes its name from the statue of an ox; men say that there in this day the sceptre-bearing hands of Servius dedicated a holy temple for Mother Matata,

Matuta is called 'Thebana dea' because she was equated with Ino, nurse of her nephew Dionysus. Cicero, who reports the Identification of Matuta with Leucothea, the deified form of the Theban queen Ino, does not try to explain the equation,58 In Greek myth Hera vindictively maddened Ino so that she threatened her children: Phrixus and Helle escaped on the golden ram, but she caught up Melicertes and jumped with him into the sea. Together they were saved from drowning by being transformed into the sea deities Leucothea and Palaemon. Building on this Ovid confects a mythical coming of mother and child to Rome in the time of Evander: persecuted by Roman Bacchantes, Ino is rescued by Hercules and heralded as the Roman goddess Matuta by Evander's prophet mother Carmenta.-59 The poet thus incorporates into his fiction two types of female religiosity—Maenadic worship and prophetic inspiration—more acceptable in the heroic period than in the late Republic and his own time.60 However, Ovid is also more informative than usual on the form of cult observed. He notes the ritual practice of driving ;8 ' See ND 3. 39 and 48: 'Ino dea ducctur et Leucothea a Graecis, a nobis Matuta dicetur, cum sit Cadmi filia?' See now Smith (2000). 59The persecution is instigated by a disguised Junu (6, 507—22/; lor Carrnenta's prophetic frenzy (she swells with inspiration like Virgil's Sibyl "sanctior et tanto, quam inodo, maior') see 6. 541-8 at 545: 'Leucothea Grais, Matuta vocabere nostris*; Ovid echoes Cicero's distinction. w) qppg Maenadic cult of Bacchus was banned throughout Italy by decree of the Senate in 186 BC, though individual worship remained licit, Prophecy too wass restricted to official consultation of the written texts attributed to the Sibyl and controlled by the .Docenivifi,

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out a slave girl from the celebration, and another anthropologically interesting feature: the women do not pray to Matuta for their own child, but for their sisters' children. This is probably a trace of an older matrilineal element in Italic society, but Ovid associates both practices with Ino's mythical biography (6. 551-62): she was nurse to her sister's son, and she hated slave girls because a slave girl informed on her to her husband. The poetic narrative is fantasy, but the ritual taboos are also discussed in Plutarch's Roman Questions 16 and 17; indeed Plutarch cites the local Greek practice of banning slaves (and Aetolians too) from the shrine of Leucothea. Who was Matuta and what did she do for women? Dumezil has argued from the root 'matutinus' that she was a Dawn goddess,t!l but the Romans themselves did not know her origin, and saw her only as a protecting goddess like Fortuna. And even Fortuna was a deity they preferred to particularize by defining genitives or adjectives,'1" Wissowa lists along with Fortuna Virilis, whom we met in the women's baths, a number of Fortunes associated with a particular family or college, Fortune the Favourer or Watcher ('Obsequens, Respiciens'), and two Fortunes associated with women: the Fortune of the temple attributed to King Servius Tullius in the Forum Boarium, probably Fortuna Virgo, and Fortuna Muliebris.63 The distinctive feature of the Forum Boarium temple was its cult statue, heavily veiled in a toga of mysterious weave. Ovid identifies this as King Servius himself (6. 571 'hoc constat enim'),"4 but reports that others construed it as Fortuna or Pudicitia. Ovid relishes alternatives, and provides not one but three explanations why the statue was veiled: Fortune herself t!1 Dumezil {1970} i. 50-5. For other sources see Beard, North, Price (1998) 62 i, 51 n. 157. Cf. Dumezil (11)70) i. 42. (3 ' See Wissowa (1912) 208-12. Are these complementary? Did the girl pas from the cult of Fortutia Virgo as she niarried to come under the protection of Fortuna Muliebris? Both female fortunes are listed by Plutarch, Roman Questions 74 in a discussioin of Servius' many foundations for the goddess that is expanded in On the Fortune of the Romans 10. But he does not include the cult of Fortuna Muliebris there, perhaps because he has already reported the legend of its foundation (on which see below) in On the Fortune of the Romam 5. 1)4 Ovid's view is shared by Dionysius 4. 40. 7, Valerius Maximus 1. 8. 11, and Pliny, Nil 8, 194. But in 8. 197 Pliny reports a contradictory claim that the statue was Fortuna, herself.

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covered the king's face in shame (573-80); or the Roman people did so to put an end to their grief after his assassination (581-4); or Servius covered his own head before death to avoid looking his murderous daughter in the face (584-620). The poet has devoted attention to this oddity in order to justify a women's cult practice or taboo: married women must not touch the statue's drapery, because the day on which Servius' face is exposed will bring the abandonment of all modesty (620): 'haec [sc. lux] positi prima pudoris erit'. Did women come collectively to pray here on this anniversary? Or was this a general warning to any woman who might come alone? Understanding the various cults of Fortuna is one of the most baffling problems in approaching Roman cult. But that of the Fortune of women (Fortuna Muliebris), though not considered in Ovid's calendar poem,'" is known to have been, founded by and for women, and inaugurated at least by an officiating priestess. According to Dionysius 8. 55-6, when Coriolanus' stern mother led the matrons of Rome to confront him and shame him from attacking the city in 493, the Senate honoured them by erecting an altar and temple to Fortuna Muliebris at the point where he was turned back. The married women were authorized to nominate a priestess and chose a woman, Valeria, who had helped to organize the deputation to Coriolanus.™ Dionysius reports that she officiated at the sacrifice, uniquely on this occasion performed by the women on behalf of the Roman people. Indeed the goddess's statue actually spoke her approval of the women's act, saying, in language we have also read in Ovid: 'you have dedicated me in proper fashion'."7 Why did they need divine confirmation? Since, properly speaking, women had no property, they were not in a position to dedicate anything beyond their personal effects-such as the

' •' Ovid's calendar does not go beyond 30 June. The temple anniversary falls in July and ihe feast day on 1 December, '* This detail suggests that Dionysius* source was Valerius Aulias. See uow 'Valerius Antias and the Palimpsest of History' in Wiseman (I!)98) 88. But leaving aside her name, the story of the priestess is authenticated by Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Plutarch in On Ihe Fortune of the Romans 5. '"' The same miraculous speech is reported in Val. Max. 1. 8. 14 'Rite me, matronae, vidistis, rileque dedicastis.'

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maiden clothes which the bride would dedicate to Fortuna Virgo.68 This temple, set outside Rome, provides a link back to my point of departure through Livia, who restored it, because of its association with chastity and marital respectability: only 'univirae' might enter the temple of Fortuna Muliebris,69 and it spoke for Livia's concern for marital harmony. So too did the dedication that follows immediately after the story of Fortuna and Servius Tullius, as Ovid brings the Fasti towards its early closure: we saw Livia restore the temple of Concord and enrich it with an altar in January (1. 650-1), an act marking her worthiness of her unique husband.70 In June again (6. 637-4-4) he describes how she presented Concord with a glorious temple and portico on the site of Vedius Pollio's scandalous mansion; it now became her offering to her husband: 'te quoque magnifies, Concordia, dedicat aede Livia, quam caro praestitit ipsa viroV1 As Nicholas Purcell (1986) has shown, Livia set herself up as a model for the women of Rome, and the embodiment of Augustus' moral policies, Ovid has skilfully distributed the record of her actions over the calendar to make her stand for women's religious role at both his beginning and as nearly as possible his ending. As he declares of Augustus' actions, so we may say of Livia's pointed choice of shrines to set a noble ''* Wissowa's evidence for this practice (1912) 207 is partly Virginia's reference in Livy I0S 23 to her own dedication to Pudicitia on marriage, and partly irotn the" Christian Arnobius 2. fi7, who refers to the goddess as Fortuna Virginalis. !) Cf. Festus 282 quoted n. 57 above. Livia's act of restoration is known from the fragmentary inscription; Purcell (1986) 88 and n. 58, /a i. 650; 'sola tero reagni digna reperta lovis* lavishes on Augustus an honorific Ovid might have withheld when he wrote the first draft of Fasti bk. 1. See HerbertBrown (1994) 1.62-7 for a full discussion of this passage. '•'• On this portico see Herbert-Brown (1994) 145-56. She rightly insists on the coherence of this passage with the preceding passages honouring the women's cute of Matuta and Fortuna, but points out that according lo Dio 55. 8, ) the Porticua was dedicated in January and jointly with her son Tiberius, Thus Ovid has taken a gesture of family concord between mother and son and reinterpreted it as a confirmation of concord between husband and wife, reinforcing this message by associating the event with Che women's festivals oi Mater Matuta and Fortuua. As she points out (148), Ovid out of tact towards Livia passes over the normal requirement that no one except 'uuivirae* should participate in the Matralia (also true of the cult of Fortuna Muliebris}, By linking these three cults Ovid can focus attention on wifely virtue and I jvia's role in providing the model of that virtue,

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example: 'sic exempla parantur'.78 If Ovid tells us less than we would like about the ordinary woman's religious life and practice, one woman at least has been given credit for all her public religious acts, and her religious roles and honours reflect the cults and ideals set before elite women in the days of poet and emperor. 72 pjQjy (1984) made this the title of her excellent study.

3

Vaga Signa; Orion and Sirius in Ovid's Fasti EMMA GEE

(i) Introduction In this chapter two episodes of the Fasti will be studied, both of which contain astronomy: the Robigalia of fasti 4. ,901—42, where Sirius, the Dog-Star, is present, and the part of Fasti 5 in which Orion and Mars Ultor are juxtaposed, lines 493-598.' Although, these two pieces of text may at first seem dissimilar in structure, content, and programme, it will become clear that they share elements, and that these common features can help to shed light on the way in which astronomical material functions in its immediate context in the Fasti, and on the place of astronomy in the work as a whole. Orion and Sirius are astronomical entities with credentials which go back as far as the beginnings of epic and didactic poetry in Greece.2 They belong also in the tradition of the agricultural calendar, as it is found in Hesiod's Works and Days, Aratus' Phaenomena, Virgil's Georgics, Varro's De Re Rmtica, Columella's ResRusticae, and Pliny the Elder's Naluralis Historia, book 18.3 In particular, the first two couplets in Ovid's record of the strange festival of Mildew (the Robigalia) at Fasti-i. 901-4, in which Sirius occurs, reflect this tradition; they look like advice on astronomy and meteorology addressed to

' Thanks to John Henderson, Elaine Faotha.ni, Geraldine Herbert-Brown, and Michael Reeve. 2 Sirius: Homer, A 22. 29, Hesiod, WD 582-96; Orion: Homer, //. 18. 486, Hesiod, TO598, filS. 3 On the Fasti and the agricultural calendar, see Gee (2000; 9-20).

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the watchful farmer: Sex ubi, quae restant, luces Aprilis habebit, In medio cursu tempora veris erunt, Et frusta, pecudem quaeres Athamantidos Helles, Sigiiaque dant imbres, exoriturque Canis. When April has only six days remaining. Springtime will be in mid-course, And your search for the Ram of Athamantic Helle will fail. The signs bring rain, and the Dog, Canis, rises.4

Both in their injunction to the second person addressee and in their astronomical content, these opening lines of the Robigalia may be likened to Georgics 1. 219-21: At si triticeam in messern robustaque farra exercebis humum solisque imtabis aristis, ante tibi Eoae Atlantides abscondantur. But if for a wheat harvest or crop of hardy spelt You work your land, and are keen on bearded corn alone, Let first the Aflantid Pleiads come to their morning setting.s

The idea of observing the Signs which indicate a particular kind of meteorological phenomenon ('signaque dant imbres', Fasti 4, 904) is part of the agricultural tradition, as exemplified at Georgics 1. 351-5: atque haec ut certis possemus discere signis, aestusque pluviasque et agentis frigora ventos, ipse pater statuit quid menstrua luna tnoneret, quo signo cadercnt Austri, quid saepc videntes agricolae propius stabulis annenta tenerent. So that we might be able to predict from manifest signs These things—heatwaves and. rain and winds that bring cold weather, The father himself laid down what the moon's phases should mean, The cue for the south wind's dropping, the sign that often noted Should warn a fanner to keep his cattle near the shippon.

The similarity in tone of the beginning of the Robigalia to Virgil's agricultural calendar situates the Ovidian festival in the agricultural calendrical tradition. If we explore this tradition, 4 Translations of the Fasti in this chapter are from Boyle and Woodard (2000), except where otherwise noted. 3 All translations of the Georgics ui this chapter axe from Day Lewis (W83).

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through Pliny, NH18, for example, it can help us to shed light on problems of astronomical accuracy in the Fasti. Exploration of issues of astronomical accuracy in the Fasti can at the same time help us gain a better understanding of the nature of Ovidian 'ingenium' as it manifests itself through principles of linking, selection, and construction. If his astronomical references are inaccurate in relation to the Julian calendar, either Ovid must be excused on the grounds of his astronomical ignorance, and the reader must pass over these astronomical oversights and concentrate on other material, or we must make room for the theoiy that the astronomical references are arranged as they are not purely as a result of error, but in order to fit in with their surrounding context, and perhaps comment on it. Exploration of thematic links between the stars and the material with which they are juxtaposed becomes a possible methodology once it has become apparent that such juxtaposition is not an arbitrary result of date, but is a device achieved at the expense of chronological accuracy. The question of astronomical accuracy cannot therefore be divorced from the question of whether we should treat the different kinds of material in the Fasti in isolation, or whether the reader should look for thematic links across the different parts of the poem.* This chapter exemplifies the latter methodology. The Ovidian episodes containing Sirius and Orion are related to the agricultural calendar, but are also parts of the complex organism that scholarship and close reading show the Fasti to be. In exploring the importance of the agricultural calendar, and in particular Virgil's Georgics, as model for the Fasti, one cannot ignore the status of the Georgics as literature of the most complex kind; if Ovid alludes to such a model, we must also explore the literary complexity of his poem. So I shall also consider allusion to the Georgics as a programmatic marker in the Fasti, and in this line of inquiry I shall be indebted to Elaine Fantham for clearing the undergrowth, in her splendid article on the Fasti and the Georgics.7 6

A debate exemplified by Herbert-Brown (1997).

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EMMA GEE 5° Much can be gained in our understanding of the text by applying to the astronomical material the same techniques regarding intertextuality and allusion as have been practised on the rest of the poem. This is not, however, to ignore historical context. Once it is apparent that patterns of allusion to the Georgics extend to both of the episodes under exploration, linking them thematically, these patterns of allusion may be seen to allow Ovid, here as elsewhere in the Fasti, to develop and reapply the political themes of his early Augustan predecessor to his own situation in the later Principate.

(ii) Stars and Gods Both of the episodes to be considered here contain bizarre pairings of stars with deities: Robigo, the goddess of Mildew, and Sirius, the Dog-Star; Orion and Mars. How can we reconcile these gods with their accompanying celestial entities? The problem is more crucial for the Robigalia, where the festival seems somehow contingent on a connection with a star, rather than, just concomitant with it, as in the case of Orion and Mars. Let us begin by looking at both stories in brief, taking first the pairing of Robigo and Sirius in Fasti 4. The Robigalia begins with the meteorological and astronomical indications mentioned above (Fasti 4, 901-4). What follows is surprising if one expects agricultural advice: Ovid's narrator recounts his own experience of the festival (Fasti 4. 905-10), substituting a Callimachean aetiological voice for the persona of Hesiodic and Virgilian didactic. At Fasti4. ,911-32, the 'flamen Oj.iirinaJ.is' (Priest of Quirinus) prays to Robigo to leave the corn to grow ripe. The priest carries out the ritual of expiation of Robigo, which involves the sacrifice of a dog and a sheep at Fasti 4. 933-6. In response to a question from the narrator, he explains that the sacrifice is for the propitiation of Sirius, the Dog-Star (Fasti 4. 937-42). FastiS. 493-598 juxtaposes Orion and Mars Ultor. At Fasti5. 493-544, the aition for the constellation Orion is given, as follows. Mercury, Jupiter, and Neptune visit a pious old man, Hyrieus, who entertains them with rustic hospitality. In due course the gods reveal their identity and grant Hyrieus' wish

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to have a son despite the death of his wife. This son they conceive jointly, by urinating on an oxhide, from which Orion is eventually born. His life, death, and eatasterism are briefly described in 537-44. Of the versions of the giant's death, Ovid chooses that most favourable to Orion as a catasterized hero:s he became Latona's bodyguard and protected her from a scorpion sent by Tellus. The scorpion and Orion were frozen in the chase before they could do one another any damage, and became constellations in that position forever. Next,9 an astronomical transition (545-8) is made to the games for the anniversary of the foundation of the temple of Mars Ultor. There follows the epiphany of Mars and description of the temple to which he descends (549-68). In 569-78 there is a flashback to the battle of Philippi, at which Octavian, under the patronage of Mars, avenged Caesar's murder. Line 579 brings us to the Parthian campaign of Augustus, and Mars as the Avenger of the massacre of Crassus' army in 53 BC. In 595-8 the god's temple, title, and games are summed up, and in 599 we return to astronomy, with the rising of the Pleiades and Taurus, the latter of which generates the myth of the catasterized Europa (603-20). In both episodes, Robigo/Sirius and Orion/Mars, there are 'errors' of date and puzzles of progression. The illogicality of the Robigalia inheres in two problems: Ovid's astronomical error—the Dog-Star in fact rises in August, rather than April— and the fact that the poet's aetiology of dog-sacrifice by the Dog-Star does not appear to answer the question posed in line 937, why the priest of Quirinus sacrifices a dog to Robigo. These problems were isolated as long ago as 1899, by Warde Fowler: 'Sirius does not rise, but disappears on 25 April, at sunset, and it is almost certain that the sacrifice of the dog has nothing to do with the star.'10 Why does Ovid choose to connect the two at the cost of astronomical error? Elaine Fantham calls this 'the strangest of Ovid's astronomical inaccuracies'." We shall 8 For the different versions of Orion's death (most far less flattering to the hunter), see Hygittus, Astr, 2, 26 and 34, On Ovid's selectivity, see Newlaods (19S)5) 110-15. 9 We should remember that the date markings which break up Ovid's text as we 10 have it are editorial. Warde Fowler (181)9} 90, " Fantham (1998) ad Fasti 4. 904. Her explanation of Ovid's error is that he has confused the rising of Sirius with its evening setting. She comments, 'This is all the

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attempt an explanation in a moment, but let us first outline the problems of the Orion/Mars passage. Here the situation is, if anything, more complex. At Fasti 4, 387f. Ovid has the setting of Orion on 9 April, just before the Games of Ceres. In Book 5 the setting of the constellation may be dated to 11 May. The astronomical dates here, surprisingly, are fairly accurate, since Orion, as a very large constellation, takes some time to set, and does in fact set at this time of the year.12 The problem in this case is that the reader's aetiological expectations are tinkered with in several respects. First, Orion in lines 493 f. is a 'non-constellation'. The constellation is no longer visible in the sky; none the less, Ovid goes on to expound its origin. The paratactic structure typical of astronomical didactic is odd here, considering that the second idea is a. non sequitur: 'You won't find Orion: I'll tell you his cause.'13 If Orion is not there in the first place, what is he doing hurrying to set before the Games of Mars in Fasti 5. 545? The question is an astronomical one; the ensuing passage, however, is the aetiology, not of astronomical material, but of the anniversary of the founding of the temple of Mars Ultor. The anniversary itself is not unproblematic, as scholars ha,ve shown.14 Ovid is the first to record the vow of Octavian at Philippi, but also records a tradition of Mars as avenger of the Roman people over the Parthians: that is, over a foreign enemy, rather than over fellow Romans. As Zanker put it, 'Identifying Mars Ultor with this later occasion, as well as with other deeds of Augustus' armies and generals, was a convenient way of forgetting the association with the civil war,'14 Why does more surprising as Virgil Geo. 1. 217-18 clearly marks the entrance of the sun into Taurus in late April as the time when the Dog Star sets.' Similarly, Ovid's dating of the evening getting of Aries diverges from the true evening setting of that star by about three weeks, and. the apparent evening setting by about a month. Fanthatn leaves the reasons for Ovid's inaccuracy open, saying merely, 'While Ovid's intermittent astronomical references are both inaccurate and arbitrary, he does try to note either rising {real or apparent) or setting of most signs of the zodiac,* '" Although Ideier (1825} 161-3 suggested that he may have used two different parapegniato. H On parataxis as a stylistic marker in astronomical didactic, see Sa.nti.nt (197,5). 14 On the problems, see (for example) Bonier (1957-8) ad Fasti 5. 550, and Herbertt5 Brown (1994) 95-108. Zanker (1988) 194,

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16

Ovid include the Philippi vow at all? Let us now take a closer look at our two passages, exploring the problems further, and trying to see how the different elements in them can be fitted together into an interpretable whole.

(iii) Mildew and the Dog-Star The agricultural theme of Fasti 4. 901—42 fits the predominantly agricultural nature of Book 4. Robigo nestles happily in her surrounding context. The problem, as we have noted, is that Ovid combines the celebration of a rustic rite with the (incorrect) rising of a star. Why is a dog sacrificed to Robigo? Why is it important that Sinus should be present rather than absent at this date? We may attempt an explanation of this problem by consulting the agricultural calendar. Evidence for the association of dogs with the Robigalia conies from Pliny. Discussing diseases of crops at NH18. 154, Pliny describes Blight as a 'caeleste rnalum' which affects both corn and grapes. The Robigalia is among the festivals instituted by men of old to cope with periods of agricultural danger (NH 18. 284), which also include the Vinalia and Floralia (as we have them in Fasti 4 and 5). The Robigalia was instituted by Numa in the eleventh year of his reign, and falls on 25 April, because at about that time the crops are subject to mildew ('quondam tune fere segetes robigo occupat'). But the true cause is the setting of Canis and Canicula at this time: Vera causa est quod post dies undetriginta ab aequinoclio verno per id quatriduum varia gentium observatione in IV Kal. Mai. Canis occidit, sidus et per se vehemens et cui praeoccidere caaiiculam 16 According to Herbert-Brown (1994) 107: 'The absence of any real justification for Mars Ultor is Ovid's challenge as he celebrates the dedication of the temple in the fasti after the death of Gaius, For all his profession to stick to peaceful themes at the outset, of his work (Fasti I. 13} he is DOW obliged to adopt a military tone. Yet all that he is left to work with is the settlement of 20 nc and die memory of Augustus' determination to celebrate the occasion as a military triumph. Or was it after the death ot Gaius, and during a possible upsurge ot popularity tor the memory ol Julius that the vow at Philippi for the revenge of Julius was invented to refurbish the inadequate camouflage of Augustus* peaceful settlement in 20 BC? If this is so, it is not surprising that Ovid, composing his calendar in the years AD 4-8, should he the first Roman to report the vow at Philippi,'

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necesse sit' (NH18. 285), From this it seems that propitiation of the setting Dog-Star, at the time when the wheat was about to come into ear (i.e. spring), coincided with the Robigalia, the purpose of which was also the protection of the crescent corn. At Fasti 4. 901-4 Ovid gives the rising of the Dog for Pliny's setting, possibly to make a stronger connection between the sacrifice of a dog to Robigo, and the Dog-Star. The cause of the dog sacrifice, like the constellation, is present in the Fasti', but Ovid neglects to tell the aition of the sheep sacrifice which also takes place at Fasti 4. 935, nor does the constellation of the Ram preside over the ceremony (Fasti 4. 903). It is the Dog that Ovid seerns to want us to concentrate on here.17 The agricultural calendar is important not only for explaining apparent logical anomalies in Ovid's Robigalia, but also in trying to determine the moral thrust of the passage. Broadly speaking, this might be defined as the celebration of rural peace. One might see Ovid's Robigalia as indicative of nostalgia for the virtuous state of rustic early Rome, a sort of Golden Age in which the arms of war are the only entities subject to corruption, as the priest prays they will be at Fasti 4. 921-30: Parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer, Neve noce cultis; posse nocere sat cst. Nee teneras segetes, sed durum amplectere ferrum, Quodque potest alios perdere perde prior, Utilius gladios et tela nocentia carpes: Nil opus est illis; otia mundus agit. Sarcula nunc durusque bidens et vonier aduiicus, Ruris opes, niteant; inquinet arma situs, Conatusque aliquis vagina ducere terrain Adstrictum longa sentiat esse mora. 'Spare us, I pray, keep scabrous hands from the harvest. Harm no crops. The power to harm is enough, '7 He has the priest, taking for a moment the role of mythographer, allude to the mythology of the Dog-i>tar at Fasti 4, 1)3!); 'cst Cairo, Icariuin dicunl.,.'. In this version of the myth, the Dog-Star is the dog Maera, who discovered the body of his niasler Icarus, murdered by drunken shepherds to whom he had given wine, a gilt from Dionysus to mankind through him. The dog wasted away beneath the feet of Icarus' daughter Erigoue, who had hanged herself with grief at her father's death, until they were all eatasterized hy Zeus, Icarus becoming Bootes or Arctophylax, Erigone Virgo, and Icarus' dog Canieula (Hyginua, Astr, 2. 4).

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Do not grip the delicate corn, but hard iron. And destroy what is destructive, first. It is better to devour swords and lethal spears. They have no use: the world practises peace, Now let the hoe, hard fork and arcing plow shimmer; They are the field's wealth. Let neglect rust amis; And let any attempt to unsheathe the sword Feel the iron clogged from long disuse.'

The theme of rural peace is consonant with the Pax Augusta of the established Principate. Ovid's 'otia mundus agit' at Fasti 4. 926 recalls the post-civil war scene of Virgil's first Eclogue'. *deus nobis haec otia fecit' (line 6).18 Successful agriculture was an important indicator of the success of Roman institutions, and indeed Pliny, in the agricultural book 18 of his Naturals Historia, asserts that agricultural life is the foundation of Roman institutions (NH18. 6). The work which best exemplifies the morality and sociology of Roman agriculture in the generation before Ovid is of course Virgil's Georgia. Ovid's prayer to Robigo brings to mind a passage of Virgil's Georgia in which a similar combination of agricultural and military imagery occurs, Georg. 1. 160—70: Dicendum el quae srint duris agrestibus arum quis sine nee potuere sen nee surgere messes: vomis et inflexi primum grave robur aratri, tardaque Eleusinae matris volventia plaustra, tribulaque traheaeque et iniquo pondere rastri; virgea praeterea Celei vilisque supellex, arbuteae crates et mystica vannus lacchi. omnia quae multo ante memor provisa repones, si te digna manet divini gloria runs. continue) in silvis magna vi flexa domatur in burim et curvi formam aceipit ulmus aratri. I'll tell you too the armoury of the tough countryman, For without (his the harvest would never be sown nor successful: The ploughshare Erst and heavy timbers of the curving plough, 18 See also Pastil. 08,28,5-8, 701-4; 'lr. '2.224,235. Elaine Fanlham points out (1998 ad Fasti 4. 926) that "otium* was a panegyrical theme in Roman poetry since Horace, noting especially Odes 4, 15. 17-19, 'custode rerun) Caesare nou furor j civilis aut vis cxiget otium, non ira, f|uae ptocudit enses*. On 'otium' as an Augustan concept, see also Galinsky (UWti) 243, 258 f.

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The ponderous-moving waggons that belong to the Mother of harvest, Threshers and harrows and the immoderate weight of the mattock; Slight implements, too, of osier, Arbutus hurdles, the Wine-god's mystical winnowing-fan. Be provident, lay by a stock of them long beforehand If you wish to remain worthy of the land and its heaven-sent honour. Early in woods the elm, by main force mastered, is bent Into a share-beam and takes the shape of the curving plough.

At Fasti 4, 927 Ovid gives an abbreviated version of Virgil's list of agricultural implements. In, particular, Ovid's 'vomer aduncus' might recall Georg, I. 162, Vomis et inflexi grave robur aratri'. In both passages 'arma' are mentioned. In Virgil 'arma* is a military metaphor applied to the tools of the fanner, reinforced by words such as 'gloria' and 'domatur'. The violence of war is transferred by Virgil to agricultural endeavour, which becomes a battle with natural forces, in which, the farmer strives for militaristic triumph. This imagery is appropriate for a description of agriculture which belongs to the generation which had seen the civil wars. By appropriating the terminology of war for agricultural activity, Virgil at once indicates how agriculture might eclipse war, but also how the cultivation of the land in the Age of Jove partakes of the aggression of war. However, as we saw above, Ovid's is a new Golden Age. In the Robigalia, Ovid keeps the two separate, referring to agricultural tools as 'ruris opes' and saving 'arma' for weapons of war (Justi 4.928). Agriculture in this passage of the Fastil&cks the element of aggression it has in Virgil's theodicy of 'labor', and is perhaps more suited to the world of the later Principate, in which agricultural peace is an established fact, and battle imagery is less relevant to all spheres of human activity.

(iv) Orion and Mars But the god of war is not altogether absent from Ovid's aetiological didactic poem: he is addressed in the Proem to Fasti 3,"' and has his own episode at Fasti 5. 545 ff., following 19

On which see Hinds (1992).

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the story of Orion, told at Fasti 5. 493 ff. Let us now consider in more detail Orion and Mars in Fasti 5, The story of Orion is similar in tone and moral thrust to the Robigalia. At Fasti5. 497 f. the reader is plunged into a pastoral world: Tempus erat quo versa iugo referuntur aratra, Et pronus saturae lac bibit agnus ovis, It was the time when yokes bring back the upturned plough And stooping lambs milk their bursting ewes.

Here Ovid may allude to Virgil, Eclogue 2. 66, 'aspice, aratra iugo referunt suspensa iuvenci' ('Look, the bullocks bring back the hanging ploughs with the yoke'}. This story is not going to be the wider campus of epic, but a small piece of pastoral territory. Homely details are present, like the pots of beans and cabbage in Fasti 5, 509, Here again, a key model is Virgil's Georgics. The poor but horticulturally successful old Corycian man in Georgics 4, 125-46 also has cabbage ('holus', Georg. 4. 130). Like the worthy old man in the Georgics, Hyrieus is 'angusti cultor agelli' (499), 'cultorem pauperis agri' (515): compare the 'pauca iugera' of Georgics 4. 127 f. The poverty of the fare in Fasti 5 may remind us of Georg. 4. 132 £, 'seraque revertens | nocte domum dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis' ('He could go indoors at night | To a table heaped with dainties he never had to buy'). In the Georgia, the simple lifestyle of the old man renders him worthy to keep fruitful bees (who are given divine characteristics in what follows); in the Fasti the implication is that the rustic simplicity of Hyrieus, as well as his piety, is what makes the gods disposed to grant his wish for a son. A connection between Ovid and Virgil is the topos of agricultural simplicity as generating virtue. Continuing the theme of virtue, Ovid chooses the version of Orion's death which marks him out as virtuous. In most cases, Orion's death was a result, not of his pittas, but of his hubris.™ The fact that Ovid chooses to manufacture a different version of the giant's death here would indeed seern to indicate that he wished to continue the theme of virtue set up in the episode of Hyrieus and the gods. 7 " See Hyginus, Astr. 1, 26 (Orion boasts that he can kill every beast on the face of the earth), and CaUimachuti, Hymn 3. 2641*. (an attempt by Orion to seduce Diana).

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Newlands comments on the Orion passage: 'The reference to Hyrieus' straitened circumstances makes clear that Ovid is not stretching elegy's bounds with serious Roman themes like Augustus' reform of religion and revision of history', and on Ovid's version of Orion's death: 'Whereas the Temple of Mars Ultor provides official sanction for revenge as a noble expression of filial or patriotic duty, in the Greek myth of Orion Ovid presents revenge as a brute, unintelligent force that can be exaggerated and unjust.'21 This scholar sees a disparity between the martial nature of Mars and the pacific nature of the surrounding episodes, including Orion: 'Read in isolation, the passage on Mars Ultor presents itself as a totalizing discourse, providing a positive view of war and revenge and reproducing the concept of national identity as proudly male and martial. Read in relation to the myth of Orion , , , the exegesis of the cult of Mars Ultor becomes one possible view of Roman identity only, and not a canonical one. Thus, although this passage celebrates Rome's military successes, the ideology enshrined in the Forum Augustum is questioned by the invitation of other perspectives that prioritize the arts of peace rather than the art of war.'22 The implication is that one would expect the passage on Mars Ultor to be very different from both the Orion passage which precedes it, with allusions to the Georgics, for example, being excluded from Fasti 5. 545 ff., but not from the preceding passage on Orion. Following Newlands's reasoning, one would expect a clash between the tone and moral thrust of 21

Newlands (Was) ll'l, ~* Newiands (1995) 20, l°his vitvw is ill tune with Nt'wlaods's broad assertion thai the stars often introduce material which undercuts that presented by the Roman religious calendar, staled in several places in her monograph, e.g. (1995) 25: "within this poem Greek myth and astronomical lore in particular often run counter to the ideals emblematized by the monuments and festivals whose origin and character Ovid attempts to explain'. I have argued elsewhere (Gee 2000: 126-53) that there is not an obvious disparity between astronomy and panegyric, rather the reverse: Hellenistic astronomical writing such as Aralus* PhtmunnaM and Callimacfaus' Lock of Berenice could he seen as to some degree a product of the desire of the Hellenistic monarchies to insert themselves into the cosmos and to dominate it, &$ well as their earthly realm, by their scientific knowledge- If this is the ca.se, it was appropriate to his time that Ovid should attempt its synthesis with archaic and contemporary Roman cult, the festivals of which were devised or revived by the monarch Augustus in his role as Rome's second founder, who also tried to insert himself into the cosmos (see Hardie 1986/Kira'm; Herbert-Brown 1997),

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the Orion episode and that of the Mars Ultor passage which follows it. Is this true? Let us explore further. It may prove possible to modify to some extent Newlands's stark dichotomy between Orion and Mars, and to come up with a different kind of reading of the passage, especially if it can be tied in with the Robigalia also. Certainly, the Mars Ultor passage is predominantly epic in tone. In epic contrast to the predominantly agricultural treatment of Orion in the preceding episode, the heavenly bodies, including the invisible Orion, hasten their course at Fasti 5. 545 to make way for the epiphany of Mars, and for commemoration of the deeds of his victorious descendant Augustus, the anniversary of whose imperium Ovid has already prefaced with the same cosmological conceit (Fasti 4. 673-6): hanc quondam Cytherea diem properanlius ire iussit et admissos praecipitavit equos, ut titulum imperil cum pritnum luce sequenti Augusto iuveni prospera bella darent. Cytherea once commanded this day to rush, And quickly sank its galloping horses, So the next day's triumph might more quickly name The young Augustus as imperator.

Ennius, in the longest extant fragment of his Scipio, used a similar image:23 mundus caeli vastus constitit silentio et Neptunus saevus undis aspens pausani dedit, Sol equis iter repressit ungulis volantibus, constitere amnes perennes, arbores vento vacant. The huge dome of the heavens stood still in silence and harsh Neptune checked die rough waves, the Sun held back the course of his horses with their winged hooves, the ever-iowing rivers stopped, the trees are devoid of wind.

Programmatic value may be ascribed to Fasti 5. 545-98, where the epiphany of Mars generates martial and patriotic subjects meriting epic treatment.24 Line 575 in particular 23

Vahlen (1928) 214, Varia fr. 6. (My translation.) Barchictii (1997) 126: 'Ovid shows us that when he wants to he is perfectly able to write in the antique style used by Virgil in his epic.* 74

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supports this view, where Octavian prays at Philippi, 'Mars, ades et satia scelerato sanguine ferrum.'25 The sigmatic nature of the verse imparts added solemnity, reminiscent of the speech of Aeneas in Aeneid VI. 948 f., 'Pallas ... poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit,' The motif of vengeance in Ovid seems to fit; Augustus, the new Aeneas, exacts revenge as a prelude to his re-foundation of Rome. The Princeps has donned for Ovid the mask of an epic hero, and his temple to Mars contains the gateway to epic poetry. At Fasti 5. 567 f., the god looks down on his temple, which the name of Caesar renders greater: special et Augusta praetextum nomine templutn, et visum lecto Caesare nmius opus. He gazes at the temple fringed with Augustus' name, And thinks the work greater when Caesar's read.

Maius opus can also signal a move towards Iliadic subject matter, as it does in the second proem of the Aeneid (Aen. 7. 44 £, 'maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, mains opus moveo'). The wars which follow fulfil this programme; the temple, itself a 'maius opus', acts as a metaphor for Ovid's attempt at a 'maius opus' in the poetic sense. Here, however, we run into a possibility which begins to break down Newlands's strict opposition between Mars and Orion. If one were to think of a model for a temple as metaphor for epic poetry, as the temple of Mars Ultor in the Fasti may be, the one that springs to mind iinrnediately is again from the Georgia: the proem to Georgia 3, where Virgil projects an imaginary work of art, a temple which is a metaphor for an epic with Caesar as its centrepiece. It is interesting to ponder the relationship between Virgil's metaphorical temple and its 'real' counterpart in Ovid. At first sight, the general structure of the passages is dissimilar. The Ovidian passage is ternary in form [constellation Orion/Games of Mars/constellation of Pleiades), with the two introductory couplets forming a miniature 'cosmic setting*-1' for Ovid's record of historical events and their contemporary 25 26

On this speech, see Barchiesi (1997) 126-HO. Bardie (198ft) 64 for the term.

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associations; in Virgil the temple begins a book, and is an extended development of the divine invocation with which each book of the Georgia begins. Initially, the function of each passage seems different also: the proem to Georgics 3 is programmatic, while the Ovidian passage records the advent of the Games of Mars in the Roman year. But we have already seen the programmatic nature of Ovid's temple in the Fasti; and allusion to the proem of Georgics 3 is particularly appropriate at this point in the Fasti, since the proem to Georgics 3 represents the intersection of epic and didactic poetry, the presence of a projected epic (incorporating epic subjects and language in microcosm) in a didactic poem. There are individual similarities too. For example, Caesar's victories occupy the centre of each tableau. In Fasti 5. 557 L conquest of the East is a step towards total domination, of East and West; in Georg. 3, 22—33, the Britons woven into the curtains of Virgil's festal stage, and the figures on the temple doors cover between them East and West, in the context of domination by Rome. The stock motif of fleeing Parthian archers occurs in both authors (Fasti 5, 581, 591; Georg, 3. 31). The real Parthian wars in the Fasti, which led to the foundation of the temple there commemorated, parallel the wars which act as decorative elements in Virgil's temple. Likewise, the statues in Ovid's temple parallel the imaginary" ancestral statues of Georg, 3. 34-6, Martial games occur in both passages (Fasti 5. 597 f., Georg. 3, 17-22), Ovid's are real games, Virgil's metaphorical. The division, however, is blurred, for, as Mynors points out in his commentary, Virgil may have had in mind the Ludi victoriae Caesaris, or the games for the dedication of the Aeries Veneris Genetricis in 46 BC, or the five-yearly Actian Games inaugurated at Augustus' augmentation of the temple of Apollo at Actium and founding of the town of Nicopolis.27 In Virgil there is a blurring between ekphrasis and history. Virgil's symbolic temple and precinct have other features which might be recognizable from edifices in Rome. The structure of the temple may be loosely based, according to Mynors, on Julius Caesar's temple, of which Virgil may have 27

Mynors (1990) ad Georg. 3.

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seen the dedication in August 29 DC, or on that of the Palatine Apollo, dedicated in October 28 BC, the doors of which, as in Georgics 3. 26, were decorated in gold and ivory ('et valvae, Libyci nobile dentis opus', Propertius 2. 31. 12).28 Thus poetic fabrication in Virgil takes its inspiration from reality. Conversely, if Ovid has this passage of Virgil in mind, his vision of the temple of Mars Ultor is inspired by poetic art. Ovid and Virgil are united here by slippage between poetic imagery and Roman topography. But there is one difference between Ovid's temple of Mars Ultor and Virgil's temple of Octavian. Virgil mentions the Parthian wars only; Ovid couples them with Philippi, making Mars twofold avenger (Fasti 5. 595), Virgil did not count Philippi among the subjects for his military panegyric of Octavian.-8 In fact, Philippi in the Georgics belongs in quite a different run of imagery, the portents at the end of Georgia I (461-97; the passage is quoted in full as the Appendix to this chapter). This passage develops out of Virgil's explication of sun-signs, aimed at the watchful farmer, and culminates, via portents for the murder of Caesar and the battle of Philippi, in a scene of farmers in a later time of peace unearthing rusty weapons and greater-than-human bones. Here is the Philippi sequence at Georg. 1. 487-92: non alias caelo ceciderunt plura sereno fulgura nee diri totiens arsere cometae. ergo inter sese paribus concurrere telis Rotnanas acies itcrutn videre Philippi; nee fuit indignum superis bis sanguine nostro Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campus. Never elsewhere have lightnings flickered so constantly In a clear sky, or baleful comets burned so often. Thus it ensued that Philippi's field saw Roman armies Once again engaged in the shock of civil war; And the High Ones did not think it a shame that we should twice Enrich with our blood Emathia and the broad plains of Haemus. 2 * On the possible relationship of the temple in Georgia 3 with the Palatine temple of Apollo, see also Hardie (1986) 123. *"' lliis might support the argument of Herbert-Brown (1994) 107 that the vow at Philippi was invented after the death of Gains in 2 Be (see n. Mi above),

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There is nothing glamorous about the Philippi which follows Virgil's set of portents: the weapons come from the same side ('paribus telis'), and the blood is Rome's own ('sanguine nostro'). Mars, the 'deo ... bis ulto' of Fasti 5, 595, is also the god who, in Virgil, presided over the twofold shedding of Roman blood by Romans in Macedonia in 42 Bc.3 In fact, Virgil's Mars is impius, the reverse of Ovid's Mars Ultor, and instead of bringing about agricultural peace, he deprives the fields of their rightful occupants, as the bellicose corruption of Rome spreads across the world in the apocalypse of Georg. 1. 505-11: tot bella per orbem, Tarn multae scelerum fades, non ullus aratro Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis, E(, curvae rigidurn ("alecs conflantur in ensem. Hint movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bcllum; Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbes Arma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe. There's so much war in the world, Evil has so many faces, the plough so little Honour, the labourers are taken, the fields untended, And the curving sickle is beaten into the sword that yields not. There the East is in arms, here Germany marches: Neighbour cities, breaking their treaties, attack each other: The wicked war-god runs amok through all the world.

In the Mars Ultor passage, Ovid runs into a problem: for whatever reason, he wants the Philippi vow as one reason for the dedication of the temple of Mars Ultor, but at the same time, his didactic predecessor, whom the astronomical passage which forms the 'cosmic setting' for the temple evokes, presented Philippi in a profoundly negative light. Not only that, but if one reads the Mars Ultor passage with the VirgiMan sequence from the end of Georgi.cs 1, we are reminded that war must be seen as a profoundly damaging influence on agriculture. There is another point at which the end of Georgics 1 may underlie Ovid's Mars episode, and this may help us to show how the passages we have looked at in Fasti 4 and 5 are M>

'Bis' in the Virgilian context refers to the battles of 27 Oct. 42 IK: and 16 Nov. 42 BC, in which Cassius and Brutus were defeated.

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linked with one another by a common model and a common ethical concern, a concern present throughout the Fasti but particularly evident through study of astronomy and agriculture. At Fasti 5. 549-50, the sound of Mars' arrival is the thunder-like clash of arms, 'bellica signa': Fallor, an arma sonant? Non fallimur, arma sonabant: Mars venit et veniens bellica signa cledit, Am I deceived, or is there a sound of arms? 1 aim not deceived: arms did sound. He has come, and has given the signs for war,"

The iunctura of signum and dare occurs twice in this passage from the end of the first book of Virgil's Georgics (Georg. 1. 463, 'sol tibi signa dabit', and 470 f., 'obscenaeque canes importunaeque volucres signa dabant'}, A heavenly clash of arms, like Mars' 'bellica signa* in the Fasti, also occurs in this passage of the Georgics, After the death of Caesar, which led to the civil wars, the clash of arms was heard over Germany: 'armorum sonitum toto Germania caelo | audiit', Georg. 1, 474 f. This is like the clash of arms which precedes the advent of Mars in Fasti 5. Does Fasti 5, in which Philippi is turned into a triumphant episode in the consolidation of the Principate, serve to update Virgilian pessimism in the light of the security of the later Augustan period? Or, by recalling Virgil's Philippi, must we see Augustus' patron Mars in a less positive light? One would expect martial imagery in the Mars Ultor passage, whether or not it rings alarm bells in relation to Philippi; one might also expect such imagery to differentiate the Mars passage, not only from the Orion passage which precedes It, but also from agricultural passages such as the Robigalia. In fact, this may not be the case. The same Virgilian passage may be present at a substrate level in Ovid's Robigalia, an episode we have previously thought of as being, straightforwardly, about agricultural peace. The iunctura of signum and dare also occurs in the Robigalia: 'signaque danl imbres, exoriturque Cards' (Fasti 4. 904). This alone would not be enough to make the reader recall Virgil's '*' My translation.

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32

apocalypse; but there may be more. Compare Fasti 4. 936, 'turpiaque obscenae (vidimus) exta cants' ('the disgusting entrails—I saw them—of a filthy dog'), with Georgia I. 471-2, ^obscenaeque canes importunaeque volucres [ signa dabanf ('Filthy dogs and birds of ill omen gave the signs'). In Fasti 4. 92330 the flamen prays that Robigo will attack weapons, not tools; but, having read the end of the first book of the Georgia we know that rusty weapons are only bought at the price of internecine carnage at the battle of Philippi (Georg. 1. 493-5): scilicet et tempus veniet cum finibus illis, agricola incurvo terrain molitus aratro exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila. Surely the time will come when a farmer on those frontiers Forcing through die earth his curved plough Shall find old spears eaten away with flaky rust,

Ovid ties us in very closely at the end of the fourth book of the Fasti with the end of the Erst book of Virgil's Georgics. In Virgil, the transition through meteorological signs and heliological portents of Caesar's murder to civil war leads to the apocalyptic end of the first book of the Georgics, What is the effect of this on the interpretation of the Robigalia? The Robigo episode may be related to the agricultural aftermath of civil war at the end of the first book of the Georgicy, does this serve to reinforce the rhetoric of peace, or to fracture the idyll? Is Newlands in fact right to postulate a clash between pastoral Orion and warlike Mars, and is Mars also in opposition to the pastoral peace of the Robigalia? Or does a Virgilian vision of the fragility of agricultural peace underlie Mars, Orion, and the Robigalia together? It would be possible to argue that war in fact unites the passages we have studied from Fasti 4 and Fasti 5. Astronomy can prove helpful here too. Is there, for a start, such an opposition between Orion and Mars as Newlands postulates? Certainly Ovid's version of the Orion tale may underplay Orion's warlike aspects, but in fact the huge constellation is a fitting analogue for the martial Augustus who follows in the Mars ;

'~ The iunctuniis probably common in prognostic literature in the Aratean tradition; see also Cicero, Anita 190, for example.

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Ultor episode. Epic credentials can be found for Orion. He expresses the size and might of Mezentius entering battle at Aeneid 10. 762-5; he is described in the Virgilian epic as 'magnus, saevus, ninibosus, aquosus', and—like Mars—he carries weapons, being 'armatus'.*3 Manilius, Astronomica 1. 501-5, written perhaps at the same time as the revision stage of the Fasti and therefore reflecting astrological beliefs roughly contemporary with Ovid, M may hint at Orion presiding over the Trojan War: iara turn, cum Graiae verterunt Pergama gentes, Arctos et Orion adversis frontibus ibant, haec contenta suos in vertice flectere gyros, ille ex diverse vertentem surgere contra obvius et toto semper decurrere mundo. Already when the Greeks overthrew Troy the Bear and Orion moved with fronts opposed, she content to describe her gyrations at the pole, he rising to i'ace her in opposition as she wheels on the other side and to traverse forever the whole sky,8'5

Manilius (Astron. 5. 12) describes Orion as 'magni pars maxima caeli* (the greatest part of the great heaven). In Fasti 5. 537, "creverat immensum', the giant's size is the only piece of information we are given about his life. It is enough, however, to enable us to see a continuity between his episode and the Mars Ultor passage which follows, in which the size of the temple matches the size of the god: 'et deus est ingens et opus* ('Both the god and the work are massive', Fasti 5. 553). Orion is the 'dux* ('general') of all the other stars at Astronomica 1. 395: 'hoc duce per totum decurrunt sidera mundum'. Perhaps this shows why he might also be an. appropriate celestial analogue for Augustus, mention of whom just precedes Orion in the Astronomical and follows Orion in the Fasti. 3-3 Aen. 7. 71.9 f.: 'saevus ubi Orion hiberois conditur undis, | vel cum sole novo densae torrentur'; Aen, 1. 535: 'nimbosus Orion'; Aen, 4. 52t: 'dura peiago desaevit hierns et aquosus Orion, | quassataeque rates, dorn non tractabile caelum'; Aen, 3. .517 f,; 'Hyadas geminosque Triones, | armaluinqut; auru eireumspidl Oriona.' 44 On the comparability of Manilius arid Ovid, see Herbert-Brown in this volume. :w Trans. Goold( 1977)." •to Manilius, Astron. 1. 385 f,: 'Augusto, sidus nostro qui contigit orbi, legurn nunc terris post caelo maximus auctor' ('Augustus, who like ft star has fallen to the fortune of our world: greatest lawgiver is haiv6(j^va, 'to save the appearances'.7 The appearances, after all, were where one began.8 His more immediate purpose, drawing on philosophy, comparative anthropology, and the work of poets and artists, was to explain to the Romans themselves what they did, and how it made sense in the greater scheme of things. To a great extent he must have achieved his purpose. The accumulated remnants of an old (therefore provincial, primitive and, probably, embarrassing), non-Greek (therefore barbarian), and non-philosophical (therefore not capable of logical explication) religious tradition, now had ratio, that untranslatable hallmark of Roman respectability, one key part of which was, precisely, systemization. Varro organized his source material into three categories: the poetic, the civic, and the philosophical (Cardauns 7/August CD6. 5): tria genera theologian,,. esse, id est rationis, quae de diis explicate, eommque unum mythicon appellari, alterum physicon, tertium civile... rnythicon appellant, quo roaxime utuntur poetae; physicon, quo philosophi; civile, quo populi. [He said) there are three kinds of theology, that is, of a logic seeking to explicate the gods. Of these one is called 'mythic', the second, 'natural', and " Reading Hoffmann's emendation quam (tjun), which is necessary to the meaning. This passage i n itself refutesjocelyn's view of Varro and the RD (cf. above, n. 4). Varro here casts himself in the heroic mould proper to saviours of Roman 'sacra'. These are not the words of a detached cynic. 7 Lloyd's observations (1978; repr. 1991) 251-2, on the methodology of scientific philosophy, are equally applicable to religious philosophy. * Contemporary with Ovid, or perhaps a little later, is the mysterious Heraditus, who assembled the rationalizing explanations for Homer's gods (Buffiere 1!M>2).

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the third, 'civic'... the one they call 'mythic' is that most especially used by poets; the 'natural', by the philosophers; and the 'civic', by the people.

In particular, he seems to have been concerned that literature and art—the theology of myth—undermined the 'dignitas' of the gods, and provided a representation contrary to the 'natura' of the divine (Cardauns 7), Varro's concern is old: it can be traced back at least as far as Xenophanes, who vigorously criticized the immorality of Homer and Hesiod (Kirk and Raven 1971: 169). Plato too had banished poets from the polis because of the baleful effect on the people (Rep. 10. 605-8). Certainly Varro's concern to mitigate the apparent immorality of the gods as found in literature and art would have appealed to Augustus, even if it did not actively shape his opinions on the matter. Nevertheless, despite the fact that he disapproved of the 'theology of the poets' and placed a higher value on philosophical explanations than, on inherited ritual or practice, he excluded no material arbitrarily. There is one other aspect of Varro's view of the gods and their presentation in the management of the state that we must consider, before we turn to the use Ovid made of the AD (Cardauns 20f): Utile esse dvitatibus . . . ut se viri fortes, etiarasi faLsum sit, diis gcnitos esse credant, ut eo modo animus humanus velut divinae stirpis fiduciam gerens res magnas adgrediendas praesuraat audacius, agat vehementius et ob hoc impleat ipsa securitate felicius. |He said| it is useful for states thai strong men should—even if it is untrue— believe that they are descended from gods, so that in this way the human spirit, bearing, as it were, the guarantee of divine ancestry, might the more daringly anticipate great deeds that are worthy to be done, perform them with greater determination, and thus carry them out the more successfully by reason of their own confidence.

So, although Varro held no brief for the anthropomorphism of the gods—on which single premiss any political argument for divine descent must rest-and despite the fact that he regarded human claims to divine ancestry as patently false, he readily acknowledged the advantages inherent in both these concepts for promoting the well-being of the state. This adaptiveness was part of the legacy the Romans received from the historians of

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the Pharaohs and the Persian kings, supported by Euhernerism (which held that the gods were originally men who had benefited their people) and the self-deification of Alexander the Great, all filtered down in terms of practical politics through the ruler-cults of the Ptolemaic and other, lesser, Hellenistic dynasties. That Varro, a Republican through and through, could take this stand is very important for our understanding of Augustus, his much-touted Julian descent from Venus, and the ways in which men from the ruling class—of whom Ovid was one—were expected to deal with it" Thus there are three things that we can be reasonably certain Ovid found in Varro, First, a tripartite classification which divided the material on the divine into the theology of the poets (including Homer, the tragedians, and the rest of Greek as well as Latin poetry), the theology of the state, and the theology of the philosophers."' Second, some sort of arrangement of" those theologies in a system primarily intended to explicate Roman religion for the benefit of Rome and its ruling class. Finally, an underlying tension, acknowledged by Varro, between the immoralities of poetic theology and the moral needs of civic theology, on the one hand, and on the other, between the philosophers' explication of the divine, and the combined peculiarities of civic theology and the theology of the poets (Cardauns 228): De diis... populi Roman! publicis, quibus aedes dedicaverunt eosque pluribus signis omatos notaverunt-, in hoc libro seriham, scd ut Xenophanes Colophonios scribit, quid putern, non quid contendam, ponatn, Horninis est enim haec opinari, dei scire. In this book I will write about the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have consecrated temples and whom they have distinguished by the setting up of numerous statues, but, as Xenophanes of Colophon writes, I will put down what I think is the case, not what I would argue for [ ? The distinction between, conclusions drawn from the evidence and the logical argument of philosophy?]. It is for man to have opinions, and for god to know. w Varro is thus proposing to the ruling class that they practise collusion with Viri fortes' in a mild but necessary deception. Alexander is clearly in his mind, as are men like Scipio Africaitus, 10 Schilling rightly claimed (1954: 152} that Ovid frequently presents a 'triple point of view'; but has missed the Varronian source, and its implications.

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How Varro himself resolved these tensions is unrecoverable; but by now it should at least be clear that Ovid did not undertake to write the Fasti without a generic model for dealing with them: Varro's tripartite system, well known among his educated readers, and already established as acceptable to the Princeps. II

The fragments of the Remm Dwinarum concerning specific deities and rituals are frustratingly sparse, but those we do possess, backed up with the Lingua Latino and the Res Rusticae, at least permit us to ascertain something about Varro's treatment of the goddess Venus and several of the other deities whose festivals fall in April, and to observe the influence of this material on the Fasti11 First, the most important revelation offered by Varro's discussion of Venus is the fact that he clearly performed a kind of structural analysis of the gods, equating divinities with similar qualities. This is an extension of common Roman practicerecognizing that Zeus, for instance, andJupiter were 'the same'. The 'mother goddesses'—Cybele, Ceres, and Venus—were commonly linked, and it would be no surprise if these goddesses were on his list. Varro's equations, however, are in fact far less predictable. The fragments tell us that he equated Venus and Libera (Cardauns 93); Venus and Luna (Cardauns 179); and Venus and Vesta (Cardauns 283). Libera, he said, is Ceres (Cardauns 260, where Ceres is named, instead of Libera, as the female aspect of Liber); Ceres is Terra, the Earth (Cardauns 270); Tellus, the Earth, is Magna Mater (Cardauns 167, 268), Proserpina, and Vesta (Cardauns 268). We know from the LL that Varro connected the etymology of Venus with Victory through the root 'vincire', in their common sense of 'to bind', and he says that Tellus is called Victory (LL 5. 61-2). Victory and a Sabine goddess Vacuna are the same (Cardauns 1; Vacuna means 'goddess of free time'), and the context of this fragment supports the supposition that Victory 11 Throughout I use the text of Faiitbam (1SW8). Her commentary is a paradigm of the best kind of scholarship, a thoughtful guide through the maze of previous exegesis, and an encouraging aid to the development of one's own.

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and Venus were equated in the RD as well. Rightly did he say 'sed potest... fieri ut eadem res et una sit, et in ea quaedam res sint plures' (Cardauns 268) ('but it can happen that a thing is unitary, while at the same time certain things in it are multiple'). Thus we can see at once that several of the deities whose festivals fall in the month of April are identified with Venus by Varro. We must in particular notice the inclusion in this group of Proserpina, Vesta, and Victoria—all unexpected, but to be important for Ovid's narrative. Since Vesta is included, we have to recognize further that in Varro's system the 'mother' goddess and chastity/virginity are not mutually exclusive: or rather, that our category of 'mother goddess' is not Varro's, and therefore, not Ovid's. Mother and daughter (Ceres and Proserpina) are aspects of the same goddess, and here we see the effect of Varro's rejection of anthropomorphism—it is their function, rather than their quasi-human relationship, that determines the analysis. This, then, was the paradigm for Ovid when he began working on the month of April. Venus, Ceres, Cybele, Tellus, Proserpina, Vesta, and Victory are equated. These several identities are the Many contained in the One, which we can, at least for now, call 'Venus', Next, we know how Varro defined the essence of Venus, that is, the philosophical nature he assigned to her. The most elaborate explanation, deriving ultimately from Presocratic cosmologies, is found in the LL, and there is enough in the RD to make us confident Varro was consistent in this view (Cardauns 280). Venus is born from fire and water, through the conjunction of fire, the highest of the four elements, and water, the lowest (LL 5, 61), She, Venus, is the force of conjunction that leads to generation. This very Pythagorean/Empedoclean notion belongs, of course to the 'theology of the philosophers'. The poetic theology, Varro says, holds that the fiery semen of Zeus fell on the sea, and Venus was then born from the foam, by the conjunction of fire and water (LL 5. 63). Thus when Ovid says (4. 61-2): *Sed Veneris mensem Graio sermone notatum auguror' ('but I surmise/auspicate that the month of Venus is named from the Greek language'), he signals to us with the verb 'auguror' what he is doing. As poetic augur, '- Of. the apparatus crUicus to Cardauns 1,

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he is taking the auspices, and choosing the signs for the month that he will interpret. As a poet, Ovid very properly selects the poetic theology of Venus, thus defining the paramount value of his religious interpretation. This does not mean he rejects alternative views—it is clear he does not—but that he employs them only when and as they serve his purpose. He is selecting from the same cornucopia of source-material as Varro, but since his purpose is different, his selections differ too. Furthermore, Greek derivation allows him to connect his poetic interpretation with philosophic/scientific theology: Zeus is fire/semen, while Earth as water provides the nurturing fluid. Ovid can thus utilize both the poetic ancestry of Venus and the philosophical/scientific tradition associated with the imagery of fire and water. He also accuses those who, like Varro, preferred, an etymology deriving from the Latin 'aperire' ('to open', LL 6. 33) of envy and a desire to deny Venus the honour of the month's name (4. 85-6). Implicitly, of course, he is portraying his own motivations—he intends to honour Venus-but he is also affirming, here as elsewhere, what we have learned from Varro: the decisive factor governing choice of narrative is not 'the truth'.13 Venus, the name of the month, and its nature—that of generation from fire and water—are closely linked in Ovid's chosen etymology. It is important, then, that he still rehearses the Varronian etymology from 'aperire' (87—90), which (as we shall see) he will use as a significant subsidiary imagistic theme, to mark the process ('opening') through which generation occurs. He therefore Integrates it, after restating the principal idea of generation in its most natural form (91-114), into his description of Venus' month (125-8). Having thus identified the month's natural signs—that is, the elements characteristic of that month that will provide Ovid's linking imagery—let us now see how he reports and interprets these signs when shaping his account. The principle of generation, and its ultimate cosmological source, the conjunction of fire and water, as well as the secondary process of'opening', are 13 As Newlands (1995) 69 sees. Herbert-Brown (1994) 89-91 argues for a specific attack on Cincius and Varro. She is right to recognize that Ovid does iii fact accept the conceptual connection between Venus, AptO, and 'aperire', 'The language of growth is replaced by the language of openness* (Fantham 19518 ad 11, 87-8).

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both readily discernible in the text once they are recognized as signs. To begin with, once Ovid has asked for Venus' blessing (15-16), he turns immediately to Augustus, and recalls his descent from Venus, that is, the generation that led to Augustus (19-24). An elegant nod backwards to the month of March and Mars (25-6) connects April with its immediate predecessor. Ovid takes the opportunity, in passing, to touch on generation again by showing Romulus in the act of creating the calendar, which he decides to begin with March, Mars being 'sibi nascendi proxima causa' ('the immediate cause of his own birth': 26). This tactful depiction of the calendar as a record of Romulus' piety—a son honouring his divine fatherhas a very Roman colour. We can almost see it as a tableau, or a scene in a relief or wall-painting: in one frame Romulus turns back, to honour his father and make the (visual, gestural, intellectual) connection to the previous month; in the next he turns forward, toward Venus and the month of April. Venus, Lucretius' 'Aeneadum genetrix' (Lucr. 1. 1), of course is the principle of generation. So we watch Romulus seeking out and finding the beginning of his race (29), a minor dramatization of a primitive search for first causes, as Ovid leads his readers back to beginnings, to the generative source, and traces the (Greek epic) genealogy to Venus, Anchises, and Aeneas (31-8), followed by their Latin descendants (39-56). He closes with the assertion that Romulus always claimed Mars and Venus as his ancestors (though Ovid uses the more intimate word, 'parentes'), and that his words deserve 'fides' (57-8). This statement, of course, calls attention to the existence of its opposite, the potential lack of *fides' in such a statement (and, indeed, in the existence of Romulus himself, or, supposing" he did exist, in the likelihood of his having said anything of the sort). Ovid's allusive inclusion of disbelief both acknowledges the nature of the poets' theology, and finesses it, since while allowing Romulus to affirm the morally questionable relationship of Venus and Mars—the account in Homer (Od, 8. 267—366) being the 'locus classicus' of the sort of immorality disseminated by poets—he also takes advantage of that other weakness inherent in poetic treatment of the divine, the sheer unbelievability of it. He then interprets the mythic story as being there to assure the 'Romuli nepotes' that they are indeed

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descended from the gods (59-60). Thus, I would argue, Ovid turns the whole question of the Julian house's divine ancestry back to Varro. Augustus, Germanicus, are the *viri fortes' of whom so much is expected that they are, as it were, from the creation of the calendar, entitled to appropriate divinity to themselves.14 Having thus dealt with the generations from Mars and Venus, Ovid arrives at the point where he assigns the etymology of April to the foam from which Venus/Aphrodite was mythically born. This is another kind of generation, that of words and names, and they are the creation of humankind. In this case, since the original word for foam (a(f>p6s) is Greek, the hurnans must be Greek too; and after the interesting statement that Italy was a Greater Greece, the Greekness of Italy likewise gets its genealogy, by way of the Greek heroes—Hercules, Odysseus—who visited Italy, and the mythic Greek and Trojan founders who created the Italian city states: Evander (Rome), Telegonus (Tusculum), the Argives (Tibur), Halaesus (Falerii), Antenor (Patavium), Aeneas (Rome), and the mysterious Solymus, the eponymous founder of Sulmo. Solymus and Sulmo allow Ovid—'auctor' as 'actor'—to place himself in the genealogy, slipped in, neatly, if somewhat unexpectedly, between Aeneas and Germanicus.15 Ovid then proceeds to demonstrate the conceptual connection between 'aperire' (which comes from natural philosophy, the theology of the 'physici') and the month of Venus. He defines 'opening' as the opening for, the revealing of, generation (87-90): Nam, quia ver aperit tune omnia densaque cedit Frigoris asperitas fetaque terra patet, Aprilem memorant ab aperto tempore dictum Quern Venus iniecta vindicat alma manu.

14 Zankcr (1988) 195-201 well summarizes the difficulties that the adulterous relationship between Venus and Mars presented to the moral and dynastic aims of Augustus, and the ways in which those difficulties were resolved. l:> Scythia is indeed a long way away from all of that—it has no place in the traditional genealogies. We notice, as a result, how elegantly Ovid calls attention to his proper place (in his view) in the order of things, and the utter marginalization and disconnectedness inflicted by his exile,

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For, because at that time spring opens everything and the dense harshness of cold yields and the breeding earth lies open, they say that April is named from the aperient season, which nourishing Venus claims as her own by placing her hand on it.

The process is threefold: spring 'opens' everything; the dense harshness of cold yields, and the teeming earth is revealed. This is the pattern for what follows, a descriptive 'ratio' of generation in nature (95—132). Ovid takes us from the creation of the gods to the generation of trees (95-6), further elaborating the idea that Venus' power lies in the process of creation through the transformation of 'asperitas', moving from the cold force of 'contractere' (97), to the gentler 'iungere' (98), then to Voluptas' (99), and finally to 'amor' (100). The transition is from the act ('iungere') to the emotion ('amor'). Venus teaches males to modify their innate combativeness (101-4) for the sake of attracting a female, the consequence being abundance of life (105-6). She likewise improves the uncultivated character of human males (106-7), and this produces poetry and a thousand other 'antes', hidden before but now discovered—that is, 'opened' and thus revealed (108-14). The introduction to Book 4 is a statement of the month's major themes. After the proem (1-18), there follow three parts: the Roman generations descended in Greek epic tradition from Venus (19-60); the creation of Italian place-names and 'civitates' by Greeks (61-84); and Venus' power of generation in the natural world (85-114). That is, we have the three Varronian theologies; that of the poets (epic, Homer, and Virgil particularly); that of the state (foundation myths); and that of the natural philosophers. These theologies are not rigid, much less are they rigidly separated from each other: "cui bono' is the criterion for choosing one over the other. In the restatement, Ovid begins with Venus and the state, that is, Rome, moving thence to the epic tradition, Venus' defence of Aeneas, and her wound received before, and on behalf of, Troy (117-22). He then reiterates the line of descent from Venus to the Caesars (123-4). The introduction is concluded with a harking back to the natural theology of Venus and spring (125-8), the third of the three theologies. The closing couplet reminds us that Venus is the one who softens the harshness of the cold (131-2).

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There are, as Fantliara (1998: 37) observes, three major panels in Book 4: the festivals of Cybele, Ceres, and the Parilia, Once we understand how Ovid deals with the elements of these festivals in relation to the themes he has established, we will be in a better position to understand his treatment of the lesser festivals, and his inclusion of other, apparently irrelevant, accounts such as that of the foxes of Carseoli. We have also seen how complex is the list of goddesses whom Varro equates with Venus: Liber a, Luna, Vesta, Ceres, Terra (and Tellus), Magna Mater, Proserpina,Vesta, Victory, and Vacuna. Varro argued, that one concept could have many aspects contained in it (Cardauns 268), a statement clearly true of this goddess. Ovid is thus working in an intellectual tradition that had already incorporated most of the divinities in Book 4. Let us begin with Cybele. Ovid's account of the Great Mother and Attis is clearly adapted from Catullus 63 (223-44). We notice immediately that it is Erato, the Muse, who tells this tale, and the Muses, mythologically speaking, are, from Homer on, the interpreters par excellence of the theology of the poets. Erato is particularly appropriate, because her name links her both (by false, but very poetic, etymology) to Venus, as Ovid says (195-6), and also to the character of Attis' story, which is a tale of love and devotion gone wrong. The second part of this account, belonging also to the theology of the poets, is the retelling of the play in which the Great Mother vindicates Claudia Quinta's chastity after Claudia has rescued, the ship carrying the Magna Mater up the Tiber to Rome (291-336)."* This is a tale of devotion rewarded. Ovid acknowledges that the story might raise doubts (326); improbability is again acknowledged as a characteristic flaw of the theology of the poets, The stories of Attis and of Claudia form the two outer frames of a triptych. On the one side is Attis, who swears fidelity and chastity to the Great Mother, but lies and violates his vow, 1(1

Cf. Wiseman (1995) 129-50 on the use of the theatre to create as well as commemorate a Roman mythology.

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85 On the other is Claudia Quinta, a virgin, bound to chastity by her devotion to Roman social mores. Yet she is suspected of Attis' crime of unchastity. She tells the truth, and is lied about. The castration of Attis, the paradigm of the eastern cult of Cybele, is the punishment for his infidelity. Claudia, the paradigm of the Roman cult of Cybele, has her fidelity publicly vindicated by her miraculous power to tow the goddess's ship. Between these two figures we find an inner narration of Cybele's translation from Asia Minor to Rome (249-78). This comes under the theology of the state, with its own interwoven poetics—a process replicating Varro's claim that he appropriated many things from philosophy and poetry to the civic theology (Cardauns 11). For any Roman, of course, there is a shadow discourse going on. behind Ovid's account. His triumphant statement (2.55-6) that Rome raised her head over the conquered world at the time (205-204 BC) when Cybele was brought to Rome must instantly have called up a very different image, that of Rome after more than a decade of war, desperate for the final defeat of Hannibal. There is not one word about the conflict which drove the priests to consult the Sibylline Books. As a result, the state myth seems strikingly truncated. There Is a reason. What is missing is war; and war, of course, is the proper sphere of Mars, who was left behind in the previous month, but not of Venus. The opening line of this book, with its emphasis on nurturing and love, establishes the fact clearly. Venus is nourishing, and she is the source of beneficence for mankind. The absence of war is the necessary predicate of fertility and abundance, as Augustan iconography amply testifies,17 The absence of the Hannibalic War creates a vivid and direct characterization of Cybele, portrayed here in accordance with the theology of the philosophers, for, as a mother goddess, she is one icon of the peace and fertility that 'Venus' represents. Thus the particular importance of Claudia18 is that she exemplified a Roman standard of chastity based on 'fides', '' Cf. /.anker (1988) 172-7 Cor a discussion of the figure of fertility on the Ara Pads. 18 Contra, Boyle (1997) 13-14, who argues that Claudia's virtues have little or nothing to do with the religious aspect of the cult of Cybele.

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that very quality on which Romans particularly prided themselves, and thought everyone else notably lacked. Attis represents the potential for faithlessness and destruction in the world the Great Mother rules; Claudia represents the worship of the Mother through 'fides', which is a concomitant of peace. Thus she symbolizes the new, Roman, worship of Cybele, The importation of the "xoanon' from Mt Ida is in fact a repatriation of the goddess (272), and her journey from Phrygia to Rome (277-94), by way of Sicily, Africa, 'Ausonia* (alluding to Aeneas), and, finally, the Tiber, is a poetic voyage. The mention of Sicily looks forward, as Fantham says (1998; 287-90 ad loc.), to Ceres and her journey; but it also connects Cybele, Ceres, and Venus—whose island, Cyprus, Cybele also visits (285-6), and who of course will be herself brought to Rome from her famous shrine at Eryx, in Sicily. The second major panel is that of Ceres (393-620). Ceres' cult is easily adaptable to the theology of Venus, and Ovid reinforces this with his claim that Ceres is responsible for teaching men how to cultivate natural crops by instructing them on opening up the earth (401-4). 'Opening', we remember, is a principal part of the process of which Venus is the representation. Fertility and abundance are possible in the absence of war. Farmers are particularly called upon to pray to Ceres for perpetual peace and a pacific leader (407—8). Peace and fertility are linked, as is implicit in Ovid's account of Cybele, and Ceres is so intertwined with, peace that 'pax' itself, or its derivation, occurs three times in the couplet. Between the lines which identify Ceres as the divinity responsible for teaching" men, cultivation, and those which praise her as a goddess who rejoices in peace, there is a couplet which, introduced by the image of Ceres teaching men to break the ground open in order to plant (404), shifts to the mining of precious metals, bronze and iron (405-6). These two metals—bronze, which feeds greed, and iron, which provides weapons—between them bring about war. The very act, then, of cultivation, of learning how to open the earth, brings out into the open what ought to be hidden: the generation-denying possibility of death and destruction, Death, like ground-breaking, has more than one visage, and opening the earth is going to

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reveal another road to death (449-50): panditur interea Dili via, namque diurnum lumen inadsueti vix patiuntur equl. In the meantime the way is laid open for Dis; for his horses, being unaccustomed to the light of day, can scarcely endure it,

The rape of Persephone by Dis, the taking of Persephone to the Underworld through an opening In the earth, and the triumph of life over death when she is returned for part of the year, form an integral part of the religious meaning of Ceres' cult,19 which, among other things, introduces death and sexuality into Ovid's narrative. Yet while Persephone's chastity is violated, her 'fides' is not in question. Just as the Cybele panel introduced the theme of chastity and fidelity, so the Ceres panel will take on this theme, and reintroduce violence, though in a different form from Attis' 'furor' and his resultant castration. The Persephone passage brings out the pain associated with the loss of innocence and chastity. But it also defines the essential union of male and female by violence. That too is an integral meaning of Ceres' cult—and Venus', as Varro makes clear (Cardauns 155): 'Venus... ab hoc etiam dicitur nuncupata, quod sine vi femina virgo esse non desinat' ('Venus, they say, is thus invoked also because of the fact that a woman does not cease to be a virgin without violence'). Ceres' journey is not to rejoin her lost people, as Cybele's was, but to find her lost daughter. In that journey she wanders all across Sicily (467-94) and comes to Greece, to Attica (502). In Attica occur the events that must have formed part of the Eleusinian mysteries. Ceres (Demeter) disguises herself as an old woman, and as such, is taken in by Celeus, a shepherd whose son is dying. The goddess saves his life, and at night tries to burn away his mortality in the fire. The child's mother foolishly interrupts the process out of fear of the loss of her son; as a result the child, who is Triptolemus, remains mortal, but with a divinely assigned destiny, to be the first to practise I!) There was a goddess Panda or Pantica, 'The Opening/Open One' (Cardanns 221), who was thought to be a, form of Ceres, Once again the ingenious false etymologies confirm the underlying perception that Ceres and the idea of opening were intimately connected.

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cultivation (507-60), the first to perform for the human race an art equivalent to the rape of Persephone. Thus, on the one side of Ceres' tale we find the lost divine daughter, Persephone, and on the other, the saved mortal boy, Triptolemus. These are the reverse images of Attis (the lost beloved divine boy) and Claudia (the discovered, mortal girl, who saves and is saved). Moreover, the story has moved from Attis as a symbol of failed male chastity, through the constant (and mortal) female chastity of Claudia, to the violent rape of Persephone, and thence to the cultivation pioneered by Triptolemus, through whom the act of rape is transformed into the nurturing art of agriculture. The mortality and beneficence of Triptolemus parallel Claudia's: the opening of the earth and the softening of cold, death-bringing masculine violence are both successfully accomplished. Ceres then goes on another journey, still searching for her daughter (563-74). Her wandering over the entire earth leads her at last to the Tiber (572), whence she ascends the sky (575). From the stars and the sun she is directed to Jupiter, who is called Tonans (585), This evidence, taken as a whole, clearly relocates Ceres in the (divine) vicinity of Rome. Thus, indirectly, Ovid has her travel to Rome, like Cybele, to find what she needs. There, on Jupiter's command, Persephone, who has eaten three seeds of the pomegranate in the Underworld, is restored to her mother for twice three months (613—14), and the productivity of the earth is assured as death (Dis) and life (Persephone) are united, Our earlier analysis of the Cybele panel allows us to make two farther observations about that of Ceres, First, there is no state theology for Ceres included in Ovid's account, and the reference to Rome, while implied by the Tiber (so significant in Cybele's account) and Jupiter Tonans, remains oblique. This has to be a conscious choice on Ovid's part. The temple of Ceres, founded and dedicated in the earliest years of the Republic, was the symbolic centre of plebeian, power in, Rome. It had burned down in 31 uc, and Augustus, at the end of his life, began its restoration, but. did not live to dedicate it, an act which fell to Tiberius in AD 17. Because of the Cerialia, and because of her intimate connection with the principle of generation, Ceres could hardly have been passed over, but that aspect of

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her worship which appertained to the state clearly could be. Ovid seems here to be respecting the intentions of the Princeps, who declined either to rebuild the temple himself, or to allow it to be rebuilt by others, until the very end of his reign. What we have left is a magnificent recasting of the Hymn to Demeter (Hinds 1987s: 51-71}—the theology of the poetsenriched by thematic connections to the other mother goddesses provided by the theology of the philosophers. And this leads us to a second important observation. Ovid has introduced a new element into the theme, that of fire, which first appears as hearth fire and torches (409-12): farra deae micaeque licet salientis honorem detis et in veteres turea grana focos; et, si tura aberunt, unetas accendite taedas; You may give the goddess spelt and the honour of spitting sail and grains of incense on old hearths, and if there is no incense, kindle torches smeared with pitch.

Fire reappears in the red-hot Sicilian volcanoes (473); again as torches which Ceres lights by means of Aetna's volcanic flames (492-3); and once more as the hearth fire in which Ceres attempts to burn away Triptolemus' mortal substance to make him immortal (509-54). Further, winding in and around these fires are the waters of Earth's rivers and seas. The vale where Persephone gathers flowers is wet with the spray of a waterfall (427-8); Ceres searches for her daughter through Sicily's rivers and springs (467-70) to the Sicilian sea (472), to the Mediterranean and 'two-sea'd Corinth* (498-501). After she has left Triptolemus she travels the Aegean and the Hellespont (563-7); and after the dry lands of Arabia, India, and Libya, she turns to the great rivers of Gaul and northern Italy (571), arriving, at last, at the Tiber (572). From there, as we have seen, she ascends the sky, finds Jupiter, and is finally rewarded with the return of her daughter for six months of eveiy year. Fire and water are thus both pervasive elements in Ovid's narration of Ceres' cult. Yet, intertwined though they are, they never actually come together, to unite in the moment of creation. For that, we must move forward to the third panel, that of the Parilia.

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The interconnection between the various aspects of the divinities of April is made clear once again as Ovid summons Pales (721—4) in virtually the same language as that in which he addressed Venus in the opening of Book 4. Pales is twice characterized as 'alma'; and 'faveo' also appears twice in two lines, recalling the first two words of the first lines devoted by Ovid to April, "Alma fave', there addressed to Venus. Ovid here repositions himself as the poet-singer of sacred things for Pales as well. We cannot tell if there was a poetic ancestor to Ovid's account of the Parilia. The ritual, described as a humble one for shepherds, is important precisely because to all appearances it is not a state ritual such as we might expect for Rome's birthday. The only mention of what could be the state ritual as Ovid describes it is the use of the ashes of the October Horse mixed with those from the Fordicidia, the sacrifice of the unborn calf, both preserved by the Vestals (731-3). This raises an important question. Why, on a most sacred day for the Roman state, is there no mention whatsoever of a ritual celebration of the birthday of Rome? Varro (Schol. Pers. 1. 72) confirms, as we would expect, that there was a state ritual on this day and he says that the Parilia is as much a private festival as a public one.ai How do the two rituals differ? Why does Ovid virtually ignore the public celebration, which surely involved the Vestals, the sacred ashes carried by designated citizens (such as Ovid claims to have been once), and the other religious colleges, in favour of a private, rural, festival? Of course Ovid is throughout the poem concerned with the aetiology of ritual; but, in a month symbolized by generation, origins have even greater importance. Over and above this, I would suggest, Ovid expects his audience to recognize a set of allegorical connections between the shepherds and Rome that are not obvious to us. The first link between the state festival and a rural festival involving the purification of herds and family is of course to be discovered in the character of Rome's founders. Romulus and Remus were both shepherds themselves, and the leaders of those men who became the first Romans: that is, they 20

Beard (1987) is crucial as the foundation for the following part of my argument.

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were the shepherds of their people. There were also actually sheep-pens in Rome itself, critical to the city's ritual and civic existence. These were the 'ovilia', located by the Villa Publica on the Campus Martius, the pens where Romans voted as the 'comitia centuriata', Varro makes telling use in the RR of the Villa Publica and its sheep-pens as allegorical figures for Rome of the Republic (Green 1997). Here Rome itself figures as a homestead, a villa, in which the governing class are both the bailiffs and the animal inhabitants.21 This could have been merely an amusing conceit, but in book 3 Varro turns it into a powerful critique of Octavian's Rome, there allegorized as a beautiful aviary where the birds have everything, a fine home, bread, and circuses—everything in fact, except their freedom. It is worth noting, further, that as a naval commander against the pirates, Varro has himself addressed as Trot/xeVa Aawv (RR 2. 5. 1), summoning up all the power of the Homeric allusion to apply to his office—appropriately, of course, since pirates raid ships and coastal settlements just as predators such as wolves raid flocks. The symbolism of the shepherd as leader of the people' is older than Homer and can hardly have been ignored in traditional accounts of Romulus and Remus, the quintessential shepherds. This allegorical connection, by transforming a rural ritual for herds into the paradigm of a civic ritual for Rome's citizens, would have given depth and meaning to both. Yet the description of the ritual (both private and public) is only the beginning, and the aetiologies (783-806) make Ovid's narratological focus clear, demonstrating that he is most directly concerned with water and fire as they appear in the ritual. The first aetiology Ovid presents is a philosophical explanation for the use here both of fire (harking back to Ceres' attempt to purge Triptolemus' 'human burden') and of water (785-90). He then refers to two other rituals: first one where the exile is denied fire and water, and then one where these elements are presented to a bride entering her new home (791-2). Both emphasize the symbolic and the elemental nature of fire and water, their capacity to make, or break, a union. 71 In book 3, as citizen-birds, in Aristophanes' manner; but note that throughout, characters in the dialogue have names appropriate to their subject

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Then Ovid presents two further aetiologies. The first, that of Phaethon and the flood of Deucalion (793-4), is drawn from Greek myth, and again concerns fire and water (but has nothing to do with either Rome or shepherds). The second is a more generic kind of explanation, which assimilates the shepherd by attributing the discovery of fire to his striking rocks together, and thus accidentally igniting straw (795-8). The aetiology that remains is for the state ritual. Ovid asks whether Aeneas began it with his escape from burning Troy, but discards this in favour of an unheroic aetiology derived from the moment when the Romans-to-be, colonists and flocks, jumped through the fires of their abandoned homes en route to the new city (799-806). Behind 'per flammas saluisse pecus', 'the herd jumped through the flames' (805), we sense Varro's allegorical connection between the people as a. flock, Rome as the Villa, and her leaders as shepherds, that is, sacred caretakers. The 'pecus' and the 'colonos* of this line are surely identical—that is, the colonists jumped through the flames as a herd. This fits the Varronian allegory well, and also removes a small but important difficulty: how would even the most accomplished shepherd get sheep (or indeed most animals not trained for a circus) to walk, run, or jump through a fire? Ovid then turns to a masterful retelling of the tale of Romulus and Remus. The pleasure of Variatio' is not just in making changes, but in adjusting details so that a contrast between the familiar and the unexpected creates its own counterpointed narrative. We get the combat of augury between the brothers (808-18), the digging of the trench, Romulus' prayer for the fruition of his city and its conquest of the world, the approving omens, and the erection of the wall (819-36). Then Remus jumps the wall and is killed. Romulus hides the tears that rise in him in order to maintain the appearance of bravery (845—8). His tears, which at first do not appear, function as the element of water in the act of generation. They, and then those of the Quirites (the 'pecus', the 'coloni') at last provide the sprinkled water at precisely the right time—just before the fire is put to Remus' funeral pyre (849-58). Moreover, Romulus' piety is revealed, laid open ('patet') as he weeps; and opening, as we have seen, is the process that

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allows generation to occur. The Quirites weep with him, their weeping wets the pyre, the pyre is set alight. Fire meeting water is the very act of creation—it is 'Venus'—and at that moment, as fire meets water, the city emerges, 'urbs oritur'. This is Venus' city indeed. The elements of the month, the fire and water that are the creation of Venus, have been slowly assembled, until, at the given moment, they come together for the greatest creation of all: Rome iteelf. The dreadful act of fratricide has become the necessary prerequisite for the transforming act by which is generated the city that the brothers founded together. Also, as with Persephone, violence and death ritually precede new life. Remus is as inseparable from Romulus, fratricide as inseparable from the foundation of the city, as Persephone is inseparable from Dis, or spring from her rape. Ovid, displaying great subtlety, has blended the traditional poetic theology of Rome's foundation with the magnificent philosophical theology of generation. The state ritual now has become a celebration that incorporates the primitive countryman's festival and reaches beyond it to re-enact the creation of the city. Further, since Ovid has just told us how Ceres attempted to burn away the human dross of the first farmer, Triptolemus, we see how this primitive ritual of jumping through fires is now elevated to a purification akin to that of the Eleusinian mysteries. This does not mean that Ovid himself believed the Parilia to be in a literal sense parallel to the mysteries, much less that he expected his readers to think so. He is simply exerting his poetic right as a 'vates' to interpret the signs.

IV We are now in a position to examine Ovid's account of the more minor festivals, and see how he incorporates them in his poetic view of April's divine nature. The month opens with the celebration of Fortuna Virilis. We are told that women of every class worship her (133-5) and the goddess's image is washed on 1 April (135-8). The poetic aetiology envisages her as just having emerged from the water, hair still dripping wet, when she is surprised by Satyrs who are (as always) of Evil Intent (139-44). The subject of generation, which requires

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both male and female, is thus introduced. It is, of course, the wrong sort of generation, and therefore is not accomplished. The branch of the myrtle tree, behind which the goddess hid herself, now symbolizes her command to women to likewise conceal themselves (143-4). That she is too wet (that is, it is too early in the month, so that the conditions for generation are not quite right) is made clear. The worshippers bring incense to the baths, which are perpetually damp, again with too much water, thus being cold as well as wet (145-6). The baths connect Fortuna Virilis with three things: the lavatio' of Cybele (837-40), the waters through which Ceres wanders in her search for Persephone, and the water that is sprinkled on the sheep in the Parilia. Since the sacrifice for this festival, poppy, milk, and honey (a notable soporific), is the drink Venus took on the night of her marriage (151-4), this implies Venus' reluctance to enter upon the sexual act. Venus, the unwilling, unready bride, is therefore, by nature, Varro's chaste goddess, and her chastity permits comparisons with Cybele (who punishes the unchaste Attis), Claudia, and, of course, Persephone. The concluding reference, to Venus Verticordia (155-62), should perhaps be read as a promise to the women worshippers that her function is to change their hearts. Venus shares their desire for chastity, and at the appropriate time she helps them to conceal themselves from the desire of men; but in the necessary process of life, when the time is right, they will be violated (and Ovid, following" Varro, believed that no woman would submit without violence: Cardauns 155). When that time has come, their hearts will be changed, as Persephone's nature is changed, as Ceres' mind and anger are changed. According to Varro, Earth is both soil and water, and its own qualities are that of wet and cold. It must have fire and heat for generation to occur (LL 5. 59). Thus when excessive dampness characterizes the earliest part of the month, it is a seasonable dampness, for the earth is not yet quite ready for regeneration. Later in the month, either too much wet or too much dry is liable to produce disaster. Two festivals before the Parilia illustrate this. First, the Fordicidia (629-72). The slaying of the pregnant cow has, of course, an obvious meaning (covered in eleven

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lines) for the month of generation (629-40). The remaining thirty-two lines are devoted to Numa, who must discover a ritual which responds to the alternate excess of water or dryness (643-4), when the Earth herself is out of balance. Numa stands for human reason, above all for masculine wisdom, and he is inspired by his wife Egeria (66,9), who as a nymph is the divine representative of water. The generation of ritual is thus portrayed as human reason in creative response to the divine. Among the restrictions Numa observes in his ritual is abstention from 'the placing of animals on the table' (657-8), that is, he refuses to eat meat (cf. Met. I. 72-142). Ovid thus preserves Varro's view that the phenomena of ritual are human constructs, and shows us how, if properly understood, they remain valid signifiers of divinity. The second account, the strange narrative of the foxes of Carseoli (681-712),-- follows immediately. It likewise dramatizes the generation of a ritual, and as it begins from the mistreatment of an animal, it seems to be in antithesis to the narrative of Numa, who ritually respects animals. These foxes have no place in the official calendar, and may not even have formed part of the ritual at Rome: they represent the generative fire, but in its excessive, destructive, aspect. According to Ovid's story, though the farm's crops are well advanced, an imbalance between the elements results in no generation, only destruction. As Frazer realized (1929: iv. 332), the fox is, through his red colouring, the flame-shape of his tail, not to mention his destructive consumption of young creatures, both the agent and the symbol of fire. The old woman and the son of the story recall the family Ceres meets in her search for Persephone, but the son is no Triptolemus: for by mistreating the fox he sets the fields ablaze. The animal, violated with fire, spreads this violation so that it consumes the land. The sacrifice -*' We may here see part of Varro's sacred landscape (Cancik 1985-6). He; claims thai at some point the walls between the Cottitie and. laquiline gates were particularly prone to portents. Alter the Sibylline Books were consulted, 'Tareiitine Games' were vowed to T)ts and Proserpina as a. result (Cardatins, Appendix ad Mbrum X 0j. This suggests that the Escjuiiine Gate (which is where Ovid or Varru wuuld approach coining from Carseoli on the Via Tihurtina}, and the Coljjnc Gate (where they would approach from Nomentum on the Via Nomentana), are boundaries of significance for the Proserpina aspect of this month. Ovid meets the priest of Quirinus on the road from Nomentum (90,5-10).

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of the fox is a ritual ceremoniaJizing the sterility of fire which (on its own) is no less hostile to generation than too much dampness and water. We are thus prepared to understand the real meaning—the theology of the philosophers—inherent in the perfect balance between dry and wet as it appears in the Parilia, and how, therefore, the rituals of the Parilia represent creation and the proper fulfilment of Venus' month. The foxes of Carseoli also prepare us for another kind of destruction, that of Robigo. Robigo, as 'rust' on plants (i.e. mould), is the result of too much wet on growing crops (915-19). As the Ovidian word-play has it, the festival properly should shift the 'rust' from crops to weapons (920-5). Rusted weapons are the correlative of peace, and peace is the correlative of Venus and her nourishing abundance (Fantham 1998 ad 11. 902-42). Victory is another aspect of Venus and is therefore appropriately celebrated in April. Thus the victory at Thapsus (376-86) follows Fortuna Publica (372-5), War itself is not mentioned, and Thapsus is commemorated by a survivor, the veteran soldier whom Ovid meets at the games (376-8). Since Vacuna— 'Leisure'— was Victory, because in victory men were at leisure, as Varro tells us (Cardauns 1), the freedom enjoyed by both the soldier and the poet to attend the games is evidence of Caesar's victory. Moreover, Thapsus, we are reminded, was in Africa (dry) while the conversation between Ovid and the veteran is ended by a sudden downpour (wet). The next day is introduced by Dawn looking upon Roma Victrix (389). Roma Victrix is balanced by Jupiter Victor, celebrated on the Ides of April (621-4) and directly preceding another stormy passage, in which the seasonal tempests and hailstorms of mid-April lead to the victory at Mutina, won by Octavian 'with his military hailstorm' (625-8). So again, Ovid commemorates only the victory, and he again ends with a (very cold) downpour. There remains one last festival to be placed in Ovid's grand pattern for April, and that is the Vinalia. As Varro makes clear (LL 6. 13), the Vinalia is a state festival belonging to Jupiter, but Ovid is, again, more concerned with his poetic values, and so chooses his narrative to associate it with Venus. First, and most significantly, he brings Venus to Rome from Eryx in Sicily

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(871-6}, a journey that specifically echoes the similar voyages to Rome undertaken by Cybele and Ceres. He presents it as the result of an abduction—Claudius carried off ('abstulit', 'win', but also 'abduct') Arethusan Syracuse and Eryx. Thus Venus' abduction must recall that of Persephone, and reiterates the main implication of this goddess's innate chastity: she does not go with a man except when forced. The force that brought Venus Erycina to Rome was war, and at the Vinalia war almost enters the narrative. But not quite. In the aetiology for the Vinalia, both Aeneas and Mezentius get as far as putting on their armour (891-2), but then Ovid gives only Aeneas' prayer (893-4) and the victory (895). The trodden grapes are implicitly compared to the defeated Mezentius who has fallen to earth (895). So Victory is celebrated and Ovid honours Venus-as-Victory, even, if it's Jupiter who receives the sacrifices. There follows the discussion of Robigo, with its message of weapons peacefully rusting. The closing five days of April are without religious festivals. Venus Erycina, seized and carried away like Proserpina, has been brought to Rome. Now we come to Vesta (945): 'mille venit variis florum dea nexa coronis' ('the goddess comes plaited with varied garlands of a thousand flowers'). This surely is drawn from the passage of Varro in which he discusses the many goddesses (Venus included) linked to Tellus (Cardauns 268): 'Tellurem.., putant esse... Vestam, quod vestiatnr herbis' ('They think Tellus is... Vesta, because she is "vested" in. flowers'). Since we know that Varro derived Venus from Vincire', 'to bind', Ovid's use of 'necto', 'to plait, to twine, to bind' is surely no accident. Venus and Vesta are entwined, as it were, and the troublesome relationship between Vesta and the house of her relative Augustus (949) becomes less difficult, for since Augustus is the descendant of Venus, Vesta-as-Venus is indeed a relative. Vesta is the final step in the process which occurs in Venus' month. Vesta's flowers, signifying the end of April's function, also connect April and May, as Ovid says (947). That Vesta is chaste does not distance her at all from Venus, since, as we have seen, Ovid affirms Venus' natural chastity throughout. Lacking Varro's account, we can only guess that the connection between Vesta and Venus was reasoned perhaps in the

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following way. Nothing, as Varro says, is born from fire alone, just as nothing is born from a virgin (which is why the Vestals are virgins). But fire also purifies, just as it burned away the human burden of Triptolemus. For Venus Genetrix, fire meeting water marks the moment both of her creation and of her purification. She ends as she begins, a virgin, and is thus both mother and daughter, Ceres and Persephone, Venus and Vesta.

Conclusion The month of April then, is dedicated to Venus, and through Ovid's sophisticated and subtle manipulation of the interrelated, conceptual links provided by Varro's three theologies, the name of the month is appropriated to her, along with most of its festivals. Venus is Vesta, Victory, Ceres, Cybele, and Proserpina; she is Genetrix and Victrix. She is the creation that is the union of fire and water, the semen of Zeus and the seafoam; she is the natural force that created Rome. Arguably, Ovid is presenting a poem on religion to refute the longstanding accusation against poets that they saddle the gods with human immorality; but he is also defending the poet's, the vales', right to use and interpret those supposedly 'immoral' narratives, because they are the signs, along with cult and ritual, through which mankind comes nearest to apprehending the divine world. Examination of the Fasti's other months suggests a similar conceptual unity: January and Beginnings (which, of course, are not the same as engenderings); February and Ends; March and Strife. These obvious associations are supported both by religious philosophy and by the fragments of Varro. May and June are more difficult, but their problems are not insoluble (if Venus is Vesta, Vesta is alsoju.no), though if we remain unreceptive to the multiplicity and fluidity of Roman, religion, insisting that one particular interpretation alone is right, or true, we will be unable to read the religion at all. Above all, though, we must recognize that Ovid's religious thought is much more complex than has been assumed, much richer and more varied. There is no received or established or canonical version; there are only signs and interpretations. His

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right, his ritual duty as votes, is to name the signs for his work, and then to interpret them as they occur. There are many conclusions to be drawn from this; but the notion that the discourse of religion should exclude or replace those readings of the Fasti occasioned by political or literary criteria is most certainly not amongst them. A work of this sort embodies many signs, many interpretations, and those of religion are never exclusive.

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5

Ovid and the Stellar Calendar GERALDINE HERBERT-BROWN

In the first pentameter of the Fasti, Ovid signals his intention to incorporate a stellar calendar as a central motif of the poem in parallel with a temporal, earthly calendar: Tempera cum causis Latlum digests per annum lapsaque sub terras ortacjue signa eanam. The order of the calendar throughout the Latin year, its causes, and the starry signs that set beneath the earth and rise again, of these I'll sing,1

Ovid fulfils his promise by punctuating the earthly entries with stellar notices and tales of catasterisms throughout the six books. In the first book he also incorporates a dazzling encomium to the 'felices animae' who founded the stellar calendar (1. 295-310), The Fasti's celestial theme is unusual, however, as the stars were not a part of the traditional Roman calendar, nor was star-gazing a part of traditional Roman religious practice.2 Why Ovid chose to incorporate a stellar calendar into the Fasti cannot be understood until the identity of his anonymous stellar founders is first established. The encomium, however, is arguably the most mysterious passage in the entire poem. Scholars working on the problem have usually proceeded by seeking out intertextual allusions to Ovid's poetic predecessors and read the encomium through them. This methodology has led to a general consensus that the 'felices animae' are apolitical astronomers or philosophers, remote from the Roman world, or are even an allegory for the literary predecessors 1 This chapter was adumbrated in Herbert-Brown (1997). Thanks go to Elaine Fanlhani and Edwin Judge for suggesting improvements, Text and translation of the FastinK Eraser's (1931), with slight adaptations, 'l Riipke (ISI94) 129,

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with whom Ovid engages.3 Another recent view is that Ovid's 'felices animae' include Numa, Caesar, and Germanicus.4 My argument with this approach is that the conclusions drawn from it leave more mystery than they solve. The character peculiarities of the stellar founders are still not accounted for; neither is their connection with the stellar calendar itself, nor is it with the poet's programmatic statement that the Fasti was a gift, first to Augustus (2, 15-18), then to Germanicus (1. 8-26). These are the issues to be addressed in this chapter. It is hoped that my conclusion will clear the mystery and provide a fresh insight into the stellar calendar in the Fasti. I

Ovid begins the passage by posing a question: Quis velal el stellas, ut quaeque oriturcjue caditque, dicere? promissi pars fuit ista mei. Who forbids me from also telling of the stars, their risings, and their settings? That was part of my promise.

The 'promissum' harks back to the declared stellar motif of the poem 295 lines earlier, which had acknowledged his debt to Aratus (I. 1-2).'" But now, his first resumption of that motif separates him from his astronomical predecessor by introducing those who founded the celestial calendar (1. 297-8):6 felices animae, quibus hacc cognoscere primis inqu.e domus su.peras scandere cura fuit! Ah happy souls, who first took thought to know these things, and scale the heavenly mansions!

Ovid then introduces the theme of moral, intellectual, and spiritual segregation between these first star-gazers and ordinary 3 Frazer (1929) ii. 135-6; Sajitini (1975) J-26; Martin (1985) 261-74; Newlands (1995) 27-50; Bardbiesi (1997) 177-80. '' Gee (2000) 61, 64. 5 Phum. 17. ** Aratus5 stellar poem begins with an encomium to Zeus as creator of the stars and their benevolent influence upon the earth.

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humans (299-300): credibile est Illos pariter vitiiscjue locisque altius humanis exeruisse caput. Well may we believe they lifted up their heads alike above the frailties and the homes of men,

and he proceeds to claim for them a sacred and ascetic nature: their sublime hearts ('sublimia pectora*) were unbroken by lust and drunkenness ('Venus et vinum'), by preoccupations with forensic duty and military toil ('officiumque fori, militiaeque labor'), and were impervious to the temptations of petty ambition, glitzy glory, and craving for great wealth (303-4): nee levis ambitio perfusaque gloria fuco magnarumque fames sollicitavit opum.

It was these incorruptible characters, Ovid asserts, who brought the distant stars close to the eyes of the mind, and who subjected heaven itself to their intellect (305-6): admovere oculis distantia sidera mentis aetheraque ingenio supposuere suo.

Turning from the past to the present, he claims that it is through that intellect that one seeks the sky, not by physical exploits such as the ineffectual attack upon the gods by the giants (307-8): sic petitur caelum: non ut ferat Ossan Olympus, surnrnaque Peliacus sidera tangat apex.

Under these guides, he says, we will map out the sky and assign the wandering signs their days (309-10): nos quoque sub ducibus caelum metabimur illis ponemusque suos ad vaga signa dies.

Ovid's introduction to the first star-gazers contains certain features which connect it to the rest of the poem, and others which seem quite at odds with it. First, the points of contact. The second line of the encomium harks back to the first pentameter of the entire poem, as we have seen. Then the final couplet, claiming that the 'felices animae' would be the 'duces' under whose leadership Ovid would chart the heavens and

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place the days according to the Vaga signa',7 is followed immediately with the first two of the poem's many zodiacal notices, the sign of Cancer on 3 January, and the Lyre on the 5th (1.311-16). And the wandering nature of the stars introduced in the encomium is implied in the calendar itself to reflect the constantly changing appearance of the heavens: those who look for Cancer do so in vain, as it has in fact disappeared (1. 313-14). It re-emerges in June, after the departure of Gemini (6. 727). The Lyre, rising on 5 January (1. 315-16), disappears on the 23rd (1, 653) and is sought in vain on 2 February (2. 76) (and so forth). This gives the impression that the celestial risings and settings are measuring time and fixing the dates of the earthly festivals and events. The connection between the encomium and the opening pentameter of the poem and subsequent star notices is clear, and confirms Ovid's statement that his 'felices animae' were the founders of the heavenly calendar which is woven into the overall fabric of the Fasti, Anomalous features about the passage in its context, however, cannot be ignored. First, the religious, philosophical, and revelatory vocabulary, and the hymnic, didactic tone borrowed from Lucretius,8 make the encomium a stark contrast to Ovid's lightweight introductions to Romulus andJulius Caesar, founder and reformer respectively of Rome's earthly calendar. The introduction to Romulus at 1. 27-8 ('tempora... in anno') contains verbal echoes which link him to the first hexameter and raison d'etre of the poem itself, yet Ovid's first address to Romulus exposes the founder as an unsophisticated rustic: in drawing up a ten-month calendar for the first Romans (I. 29-30): scilicet arum nrngis quam sidera, Rornule, noras, euraque finitimos vincere maior erat To be sure Romulus, you were better versed in swords than stars, and to conquer your neighbours was your main concern. ' Internal evidence from the Fasti suggests that 'vaga signa' mean the signs of the zodiac and the 36 constellations iu the decans list (Sirius, Orion, etc.): see lester (11)87) 20, This, however, is not correct. Ovid's omission of the real Vaga signa*, or planets, is discussed in Section IV. 8 For thematic and verbal echoes of Lucretius (URN 1. (i6-7, 79), Virgil (Gearg. 2. 490-540), and Ovid's Metamorphoses (15. 63-4), see Newlands {1995) 34-5 and Gee (2000) 47-58.

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Ovid offers homespun excuses to Caesar for the founder's blunder in giving this defective calendar to the 'rudibus populis' (31 -8). It was (the more pious) Nunia who added the two extra months belonging to Janus and the ancestral shades (1. 43-4).9 The theme of rustic ignorance in Romulus and the first Romans is taken up again and expanded in the proem to the month of Mars, the month the eponymous hero had made the first of his calendar (3. 71-134). The reason given for his ten-month year was his unfamiliarity with the Greek art of star-gazing (3. 101-4): nondum tradiderat victas victoribus artes Graecia, facundum sed male forte genus. cjui bene pugnabat, Romanam noverat artem: mittere qui poterat pila, disertus era! Conquered Greece had not yet transmitted her arts to the victors; her people were eloquent but hardly brave. He who knew how to fight, knew Roman art. He who could throw spears, was eloquent.

The early Romans had not noticed the Hyades, Pleiades, the two Bears, and other signs of the zodiac (3. 105-8). The stars ran free and unobserved throughout the year (3. 111-12). The setting signs ('labentia signa') of heaven, says Ovid, harking back to the first pentameter of the poem, were beyond their reach (3. 113). Thus through their ignorance and lack of science they reckoned inaccurate lustres, each of which was short by ten months (3. 119-20). This lack of knowledge of the stars caused Romulus to construct a. calendar two months short of a year. Even despite Numa's addition of the extra two months, the calendar continued in error down toJulius Caesar's reform (3. 152-6). Caesar, too, is cut down to size, even if not to the same degree as Romulus. In his introduction to the author of the Julian calendar, Ovid injects some humour by saying that the god and founder of a mighty dynasty did not consider the calendar too small for his attention because heaven had been promised him, and he wanted to know what it was like beforehand; he would not enter as a stranger-god unknown " Nmna was usually credited with having established the year of 12 months. For sources, see F'razer {1S)29) ii, 35-6.

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palaces (3. 158-60). A description of Caesar's reform is then dispensed with in a mere six lines, although the dictator's intimate knowledge of astronomy is nevertheless imparted (3. 161-6).10 It is noteworthy that Ovid does not make more of that knowledge, especially when it was Romulus' ignorance of astronomy which he had already made so much of. And he does not mention the epochal significance of Caesar's reform. The terseness of this lone description is a surprising contrast with the discursiveness of the two devoted to the defective calendar of Romulus, It is even more surprising, in view of the fact that it was the Julian calendar upon which Ovid's Fasti itself is based." Both Romulus and Caesar then, are denied the scientific and religious authority accorded the founders of the celestial calendar, and fare badly in comparison to them. Caesar's knowledge of astronomy, essential to his caJendrical reform, brings us to another anomaly. In the encomium, Ovid introduces and then sustains the divide between those who are privy to knowledge of the heavens, and those who are not. Line 309 makes it clear that he is among those who are not. The inclusion of forensic oratory, military service, and the quest for 'gloria' on his list of essential renunciations of the star-gazer,12 furthermore, categorically denies to the Roman senator any aspiration to this hallowed vocation as well, and thus a true knowledge of the heavens. Ovid's exclusion of the Roman senator from that knowledge is striking when historical precedents had shown that astronomy/astrology could be pursued by a respectable Roman, and given practical application while he was still engaged in public life. Famous senatorial star-gazers before Caesar included G. Sulpicius Gallus (cos, 166 uc],13 P. Nigidius Figulus (praetor 58 tic),14 and Marcus Terentius Varro.1-' Caesar's 10 See also Dio 43. 26. 1-3; Appian, BC 2. 21. 154; Pliny, NH 18. 57. 2lOt; Macrob. Sal. !. 14, 2, 11 Ovid's treatment of Julius Caesar is discussed in Herbert-Brown 1191)4) ch. 3. '" The virtue in renouncing public life is reminiscent of Virgil, Georg, 2. 458-74, and Lucretius, DRN, proem tobk. 2. See Hardie (1986) 34; Newlands (1995) 34. 13 Cic. DeSenect. 49; DeRePub. I, 23-4; Pliny, NH'L 53, 83. 14 Rawson (1985) 94, 309-12. L ' Despite Varro's erudition in matters astronomical, however, he had to rely on the technical skill of others, such as Tarutius Firrnanus for its practical application. See Rawson (W85) 244-5; Cic, DeDin 2. 47, >M,

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interest was apparently not restricted to the reform of the Roman calendar either. Pliny repeatedly cites his De Astris, a treatise which predicted the seasons, weather patterns, and even the fate of certain crops, as decreed by the stellar calendar."> These famous senatorial star-gazers, however, are clearly not the model for Ovid's 'felices animae'. Even the founder of the Julian calendar itself, who himself had been raised to heaven by Augustus (Fasti 2. 144), is no 'felix anima'.17 The study of the stars then, is not, in itself, enough to make one privy to knowledge of the heavens, according to Ovid. Chastity and sobriety, and total renunciation of senatorial duty to the res publics, are just as important. Such character eligibility thus excluded every Roman senator as a candidate for the role. And Ovid does not stop there. He asserts that the way to the stars is to be sought through the 'ingenium' of the 'felices animae', not by physical means such as the giants' attack upon the gods (I. 307-8).m This claim, imitating Lucretius* advocacy of an intellectual approach to the heavens (DRN1. 79), implies a challenge to the Hellenistic mode of deification, or belief that the way to astral immortality for the individual was by performing heroic or beneficial exploits during life on earth, as Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, and Liber had done. This concept, applied to Romans such as Scipio Africanus, Romulus, and Caesar Augustus, was present in the works of Ennius, Cicero, and Virgil.19 Virgil even had Anchises and Aeneas reject the study of the stars and fate (among other arts) as an unworthy activity for Roman conquerors anticipating apotheosis (Aen, 6. 847-53; 12. 435 £}. His Apollo addresses the victorious lulus after a bloody battle (Aen. 9. 641 -2): 'macte nova virtutc, puer: sic itur ad astra, dis genite et geniture deos' ('Blessed be your new virtue, child. That's the way to the stars, son of gods and sire of gods to be'). Ovid's 'sic petitur caelum' seems to mimic this, which makes his contrary claim that the i« JV/f 18. 214. See Rawson (1985) 112, 165; Cramer (1954) 76. 17

18

Pact Gee (2000) 61,64,

The Titans' attack on the gods was as old as Homer (CM 11. 315-16), See Virgil, Geurg. I. 281-2; Horace, Odes L 3. 38-40; 3, 4. 42-8, '" Ennius, Epigram- 1-2, 3-4, Cic. De Re Put. 6. 13, Hi Virgil, Gmrg, 1. 32-5; 4, 5.59-66, See Bosworth (1998) 5 IT.

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way to the stars is only to be achieved through the mediation of his astronomical "duces' all the more striking. The Virgilian ideal is turned on its head: whereas Virgil's heroes had to abstain from a study of the stars, Ovid's must abstain from res Romanaeas a condition of their power of accessing the heavens, Yet another anomalous feature about the encomium is that Ovid's subsequent treatment of the heavenly calendar does not sustain the hymnic tone in which he had introduced its founders. Many of the constellation notices are presented in the form of mere two-line interjections. Others add briefly the influence of the stars' effects on weather patterns (e.g. 1. 315-16).2n Others again are accompanied by an elaborate aetiology of how a person, animal, or object was transformed into a star.21 Many of these catasterisms contain bawdy tales of divine seduction and betrayal which were conventional themes of erotic elegy, Greek and Roman comedy, and the visual arts.22 Such themes comply both with Ovid's treatment of tales pertaining to the earthly calendar, and with the elegiac nature of the poem. While it is made clear that the stars are divinities (another point of contact with the encomium: even Romulus' ignorant tribe attributed deity to the stars (3. 111-12), and Romulus himself Venit in astra' (3.186)), that does not safeguard them from Ovid's irreverence. Although clear links are forged between his encomium and his stellar calendar, his treatment of the stars is not consonant with the intellectual themes and lofty tones in the encomium, nor are his stellar observations those of an astronomer or philosopher. It is Ovid's way to the stars then, not the stars themselves—or any concept of heaven implicit there—that differs so markedly from that present in Ennius, Cicero, and Virgil. Ovid is not denying an understanding of the stars to ordinary mortals, however (809-10). He insists rather that it must be achieved through the mediation of those whose incorruptibility and exclusive devotion to scanning the skies had marked them out as uniquely worthy to be the interpreters of 20 Ovid, like Pliny after him, may have been following' Caesar's DeAstris (see n. 16). The Fasti Venmini contain four references to astronomical signs and the Fasti Antiatts MinKlmmm Damns Attgustae, one. See Degrassi (ISHiS) 201-12, 323-4, 21 e.g. Callisto and the Bear (2, 153-92); Europe and the Bull (5. 603-18); Ariadne and the Crown (3. 460-516), 'l~ Fantham (IHS'3) and Wiseman in this volume,

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the heavenly signs for the benefit of mankind. But who are these people? Did they exist in Ovid's world, or were they figments of his imagination? II

Little more can be ascertained for the moment from Ovid's poem. Yet assistance in this regard presents itself in the form of the Astronomies by the Stoic poet Manilius, dedicated first to Augustus, then to Tiberius, composed between AD 9 and 16, and contemporary with the revised Book 1 of the Fasti dedicated to Germanicus.23 Nothing is known about Manilius, although it has been posited that he was a descendant of the slave Manilius Antiochus, who is thought to have come to Italy during the Mithridatie Wars, whom Pliny describes as 'conditorem astrologiae' at Rome (NH35- 199). Because the art. ran in families (Diod 2. 29. 4), it has been suggested that Ovid's contemporary was his grandson. Whether Manilius himself was a practising astrologer or not, he adopts the persona of one, and, in contrast to Ovid who needs to be led, claims to lead his reader to the stars,24 In ancient writings, the terms astronomia and astrologia were often interchangeable and barely distinguished from each other.2"1 It is therefore significant that late in the Augustan age a distinction between the two was being drawn by Manilius. Manilius distinguishes astrology from astronomy to the detriment of the latter. He claims that knowledge of the constellations in the boundless skies and of the contrary motions of the planets (astronomy) is not enough: a more thorough knowledge of heaven is knowing how it controls the destiny of all living things through its signs (astrology) (Astron, I. 15-18).26 23

2 For Manillas' dates, see Goold (1,977) p. xii, "< Astron. 1, 13-15, 118-20. ** For the varied tiiid generally indiscriminate use of the terms (istronowi® and a$lwhgia in the ancient sources, see Cramer (1.954) 3; Tester (1987) 19; Barton (1994) 5. The distinction was furthermore blurred (or confused) between the arts of astrology, geometry, and philosophy. The practitioners of astrology as a science of divination were called mathematici or Chaldaei, who could also be called priests or philosophers. Lucretius (DRN 5. 727-8), and Cicero (De Div. 2. 88-9), distinguish Chaldarf from astronomers. z6 The translations of Mauilius 1 use axe taken or adapted from Goold (1977).

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He claims to be the first to sing of astrology, and draws a distinction between himself and his poetic predecessors (including Aratus) who told of the stars (2. 25-59). It is astrology which is announced as the principal theme of his work (1. 2). At the time the Fasti and the Astnnomica were being composed, astrology in the sense that Manilius was using it was being taken very seriously by Augustus and Tiberius (see below). Yet astrology in that same sense is absent from the Fasti Before addressing this anomaly, let us look at the many themes in the Astronomica which can be found to correspond directly to those in the Fasti Manilius eulogizes the first astrologers, their royal and priestly origins, their piety and mystical powers. First they were kings (he says), whose minds reached out to heaven, then priests, whose piety secured them special favour with the gods, Divine presence kindled their chaste minds ('castam mentem'), and they, as its servants, had the secrets of heaven disclosed to them. These were the men who founded the noble art and were the first to see how fate hangs on the wandering stars ('hi tantum movere decus primique per artem sideribus videre vagis pendentia fata' 1. 40-52), Before the first astrologers, says Manilius, man lived in ignorance and did not know how to calculate time: he did not know why days varied in duration, why the period of darkness fluctuated, nor why the lengths of shadows differed as the sun retreated or drew nearer (1. 66-72). But ingenuity taught him, over the ages, the arts of husbandry, mining, seafaring, war and peace, divination, and hamspicy, even to control nature. But only when man's reason scaled the skies ('caehim ascendit ratio') did he grasp the innermost secrets of the world by its understanding of their causes, and behold all that anywhere exists (1. 96-9). It freed men's minds from wondering at portents ('rniracula rerum') and the mysteries of nature and weather patterns. The journey of man's reason, upwards beyond the atmosphere released him from earthly matters and allowed him to contemplate the heaven in all its vastness, to discover that all things moved to the will and disposition of heaven, as the constellations by their varied array assign different destinies (1. 73-112).

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In the proem to book 2 (105-27), Manillas further emphasizes the divine inspiration of (the first) astrologers, and claims the superiority of their art over that of others (109-10). How could man, he asks, know heaven except by heaven's own gift, or discover god if he had not in himself something of the divine?... How could he hold within his narrow mind that vast deep if nature had not given him holy eyes ('sanctos oculos'), a kindred intelligence, and turned it to herself? Surely from heaven must come the call to heaven, to a sacred commerce with nature. In the proem to book 4 (1-121), Manilius expounds the futility of desiring a long life, wealth, and luxury when all men's fortunes are predestined from birth by the stars. At 390-407 he underlines the superiority of astrology over all worldly pursuits. The quest of astrology is god, he says ('quod quaeris, deus est'). It is to seek to scale the skies ('conaris scandere caelum'), to gain knowledge of fate (390-1). It is to pass beyond understanding and to make oneself master of die universe. The toil involved matches the reward to be won, unlike that of fortune hunters, war-mongers, and gluttons, who are willing to pay such a high price for perishable goods (404). What then shall we give for heaven? M'an must expend his very self before god can dwell in him ('impendendus homo est, deus esse ut possit in ipso' 407). At the conclusion to book 4, Manilius says: The mind of man has the power to leave its proper abode and penetrate to the innermost treasures of the sky (877-8); man alone stands with the citadel of his head raised high and, triumphantly directing to the stars his star-like eyes ('sidereos oculos'), looks ever more closely at Olympus and inquires into the nature of Jove himself; nor does he rest content with the outward appearance of the gods (astronomy), but probes into heaven's depths (astrology) and, in his quest of a being akin to his own, seeks himself among the stars (905—10). Manilius requests for astrology a faith as great as that accorded the arts of divination and haruspicy (911-14). He asserts that god reveals himself in the revolutions of the heavens, that he can be truly known, that he can teach his nature to those who have eyes to see, and can compel them to mark his laws (915-19). The universe summons our minds to the stars (920), Be not slow to credit man with vision of the divine, he concludes, for man himself is now

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creating gods and raising godhead to the stars, and beneath the dominion of Augustus will heaven grow mightier yet (933-5). Now it is unlikely that Ovid and ManiHus saw each other's work, given that the Astronomica was begun after Ovid and the unfinished Fasti went to Tomis,27 Although each poem is essentially different in genre, intention, and scope, and although Ovid does not share Manilius' proselytizing zeal for Stoic cosmology, it is apparent that the two poems exhibit striking similarities in their encomia to the first star-gazers: (1) both invoke facets of Pythagorean and Epicurean philosophy and imitate the didactic tone and language of Lucretius in their depiction of the star-gazer who reaches the sky through metaphysical contemplation;28 (2) both insist that the favour of the gods is necessary to study the stars; (3) both indicate the sacerdotal, role of the first star-gazers by invoking their selfless dedication, moral superiority, and renunciation of worldly pursuits as a prerequisite for heavenly knowledge;29 (4) both use antiquity as authority for their art;30 (5) both insist that it is through the agency of the star-gazer that mankind has access to knowledge of the stars. And outside their encomia, Manilius and Ovid share other important points of similarity: (I) both assert that before the first star-gazers, man lived a primitive existence and did not know how to calculate time; (2) both identify the zodiacal constellations and the mythical catasterisms pertaining to them;31 (3) both see the risings and settings in the stellar -'* Ovid omits the name of Manilius in his catalogue of poetic contemporaries (Pout. 4, Mi), although he says be did not include all names or mention younge pods whose work was as yet unpublished (37-!)}, 28 See Ovid, Mti. 15. 60-72; Lucretius, DRN i. 65-79; 5. 110-49. ~J Newlands (1995) 34 shows the similarity between Ovid's star-gazers and Virgil's ideal fanner/natural philosopher, who rejects ambition, wealth, vanity, war, and public life (Georg, 2. 490-512), Manilius, too, rejects such earthly distractions for the astrologer (4, 400-7), Virgil's farmer is entirely earth-bound, however, lacking the lofty intellectual and mystic elements of the heaven-bound astrologers. Manilius actually includes the prayers of the fanner amongst his list of futile activities in searching for Ihu will of heaven. J " Tester (1987) 22, says it was common for astrological writers to claim peat antiquity for their art. 31 e.g. Taurus and Europa: Astron. 'i, 487-91, 4, 681-5; Fasti 5. 605-17; Aquarius (Ganymede): Astmn. 5. 486-90; Fasti 2, 145-8; Aries: Astnm. *. 514-17, 744-8; Fasti 3, 851-76 (etc,).

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calendar as being the cause of seasonal changes and weatherpatterns;32 (4) although both insist that the star-gazers reach the sky through reason, not metaphorically through physical exploits, they also endorse the concept of catasterism as a reward for human achievement;33 (5) both assert that the stars are gods, and that humans create gods;:M (6) both, make glaring errors in their own calculations of celestial time; (7) both eschew the planets as a stellar category in their depiction of the skies. Ill

The affinities between Manilius' astrologers and Ovid's 'felices animae', and the conceptual similarities between the two poems overall, are too numerous to ignore. It is those similarities, however, which also highlight the essential difference between the two: that sidereal fatalism is absent from the Fasti, That absence is remarkable if we consider the significance accorded astrology by Augustus, the dedicatee of the poern, from the beginning of his career. The 19-year-old Octavian had identified a comet, sighted, at Caesar's funerary games, as Caesar's soul on its way to heaven. Pliny, Suetonius, and Dio note that it was not the Roman elite who were convinced of Caesar's catasterism, but the majority, the common people.33 This was, as Cramer has noted,3'1 the first time in Roman history that there was a widespread mood which saw in a cornet the tangible proof of a catasterism, the elevation of a mortal to become a star among stars. Octavian from the outset clearly understood the potency of belief in religious astrology amongst the populace. His subsequent career demonstrates that he increasingly exploited it. :w

e.g. Astntn. I, 99-102; 2, 87-109; Fasti I. 315-16; 2. 149-52. *! Manilius (1. 758-99} provides a catalogue of those who ascended to the Milky Way after death. But a special area, higher than the Milky Way, was reserved for the gods. At 1, 800-4 he claims that Augustus will one day ascend to the assembly of the gods to join Romulus and Julius Caesar, gods because they had equalled gods in jiirlus. Ovid has Romulus (Fnsti'2. 496} and Julius Caesar (3. 156—60) deified, also, and implies Augustus will he one day (2. 144). 34 Astnn.4. 933-5; Fasti'i. 143-4. 35 i!li Pliuy, NH'i. 93-4; Suet, M, 88; Dio 45. 7. 1. Cramer (W54) 78,

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Two astrological prophecies allegedly predicted supreme power for Octavian himself, at his birth in 63 BC, and in 44 EC.37 Suetonius says that Octavian. henceforth believed so much in his destiny that he published his horoscope and struck a silver coin stamped with the constellation of Capricorn, his natal sign.38 It is not known when these predictions were first circulated. And Suetonius' chronology is somewhat misleading.39 What is important is the currency of the stories (which Suetonius said everyone believed), which highlighted Augustus' reliance on astrology, reinforced its credibility, and gave it a role in Roman imperial politics.4" Octavian's interest in Capricorn is tentatively dated to 41/40 BC, eve though the zodiacal sign made an official public appearance on coinage only after Actium, But it was with this coinage that Augustus allusively gave official sanction to the art.41 Augustus' interest in the stars received architectural expression in the Pantheon, built by Agrippa, in the Campus Martius between 27 and 25 BC, and consisting of a gigantic circula chamber covered with a cupola which Dio says resembled the vault of the sky, A statue of Julius Caesar stood within.42 It also found grandiose embodiment in the Horologium, dedicated to the Sun in 9 BC (ILS 91). This was an immense monument which, had an obelisk as the gnomon, and on the pavement around it were inscribed in Greek the mythical names of the four winds, the seasons, and the signs of the zodiac. Its astrological function was to mark the progress of the sun through the zodiac. Pliny (NH36. 72) says that the

37

Suet Aug. 94. 5; Dio 45. !. 3-4. * Suet Aug. 94, 12, Augustas* association with Capricorn is analysed by Barton (1995). * Dio 56, 25. 5 assigns the publication of Augustus* horoscope to AD 11. See below, 4(> Hopkins (1978) 198: 'Political power and legitimacy rest... in the perceptions and beliefs of men. The stories told about emperors were part of the mystification which elevated emperors and the political sphere above everyday life. Stories circulated. They were the currency of the political system, just as coins were the currency of the fiscal system. Their truth or untruth is only a secondary problem ...'. •« Barton (1995) 46, 48-51. 42 Dio (53. 27. 2-3) only knew the Hadrianic restoration of the Pantheon, hut as Hadrian himself was also a devotee of astrology, it was probably based on the original. 3

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project was devised by the astrologer ('mathematicus'), Novius Facundus.43 Augustus' astral aspirations and the popularity of astrology received endorsement in literature. Virgil (Eel. 9, 46-9) supports Octavian's claim that Caesar had become a star. Vitruvius' De Architecture dedicated to Octavian, endorses the notion that Caesar was given an abode in heaven by the 'concilium caelestium'.44 In the ninth book, Vitruvius gives Chaldaeans his unqualified sanction (9. 6. 2): 'For the rest, as to "astrologia", the effects produced by the 12 signs on the human course of life, the five planets, the sun and moon, we must give way to the calculations of the Chaldaeans, because the science of astrology ("ratio genethlialogiae") is their field so that they can explain the past and the future from astronomical calculations ("ratiocinationibus astrorum"). Those who have sprung from the Chaldaean nation have handed on their discoveries about matters in which they have proved themselves of" great skill and subtlety.'45 Horace, too, advertised the officially proclaimed catasterism ofjulius Caesar in his ode dedicated to Augustus.46 In Ode 2. 17, written in 26 BC when the Pantheon was being constructed, he endorses the power of astrology by asserting that he and Maecenas had the same dominant planet in their respective horoscopes, and that their fate was therefore linked. The fact that Maecenas' death in 8 BC was soon followed by Horace' own, made Horace's assertion that it was neither the will of the gods nor his own that he should die before Maecenas (2-4) indeed seem 'a coincidence comforting alike to astrologers and to Romantic critics'.47 In Ode 3, 25 he acknowledges his 43 There is ongoing debate about the reconstruction of the Horologium: see Buchner (1982); Wallace-Hadrffl (1985) 246-7; Schiitz (1990) 453-5; Barton (1995) 44-7, Budiner's reconstruction is reproduced in Favro (1996) 263. 44 I. pref. 2, For the dedication lo Octavian, see I. pref. 3, *'"'Trans. Granger (Loeh, 1934). Cramer (1954) 84, summarizes the work of Vitruvius and notes that his approach is animated by an intensity of feeling reminiscent of Lucretius and anticipating Manillas. For the mistakes and idiosyncrasies inherent in the work of Vitruvius, see Rawson (1985) 165. •|(i Odes 1. 12. 47-8 dated before the death of Marcellus in 23 r,c. * Nisbet and Hubbard (1970) p, xxxviii, Cramer (1954) $7; 'Ever after readers of Horace's ode of 26 lie must inevitably have been impressed with the accuracy of his astrological interpretation of the horoscopes of both men.'

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own role in setting amongst the stars the immortal glory of Caesar. Propertius, in the second part of his first elegy to book 4 (71 if.), has the 'vates' Horos divert him from singing about 'fata' because he does not have the sanction of the gods. To justify his intervention, Horos tells him that it is he who has the weight of authority in such matters, and proceeds to provide both his own and his science's credentials to remove any doubt about his qualifications. He claims an ancient and impeccable pedigree, invokes the gods as witness that he has not disgraced his kin, and swears the truth of his writings (79-80). Horos distances himself from the charlatans who used astrology to gain filthy lucre (81-6), and affords proof by example of the validity of his own prophetic powers (89-102). He rejects the more traditional means of divination in favour of astrology (103-8), and cites Calchas as a diviner of the past who had not used astrology, with disastrous consequences for Greece (109-18). Propertius then turns Horos' astrological credentials and credibility to his own poetic advantage by invoking his authority as his own justification for renouncing a political career and epic themes in, favour of a career as love elegist. Propertius' invocation of a non-Roman astrologer was no doubt done with an eye for the contemporary popularity of this foreign art.48 The first part of the elegy, however (1-70), endorses the traditional Roman gods and methods of divination, as do his subsequent elegies. Like Horace,49 Propertius seems to be reflecting contemporary eclecticism in religion without privileging any one system over another. Astrological themes in coinage, literature, and architecture point to the extent of contemporary preoccupation, with the subject. Then AD 8 was to prove perhaps the most important year to date in the history of astrology at Rome. That year the initial errors of intercalation in the Julian calendar made by the pontifices after the death of Caesar were finally phased out,4" and it began to function without error for the first time. Greater precision in the dates of the rising and setting of the stars would 4X

For Propertius and astrology, see Cramer (1954) 88-9, 91. At Ode I. 17. 27-32 Horace attributes his own good fortune of a lucky escape no to the planet Jupiter but to the god Faunus. •'"" Suet, lul, 40, Aug, 31. 2, 49

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serve to provide new impetus for astrologers by enabling them to make more accurate predictions based on the calculations of regular recurrences which necessitated a strict chronology. Just three years later, in AD 11, Augustus published his horoscope in an edict.51 As Barton says, 'with the publication of his horoscope there could be no more public fashion of proclaiming astrology's importance as part of his image-making, no more official endorsement of legitimating Ms power by encouraging the idea that no one could become ruler without the backing of the stars. It was a profoundly monarchical action.'52 It was possibly in AD 11 that Maniiius began his astrological poern, dedicated to Augustus.53 Yet the use of astrology by one who had, since 28 BC, promoted himself as the champion and restorer of Italian religion/'4 was not without its difficulties. Traditionally, astrology was a foreign, eastern art. Star-gazing was never included in Roman divination,5-' which was, like the religion, firmly earthbound. Diviners were drawn from, and strictly controlled by, the Senate.58 Upon its introduction into Rome in the late third or early second century BC, astrology was subjected to ridicule and sceptical onslaughts by the intellectual elite, and was linked with the unsavoury lower strata of society.57 In 139 BC •''" Dio 56. 25. 5. Potter (1994) 147 believes Augustus published his horoscope as early as 27 BC, In my view this would have been too radical a move at a time when Augustus was adopting the role of Restorer of the traditional religion of Rome. 52 Barton (1994) 40-). 5:4 Maniltus (1, 899, 922-6), writing after the defeat of Varus, claimed that Discord was now eternally leashed in prison, which suggests he was anticipating Tiberius' triumph in AO 12, 54 Livy 4. 20. 7; Ovid, Pastil. 63; Aug. RC, 19. 2, 20. 4; Suet. Aug. 30. 2. •'"Tester (1987) 49. ;1|> These diviners were more concerned with averting danger than, with prophecy, and with the State rather than the individual. The augures read omens from birds, and the guindeciniuiri lacrisfaciundis interpreted pndigia by consulting the libri nbyllini, Members of both colleges were drawn from the Senate (Augustus was both augur and tjuinflgcinwir, Aug. RG \. 7). The Etniscan hiiruspiMS, concerned with extispicy, wei'e apparently not drawn from the Senate, but tlie Senate retained control: it deeided when they were to be consulted, whether their readings were to be heeded or not, and if so, what action should be taken (although by the late Republic, men such as Gracchus, Sulla, and Caesar were acquiring their personal kanafiicesj. See North (1990) 49-71; Potter (1994) 150-8. 37 See Ennuis (Scam. 242 IT,); Cato (Agr. 5, 4). The Academic philosopher, Carneades of Gyrene (214—129 BC), and the Stoics Panaethis (185-109 BC) arid Scylax of Halicarnassus (ap, Cic. De Din 2, 9-10, 88—90, 97), claimed that astrologers were

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Chaldaean astrologers were expelled from Rome. The later influence of Posidonius (135-50 BC), however, did much to accord respectability to astrology, and had a decisive impact upon its acceptance amongst the elite by allying it with Stoic philosophy and Pythagorean mysticism.51* Yet anti-astrological sentiment still found powerful voices. The Epicurean Lucretius (c.97-55 BC), opposed those who claimed to read the will of the gods in the stars. 'Do not imagine under the spell of religio*, he says, 'that the earth, sun and sky, sea, stars and moon are endowed with a divine body and are immortal, and think that anyone who challenges that notion with reason is like the impious Giants who dared to attack the gods; that like the Giants, they will suffer eternal punishment for it. Mind cannot be separate from the body and cannot arise alone without a body, nor be distant from sinews and blood,... we must deny that it can abide... in the sun's fire or in the lofty regions of air. For the nature of the gods... is hardly to be seen by the mind's intelligence.'*9 And Cicero, far from being influenced by his Stoic magister Posidonius (De Fato 3, 5} and his Pythagorean astrologer friend, Nigidius,60 reproduced the philosophical arguments of others against astrology and heaped ridicule upon those which defended Chaldaean prophecies based on natal influences. He declared Tarutius' attempt to cast the horoscope of Romulus and Rome itself evidence of the power of delusion {De Div. 2. 87—97). He also cited examples of mistaken astrological predictions given to prominent Romans (DeDiv. 2.47,99). Even at the end of the first book of OH Divination, in which Quintus provides arguments in favour of divination, Cicero had his brother include astrologers amongst the quacks associated with 'superstitio' whom he excluded from genuine diviners. Astrologers, then, lose out twice in Cicero's arguments for and against divination.

exploiting gullible Romans with a fraudulent craft. For arguments for and against astrology in Cameades, ses Bouche~Lecl€t'cc| (1H99) 570 ff. ;>fi Augustine (CD!>. 2). Octavius (cos. 88 BC) and Sulla were believers (Pint. Mm. 42, 4, Sulla 5. 5-6, 37. I). *9 DRN5. 110-49. Trans. Rouse (Loeb, 1982), 60 Hut. Cie. 20. 1-2, 27; Cic. AdFam. 4. 13.

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Diatribes against astrology seem to peter out with Augustus' ascendancy. Horace's Ode 1. 11, which warns against 'consulting Chaldaean calculations', may have been written around the time of the expulsion of astrologers in 33 BC (see below), so does not necessarily temper his apparent service to astrology in his later poetry. But cynicism toward astrology is unequivocally exhibited by the rhetor Arellius Fuscus, one of Ovid's own teachers of oratory.01 Among Fuscus' classroom topics was Alexander the Great (a conventional rhetorical exeniplum), and his deliberation whether or not to enter Babylon.'2 Referring to the Chaldaeans who warned Alexander against it, Fuscus says:63 "What sort of man is he who claims for himself knowledge of the future? Extraordinary must be the lot of the man who prophesies at the bidding of god... There must be some overt sign of divinity in a man who reveals the orders of god. So it is: for he compels so great a king, ruler of so vast a world, to feel fear. The man who can frighten Alexander must be great, high above the common lot of humanity; he must place his ancestors among the stars, trace his genealogy back to heaven; god must acknowledge him as his prophet.' Then he adds: 'If all these prophecies are true, why do not men of every age apply themselves to this study? Why do we not, from infancy, penetrate to the gods and to nature ("rerum naturam deosque") along the road that is open to us, seeing that the stars lie before us and we can take our places beside divinities? Why do we thus sweat away at useless eloquence, why are our hands calloused by weapons that only bring us danger? Could talents ("ingenia") have a better guarantee for their thriving than knowledge of what is to come?' Fuscus proceeds to illustrate their patent errors in predicting the future by the stars and concludes that the destiny under which we live is uncertain, that destinies devised for individuals are fictions (Suasoriae 4. 3). The vocational similarities between Ovid's astro-mystics who relinquished oratory and warfare and those described (il

Seneca, Contrw. 2. 2. 8-9. ~ The context of the declamation is unknown, as Seneca has reproduced it in his collection of stuisoriae, possibly as an example of deliberative oratory: Winterbottom (1.974) p. xx, f>!i Reported by Seneca, Suasoriae 4, Tram. Wiuterbottooi (Lueb, 1974}, b

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by his former teacher are unmistakable. Fuscus, Ovid, and Manilius seem to have invoked, in their different ways, the same tradition by which mathematid of the Roman empire saw themselves as the successors of the ancient Chaldaean priests, the holy, incorruptible prophets, who stressed the purity of their morals and enumerated all the qualities which brought them near to divine nature: chastity, sobriety, integrity, selfrenunciation which combined metaphysics, astral religion, and scientific pantheism.64 Whether a rhetorical exercise or not, Fuscus' condemnation of Alexander's astrologers could have been an oblique criticism of Augustus' reliance on astrologers, for Augustus was known to have likened himself (however incongruously) to Alexander.65 And the evidence of Fuscus suggests that, despite Augustus' increasing promotion of it, the validity of astrology continued to be challenged, and that not all educated, Romans were prepared to accept it, If an occasional challenge to the validity of astrology was a problem for Augustus, there also remained the danger that an opponent might use it against him. Antony consulted practitioners,"6 and others must have been doing so too during the lead-up to the confrontation between him and Octavian, because Agrippa expelled them from Rome in 33 BC (Dio 4-9. 43. 5). This is the first attempt of Octavian to control the use of prophecy. The second was in 12 BC, when Augustus made a rigorous selection for retention or burning of prophetic writings and of the Sibylline Books; the third was when, with the publication of his horoscope in AD 11, he issued the first empire-wide legal curb of astrological and other divinatory practices. The edict made illegal the holding of any private or secret consultation with seers and the predicting of anyone's death (Dio 56. 25. 5), In so doing, it both validated astrology and prohibited its primary use to others. Now, for the first time, consultation with astrologers and other diviners could be invoked as incriminating evidence."7 It was not long before this happened. In AD 16, astrologers seem to have given Libo Drusus reason to believe he could 84 Curoont (1960) 82-3, *' Plut. Ant. 33. '2.

rfl

K Syme (1939) 305. Suet Aug. 50. Cramer {19.54} 248-51 discusses the edict.

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8

aspire to great things." His trial, suicide, and posthumous conviction proved them wrong, but nevertheless Tiberius saw the need to resort to the expulsion, technique of the past, even while he himself remained an avid user of their skills.69 It was perhaps with contemporary events in mind that Valerius Maximus, now thought to have begun his Facta et Dicta Memorabilia in AD 16,7(l said that the edict of 139 BC was proclaimed because through their lies and fallacious interpretation of the stars the Chaldaeans were fomenting in unstable and shallow minds a fervour from which they themselves profited financially (1. 3. 3).

IV It is against this background of controversy concerning the validity of astrology and the integrity of astrologers, and of the need of the Princeps to achieve a balance between promoting and suppressing them to legitimate his power, that Ovid's encomium and stellar calendar should be set. In his poetic 'militia', first to Augustus, then to Germanicus, how could he incorporate astrologers into Roman politics and religion where they had never existed before, and at the same time do It in such a way that would not encourage anyone but the ruler to use their prophetic powers? Let us see how he does it. First, the tone. Unlike Romulus and Julius Caesar, who had an unassailable claim on the Roman calendar, the founders of a stellar calendar had no name and no claim to anything Roman. The former could be treated with humour and irrevei~en.ee, first because they were inextricable from Roman history, and secondly because they were both inferior (Romulus the more so to symbolize Rome's small beginnings) to their successor, Augustus. The notion of the eastern art of astrology occupying a place at the heart of Roman, government and religion, on the other hand, was a brand new concept (which Ovid conceals by retrojecting '•'* Tacitus, Ann. "2. 27-32, Seneca, Hpisl. 70, 10, Faali amileniini (13 Sept.): Degrassi «li)63) 509; Veil. Pat. 2. 130, 3. li:! Tac. Ann. 6. 20; Suet. 71. 14. 2, 4; 36; 63. J; Dio 57. K. 4, 7-9. 70 Beilemore (1989).

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star-worship to Romulus and his subjects), was thus very vulnerable, and had to be treated with the greatest care.71 The hymnic tone adopted by Ovid for this passage is to disguise its innovatory character and its susceptibility to challenge, and to have this monarchic bulwark endowed with trappings of venerable antiquity and dignitas, and treated with respect, Next, the details. 'Quis vetat et Stellas ut quaeque oriturque caditque dicere?' This question seems to anticipate an objection to the fact that the incorporation of the stars into the Roman calendar was a novelty. The hexameter draws attention to the break in tradition, while the pentameter— and subsequent eulogy—proceed to rationalize that break. This couplet must belong to the original text, if so. If, on the other hand, the question alludes to Augustus' ban on consulting astrologers and diviners generally,7'-1 which would allocate it to the revised text, then it is a clever attention-getting device of adopting a defiant pose which, having achieved its aim, is not sustained. 'Felices animae', and 'primis' encapsulate the astrologers' favour by the gods and the antiquity of their art (297-8), which immediately establishes their hallowedness and authority. Their mediatory role between gods and men is suggested in the subsequent assertion of their station above ordinaiy mortals, which is accented in the list of vices and activities from which they remained aloof. The location of 'Venus et vinum' at the top of Ovid's list of their renunciations, highlighting their sobriety and chastity, serves to repudiate any charge of their foreignness. This is important, as Romans traditionally associated un-Roman religious practice with drunkenness and debauchery.7'1 (At 6. 785-90 a drunkard looks at the stars and misreads them.) Ovid's assertion of the astrologers' incorruptibility both counters their disreputable association with and manipulation of the lower classes found, in the writings of Ennius, Carneades, and Cicero, rebuts any charge of charlatanism and greed, found also in Cicero, and in Horos' apologia to Propertius, and negates 71 Cicero, De Dip. "2, 89, and Diodorus Sicuhis 2. 30. 3 challenged the notion that astrology was a doctrine of vast antiquity. n See also where the 'praeseia lingua' of Carmentis, 'felix vates* (1. 538,585), stops short at Ovid's own time. '"' Livy 39. 8,

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the anti-astrological arguments of his own teacher, Arellius Fuscus. The astrologers' rejection of the senatorial activities of forensic oratory and military service exploits the Epicurean creed which withdrew men from politics, and serves to justify the fact that they, unlike the old diviners of the Republic, were not drawn from or controlled by the Senate. (A senator who could read the stars was far too dangerous to tolerate.) Ovid's claim that heroic deeds were futile in attempting to reach the stars reflects the fact that military heroes such as Cicero's Scipio and Virgil's lulus no longer had claim to apotheosis as they once had in the past. Military glory was open only to the Prineeps, under whose auspices a battle was won. Ovid's insistence that the way to the stars was now only through the intelligence of these priest-like astrologers (turning Lucretius on his head), is because it is these unofficial advisers, elevated not by the cursus Imnorum, but by their usefulness to the Prineeps, who are the new ruler-makers, and god-makers.74 But the end of the encomium is an anticlimax. Despite explicitly assigning them an expert knowledge of Vaga signa' (see below), Ovid stops short of according these men a prophesying role. The key to this anomaly must lie partly in the fact that Ovid's new dedicatee was not Tiberius, the current Pontifex Maximus and Prineeps. In choosing Germanicus, Ovid created difficulties for himself which did not arise for Manillas.75 Germanicus could not be associated with sidereal diviners without his being put at risk of a charge of treason and a fate similar to Libo's.76 And Ovid could not allude to his destiny as Prineeps in astrological terms without appearing to anticipate the death of Tiberius. Had he done so, he could ha.ve implicated himself on a similar charge.77 It must have been /4 Ovid's unique reference to Tiberius' supporting, with celestial mind ('cae)esti mente'}, the burden of empire (1.534), is surely an allusion to his reliance on astrology. '* Why Ovid dedicated his revision to Germanicus is discussed by Herbert-Brown (1.994) ch, 5. '" Germaaieus" interest in astrology cannot be proved, even though he added astral mythology to his translation of the Phaenamena of Aratus. Like Manilius (1. 385-98), Germanicus (Amtea 532-60} places Augustus in the sky with, zodiacal constellations, and refers to his natal sign which transported him to heaven. '"' Germanicus' future is implied in the prediction for the damns Augusta by the goddess of prophecy, Cannentis (1, 531-6), and iu Ovid's prayers for the heir to the

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for fear of compromising both Germanicus and himself that Ovid deleted the prophesying role of the founders of the stellar calendar from the original version dedicated to Augustus, If Ovid had to expurgate the most identifiable feature of astrology in the encomium, then what of the stellar calendar itself? Books 2 to 6 were written before AD 8, so it is remarkable, given Augustus' passion for the subject, that there is no celebration, indeed even mention, of astrology. In those books there is evidence for later interpolation from Tomis/8 What about excision? It is perilous to argue from silence, but I believe there are hints to that effect which might prove telling. The first is that Ovid's plan of scanning the skies 'sub ducibus.. illis' is never followed through. In contrast to the oft-mentioned founders of the Roman calendar, the stellar founders mysteriously disappear. Yet an indication outside the encomium that they were originally accorded a divinatory role is discernible if we connect their encomium with the subsequent extended passage containing etymologies of the Agonia, which comprise unsympathetic aitiafoT animal sacrifice (1. 317 ff.; 337-456), the ritual upon which the Roman priesthoods and divination depended. Ovid says animal sacrifice was more recent (inferior) than the old (superior) way, which had no victims, only spelt and salt (337-48)./if The passage is bracketed by zodiacal notices (311-16, 457-8). At Metamorphoses 15. 60 ff., Ovid makes a connection between Golden Age bloodless sacrifice and astrology by attributing condemnation of animal sacrifice to Pythagoras, whom he casts as an astral voyager and astrologer (145—52).80 There are distinct similarities between Ovid's Pythagoras at Met. 15. 62-4 and his 'felices anirnae' at Fast, I. 305. It is possible then, that the placement of these aitia so near to the encomium in the Fasti is a residue of Ovid's attempt to connect name 'Augustas' (1. 615). It is an important distinction that it is the future of the domus rather than that of & particular individual that is being predicted, 7S e.g. 4. 81-4 and 305-12 with Fantham (1998) ad Joe. See also Lefevre (1980), 7i Fantham (1985), and Feeney (1.992) 16. 'Cf. Horace, Ode 3. 23. 16-20. HO p-ytJia^oras here is not unlike M.ani!ius traversing the skies at Astwn. 1. 13—15. We rt'nierabt'r thai Nigidius Figulus was both Pythagorean and astrologer, and Ovid's association of Pythagoras with astrology may reflect the popularity of a particular brand of Pythagoreanism at the time. For Pythagoras iu Ovid, see Galinsky (1998). Later writers also attributed bloodless sacrifice to Pythagoras (Pint Numa 8. 8; Porphyry, De Abstin. 2.28).

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the astrologers with the more ancient form of bloodless sacrifice, to accord them the higher status of antiquity over the more recent. Senate-controlled diviners and priests who sacrificed animals.81 The second indication of excision is the disappearance of the Vaga signa' which Ovid had promised to include under the guidance of his astronomical 'duces'. Ovid's choice of 'signa' for stars here sustains the military metaphor, but his choice of the epithet Vaga', situated uniquely and strategically in the final pentameter of this programmatic passage, distinguishes these 'signa' from the fixed stars, the signs of the zodiac which are manifest throughout the poem, and places them in a category of wandering stars, or 'planetai', which are not,82 What happens to them? It is odd that Ovid's celestial calendar would neglect this stellar category, especially when Aratus had presented the challenge by admitting that his own daring had failed him in including it in his astronomical work (Phaen. 454-61). It was a challenge even Germanicus, translating Aratus, could not resist.83 'Vaga signa', then, must surely be a relic of his pre-AD 8 astrological design, for we leam that it was the planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and. Venus), that were the stars possessing the most potent influence over destiny,84 and so were of vital importance to astrology. Like Horace (Ode 2. 17), Vitravius (9. 6. 2), Propertius (4. 1. 834), and Arellius Fuscus (Suasoriae 4. 2), Ovid was aware of that fact (Ibis 207-16). At Metamorphoses 15. 789-90, he gives Lucifer (the planet Venus or Morning Star), astrological significance by having it try to warn mortals of the impending murder of Caesar. So too, at Tristia 1. 3. 71, he speaks of Lucifer as baneful to him. It is strange then, that Lucifer, as the one planet which is mentioned in the Fasti,*-' is deprived of fatalistic 81 I don't propose that Ovid relentlessly privileged astral, divination over traditional divination and sacrifice, however, any more than Horace or Propertius had done (p. 116). See also Met. 15. 779-800, where astrology and traditional divination are brought together. The religious eclecticism of the age was aptly exemplified by Tiberius, who was both ^ddicUis mathematics*, and afraid of thyr&dei" (Suet. Tib. 69). m 8;! Cic. De Re Pub. \. 22; 6. 17. Amtea 4.34-45 with Gain (1976) at 444-5. 8t Cic. De.Div.2. 89; Manil. 1. 51-2; H. 101: Vaga sidera'; also Germanicus 1.17. 85 ' Lucifer is more often used as a. metonym for 'morning* or 'day* to mark the passage of time (1. 46; 2. 150, 568; 3. 772, 877; 4. 677; 6. 211, 791), but the planet and 'dies' are distinguished at 5, 548, and perhaps at (i. 474 ('vigil Lucifer'). See now

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influence there. But Manilius also omits the planets, despite his repeated promise not to.87 As a result, it is impossible to cast a horoscope or interpret one from his work,88 Was omission of the planets Manilius* way of foiling any accusation of providing procedures which could incite subversion? If so, the same consideration would not apply to the Fasti, which was begun years before Augustus' edict. Which brings us back to the question of excision from Tomis. The fact that Ovid's 'felices animae' can be identified as mathematid^ or astrologers, despite the absence of a prophesying role, and the fact that the poet's promise to include the planets under their guidance remains unfulfilled, suggest that the Fasti's extant stellar calendar is a scissors and paste patchwork of what was originally an astrological calendar founded by astrologers. The idea has recently been advanced that the stars were added to the Fasti during the revision to Germanictis.89 I am proposing the opposite, that that revision entailed radical expurgation after the edict of AD 11 had rendered an astrological calendar potentially pernicious to its author. The poem's episodic nature made excision feasible. The stellar material following the encomium in Book 1, for instance, is surprisingly meagre, being limited to one four-line and five two-line notices. Why does the first constellation to appear, the eight-footed crab ('octipes Cancer'}, point directly to an astrological sign in Propertius (4.1. 149-50), yet possess no similar divinatory power? And why is the sign of Capricorn denied any astrological significance and given such short shrift (1. 651-2) when Augustus had spent a lifetime promoting it? If astrology did not now pose a problem for Ovid, why is there no astral panegyric to Germanicus' grandfather ?y" It could be argued that the importance of Capricorn would have belonged to December, the month of Augustus'

Hannah (11)97), 530-3 who detects evidence of the- planet Mars in Ovid's celebration of 12 May and allows for the possibility of an astrological reading. s " In the Consulatio ad Lisiam, Lucifer failed to appear on the day Drusus died K7 (406-10). Astron, '2. 750, 965; 3. 156-8, 587; 5, 26, 88 Cramer (1954) '* Barchiesi (li««) H, 14, Wc Cc«i now bt'gin iy understand why Qvid, unlike CalMmachus, makes & limited use of the Muses as informants. The Musts differ from other divinities in that they are associated with certain forms of speech; we might even say that they are tied to certain literary genrei (Barchiesi (1991) 10-11; italics added). "' P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and P, Scrvilius Vatia tsauricus (593), Q. Caecilius Mctellus Creticus (594), P, Cornelius Scipio Aeniilianus Africanus Nunientious (590), Nero Claudius Dmsus (597), T. Manlius Torquatus (601), M. Valerius Corvus (602), Cn. Pompeius Magnus (COS), the Fabii (605). 15 l

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'read' Ovid's version of the 'imagines' in this way, his list may then logically be seen to culminate in the 'leading man', that is, hypermasculine Augustus. Moreover, signifier and signified (like the discordant Musae) are one: 'sancta augusta' (609). This business of imperial (1st) subordination (whether res gestae or Romanae) is unequivocally (and univocally) Man's workone man's (Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus), all men's. The equation is simple and ideologically rigid (613-16; 'imperium nostri duels... orbis onus' ('the imperium of our leader... the weight of the world')), and exposes the 'Law of the Father' as the founding principle against which the burden of rule is measured (deis, heres, pater). Interestingly, this normative explication of masculinist priority gives over under 15 January to a deviant aetiology firmly embedded in gendered, elegiac terrain. In sharp contrast to the founding myth of 1. 468-542,l7 Ovid confounds reader expectations of further traditional topoi with a terse, evocative vignette of abortifacient mothers and capitulating fathers (621: 'matronaque destinat omnis' ('every married woman resolved'); 625-6: 'patres.,, | ius tamen ereptum restituisse ferunt' ('the fathers [that is, the senators] are said to have restored the right taken from [the mothers]'). ContextuaUy and thematically, including this episode represents a poetic inversion as mischievous (in gendered terms) as Barchiesi's previously noted anti- Callimachean twist. No longer a sacred mother giving voice to divine truths (472: 'sacrae sanguine matris' ('by the blood of a holy mother'); 474: 'ore dabatpleno carmina vera del' ('with sonorous voice, she continued to give utterance to the actual prophecies of the deity')), but rather a sceptical. Ovid ('ferunt') retailing a story of expropriated honour, sexual abstinence and abnegation, baseless reprimand, and just restitution, enshrined in calendrical ritual. This scenario could not be further from the charted topographies of res Romanae (Evander > Pallas > Aeneas > Caesar > Augustus) and the economy of deified motherhood (536: lulia Augusta = Livia apotheosized) foretold, by Carmentis. Dynastic certitudes ! ' A qua.si-e.kphra.stic lay of dynastic guardianship (along resolutely Virgiliao lines), sung to the poet by Evander's prophetic mother, Carmentis herself, full of divine incantation ('carmen').

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and imperial sureties are problematized (531-2: 'et penes Augustas patriae tutela nianebit hanc fas imperil frena tenere domum' ('and guardianship of the fatherland will remain in the power of Augustus; it is proper that this house control the bridle of imperiunf)). Instead, Ovid interweaves his aetiology of the two Carmentes (Porrima and Postverta) and the renewal of a reproductive social ethos with the twin stigmata of ritual prohibition and appeasement of indeterminate female entities (633-4: 'sive sorores | sive fugae comites Maenali diva tuae' ('whether sisters or companions of your exile, Maenalian goddess')}. As such, the 'ternpora digesta' may register the new 'templa' of Juno Moneta (629: 'scortea non illi fas est inferre sacello' ('it is not right to introduce leather things into her little shrine')) and its proximity in spatial and programmatic terms to Concordia. However, by then, the problematic nature of social relations and the fractured networks of exchange underpinning any vision of a normative Roman ideal have been exposed. Ovid's calculated contrast between the alternative entries for the Carmentalia cuts across specifically literary implications to highlight the integral relationship of sexuality and the body to any 'reading' of Roman social-cultural history.

(ii) Reviewing and Rereading the Agenda: Ovid and the 'New* Scholarship18 hacc mea militia est: ferimus quae possumus arma, This is rny military service; I take up the weapons that I can.

(Fasti 2. 9)

In the course of delivering the 1994- Todd Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney, Elaine Fantham gave a checklist of approaches intended to supplement contemporary 'readings' of the Fasti.19 While an otherwise embracing catalogue of evaluative tools was elegantly unpacked, the interpretative category of gender was not included as part of Fantham's literary-critical roster. Given the (at least reasonable) significance of the latter as a subdivision of textual explanation, w 19

This heading is a, paraphrase of the title of Fantham (1995), Fanlhatn (1995) 52-3.

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one could remark at the absence. With a mind to instating the implications of the sex/gender sociolinguistic system, let's briefly consider Fantham's four-point guide to 'an informed neutral reading' of Ovid's text, with reference to a selection of aitia in Fasti 2. We are first encouraged to examine the poet's historical choices, measuring these against prior and subsequent historiographical versions as well as the contemporary epigraphical record. In this regard, recognizing Ovid's criteria for his treatment of social-sexual episodes in Graeco-Roman mythopoeic and histori(ographi)cal tradition would seem an equally useful exercise preparatory to any 'reading'. In the same light, a case can be made for gendered studies of other members of the elite (male) literary canon, and even of the epigraphic corpus.20 J. G. Frazer's 1931 translation21 of 2.41-2 provides some idea of" the need for extending the ambit of this initial approach. vectam frenatis per inane draconibus Aegeus credulus inmerita Phasida fovit ope: Wafted through the void by bridled dragons, the Phasian witch received a welcome, which she little deserved, at the hands of trusting Aegeus.

Interestingly, Frazer interpolates the less-than-oblique 'Phasian witch' (with explanatory footnote) for the suffixed feminine abstraction Pliasida(m), Medea's monstrous choice and extraordinary flight (from the 'dead hearts' consequent on that choice) were deservedly notorious. Yet the poetry (re)presents her in terms which (at one and the same time) demark a locus prior to the distressing teleology of desire, murder, and sorcerous escape, and which place her within the protective embrace of a(nother) foster-male ('Aegeus credulus... fovit ope'). She is caught in the lyric spotlight of before-and-after, and all else (which might distinguish her humanity) is (like the vacuum of space across which she is drawn) inane-empty, lifeless, without. Superimposed on this paradigmatic template (passive female/bestial consort > active male/naive protector), Ovid 20 For an example of the former, see Keegan (1997); for an extended study of the 2J latter, see id. (forthcoming'}. Frazer (1931) 59,

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associates the deviant infamy of Euripidean motherhood (Medeanhood?) with the matricidal son of Eriphyle and Amphiaraus. In each case, the female (as monster or victim) is unnamed; she is rendered through allusion only (aetiological or patronymic). Both women are already the stuff of mythopoeic invention, and thus apt for the receptive function of creative metonymy. Ovid further reduces them to the status of masculinist guilt-objects (Aegeus' help; 'inmerita'; Alcmaeon's murder (45): 'tristia crimina caedis'). If one hoped for anything approaching a sympathetic or rounded allusion to female agency or participation, 'a! nimium faciles" (45). Medea and Eriphyle are signifiers of betrayal for Ovid. Perversely rejecting the sureties of the reproductive and patriarchal economies, they are marked with/for death by the poet. The intertextual citation of Jason's and Achelous' responses to deviant female treachery puts paid to any suggestion that Ovid's choice was anything but deliberate. As such, Ovid's 'choices' must be regarded (at least in this instance) as well and truly embedded in a sociolinguistic discursive system. In relation to Ovid's gendered allusions, it is perhaps apt to note a subsequent aside of the elegist (47): 'antiqui ne nescius ordinis erres', 'Lest you, ignorant of the ancient order, go astray' is trenchant advice; and just as expedient in light of antiquity's regulatory idealization of sex/gender as when viewing the succession of the months and the significances of their rituals. This leads into Fantham's second item, reading Ovid against the previous poetic tradition. Here, the need to take into account Virgil's Georgics as much as the Aeneid is given as exemplary practice. If, however, we were to attach a. sexualized dimension to that poetic tradition, the modern interpreter might well catch sight of certain strategies employed by the poet in aid (or as a part) of the prevailing discursive system. Adopting this plan of attack might elicit a 'different narrative' indeed from the conventional reading of 'Aeneas's colonising achievement'.-a Arion's tale (2. 79-118) clarifies the narrative thrust already observed in the preceding entries. It is (once more) said 22

Fantham (HW5) 53.

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(fertur') that the reputed author of the dithyramb could still the running water, the ravening wolf, and the chattering crow alike with his music; likewise, the naturalized) instincts of hound, lioness, and hawk are reversed by his song (84-90). In the same mode, Cynthia (one of Ovid's allusive references to the goddess of the light and moon, the huntress Diana) is consistently struck dumb when Arion raises his voice. Just as she does (it is suggested) when exposed to her twin-brother Apollo's measured strains (91-2: "Cynthia saepe tuis fertur vocalis Arion tamquam fraternis obstipuisse modis' ('Cynthia is said to have been struck dumb often by your melodies, sonorous Arion, as if by her brother's measures')). Like the wild things of the world, even a goddess is astounded and stupefied ('obstipescit') at the sound of 'her master's voice'. Bestial nature now senseless, Ovid is (as in 2. 55—66) at liberty to pursue his encomiastic subtext: 'di pia facta vident' (117: 'the gods see devout acts'). It is a familiar theme. And whose res gestae does the Ovidian muse extol? Arion, the lyre's master (82)—and, more importantly for Ovid's project here, the heir to Phoebus' crown (1056: 'capit ille coronam quae possit crines Phoebe decore tuos' ('he took the crown which might become the hair on your head, Phoebus'))—stands firm against the venality and greed of the mob, in order that he might bring home the wealth his art had won (96: 'quaesitas arte ferebat opes'). Complementarity, Ovid, self-styled elegiac Homer (119-20: 'mihi... vellem Maeonide pectus inesse tuum' (*I could wish that your spirit, Maeonid.es, belonged to me')), sings of the super-Father-sancte pater patriae (127), pater orbis (130), hominum pater (132), notnen principis (142). And, if in any doubt, Ovid assures his audience that his previous intimations of divine consecration for Caesar—this guardian of Rome's boundaries (134-5), the conqueror of the known world (138), wrong's avenger (140), and foeman's pardoner (143)—were deliberate (144: 'caelestem fecit te pater'). The 'Law of the Father' reigns supreme (141: 'florentsub Caesare leges' ('under Caesar, laws flourish')). Even the reproductive economy is colonized by the kyriarchy's song; the discourse of appropriation completes the multiple inversions of Alien's (ironically) Lesbian lyre.

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Fantham's third suggestion-not to forget Ovid's earlier work—follows closely on from the preceding supplementary approach. But by glossing 'the mindset of an erotic poet and a sympathy for sexual enjoyment' only in terms of the poet's relationship with the Augustan mentalite, Fantham's 'reading' seems inadequate (or, at the least, unnecessarily limiting). What does Ovid's deployment of 'a developed elegiac tradition' which 'left his readers with an expectation of eroticism' require of the (post-)modern literary-historical interpreter's 'reading' of episodes like, say, the previously discussed abortifacient Ausonian mothers of Fasti 1. 617-86? In this light, the metamorphosis of the hamadryad Callisto (2. 153-92) is an explicitly eroticized narrative which extends Fantham's interrogation of the poet's earlier oeuvre into disturbing territory. The teleology of the account is clear-cut: • vowed chastity (Diana = Cynthia = Phoebe sanctions Callisto's sexual renunciation) > • divine rape (162: 4de love crimen habet' ('on account of Jupiter, she bears the offence')) > • personal shame (168: 'erubuit false virginis ilia sono'; 170: 'hanc pudet') > • community repudiation (173-4: Diana's rejection of Callisto) > • divine anger (177: 'laesa furit luno formarn mutatque puellae' (Vexed Juno is furious, and changes the young woman's form)). The creative permutations of the story slot neatly into Laura Mulvey's definition of'voyeurism'.23 Under this rubric, sexual difference is (re)presented as 'woman's castration'; the complicit author constructs a plot exposing her crime and justifying her penalty. So, when Ovid poses the question, 'quid facis? Invito est pectore passa loveno' (178: 'Why do you do this [Juno]? Though her spirit was unwilling, she submitted to

~"' Mulvey (1989), In the context of voyeuristic interplay between author aud audiencCj Mulvey notes that 'pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt... asserting control and subjugating the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness' (22).

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Jupiter'), we must measure his deceptively liberal rhetoric against the following citations: *puer furto conceptus' (183: 'the boy conceived by trickery') 'gemitus verba parentis erant' (186: 'his parent's words were a groan') 'hanc puer ignarus iaculo fixisset acuto' (187: 'the unknowing boy would have pierced her with his sharp javelin'). Underpinning Callisto's transformation is a masculinist imperative naturalizing female speech as animal-like and evoking her polluted alterity in brutish physical terms. Callisto may be innocent, but she is powerless to defend herself against the desire of a (man-made) god, the intractable exclusionist fury of a (woman-hating?) goddess-consort, and the threatened initiate manhood of a (mother-fearing?) son. It is simply impossible to accommodate an individual woman within so many deviant categories. The very suspicion that 'she, believed to be a maiden, was a mother' (176: 'virgo credita mater erat') resulted in outrage, relegation, and inversion. So all that is left for the aition to subside once more into semantic and sociolinguistic equilibrium is Ovid's stellar sleight of hand. Callisto and her son are translated into the astral plane, beyond (it would at first seem) the attitudmal tensions of the material world. Yet even here, Juno 'frets and begs' the wife of Ocean, Tethys (191: 'saevit, rogat') never to pollute her waters by touching and washing Maenalus' bear (192: 'tactis ne lavet Arcton aquis'). Because, in the mythological realm (and, by extension, the social-cultural 'reality' of the poet and his audience), that's the way it is. Finally, Fantham suggests that her audience take into account the only partly revised nature of Ovid's text (whether pre- or post-exilic). This request does not preclude (and, in point of fact, implicitly encourages) an exploration of any developments in (or deviations from) the regulatory idealizations of class, ethnicity, wealth, ideology, gender, and so on; for example, the conceptualization of the (fe)male-ascategory in the Lucretia episode culminating liber secundus (see the 'rereading' of this story in Section (iv) below). After all, gendered discourses may be just as revisionist as ideological (read: politico-civic) ones.

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(iii) The Metamorphosis of Lara: Ovid and the Self-Conscious Inquirer24 voltu pro verbis ilia precatur et frustra muto oititur ore loqui. In place of words, [Lara] entreats [Mercury] with a look, And in vain makes an effort to speak with speechless mouth. (Fasti 2. 613-14)

A corollary to the foregoing study of gender-exclusive literary criticism can be found in other treatments of Ovid. The superordination of Quellenfrage over gendered critique is particularly evident in a recent study by Stephen Hinds. His discussion of the relationship between the archaic Greek poem the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Ovid's version of the rape of Persephone in Fasti 4 focuses on structural and material influences; his priority is artistic formulation, not sexualizing formations. This is not to gainsay Hinds's philological pursuit of sources and motivations or underrate his substantial critical exegeses. But the Homeric Hymn to Demeter may legitimately be viewed as an archetypal textual treatment of ancient gender relations (divine and human) situated within an equally sexed ritual context (the Eleusinian Mysteries). Consequently, it would seem apt to consider what Ovid does-or, as Fantham*5 puts it, 'what Ovid always did by selection, combination, modification and choice of scale to emphasise or de-emphasise at will'—with the Homeric/Hesiodic tradition. To cite Hinds26 with this 'new' emphasis in mind, 'half of the story of the Homeric Hym.ris influence on Ovid has yet to be told'. Let's look first at the topological association between old women and sorcery prefacing Lara's tale (2. 571-82). 'Behold', says Ovid, 'an old woman, sitting down in the midst of girls, performs old riles for Tacita' (571-2: 'ecce anus in mediis residens annosa puellis | sacra facit Tacitae'). After the mysterious ritual actions are played out (in almost theatrical detail; compare the pantomimic conclusion to this Ovidian set-piece— 582: 'exit anus'), the ostensible reason for the performance is 24 26

1 take this heading from the title of Hinds (1987«). Hinds (iy»7«) 71."

2a

Fantham (1995) ,r>2.

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revealed; to bind fast ('vincire'} hostile tongues and unfriendly mouths (581: 'hostiles linguas inimicaque vinximus ora'). The female community is seen to enact a self-censorship which complements masculinist repressions: a policing of the 'enemy within' by those who *speak~among-women',27 The phallogocentric imperative underlying such an interpretation of ritual female activity is emphatic. It (almost) goes without saying that wine is involved. It is shared by old and young women alike (580: 'aut ipsa aut comites . . . bibit'), and the prime celebrant departs drunk. It doesn't get any more stereotypical than this, Women are innately magical, indubitably bibulous, and prone to malicious gossip. It is important to note the contradictory deferral of meaning Ovid invests in women's inherent relationship with natural, religious, and magical spaces. Women may be associated with the negative implications of these symbolic, social-cultural, and supernatural abstractions, but they are seldom allowed to use these abilities positively to effect change, especially regarding their own circumstances. In his aetiology of Juno Lucina (2, 425-52), for example, brides are incapable of achieving parthenogenetic or heterosexual conception, despite herbal lore, prayer, or magic spell (425-6: 'non tu pollentibus herbis | nee prece nee magico carmine mater eris' ('neither by strong herbs nor prayer nor magical incantation will you be a mother')), Only unsympathetic magic is deemed apt: a leather strap wielded by the reproductive male state (427: 'excipe fecundae patienter verbera dextrae* ('receive submissively the lashes of a prolific right hand!')). The (inescapable) condition of female submission to male will is distressingly (en)gendered in Ovid's succeeding aition. By now, in the poet's enumeration of celestial libido, Jupiter's insatiable desire is (with apologies) legendary. As this discrete scenario unfolds (2. 583-616), Turnus' sister (Juturna) is the thunderer's object(ive). In a perhaps intentionally ironic twist, the lustful god's immoderate desire causes him to suffer ^ This formulation draws on the philosophical insights of Luce Iriganty, particularly her focus on recovering the history of women and lost or marginalized traditions of female cultural production. 'Speakiug-among-woineu' relates to Mgaray's work in identifying essentially feminine modes of (representation as a challenge to the patriarchal symbolic order. A starting point for entry into this project is Irigaray {ISftd).

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decidedly undivine ignominies (585-6; 'luppiter immodico luturnae victus amore | multa tulit tanto non patienda deo' (Jupiter, overcome by immoderate love for Juturna, bore many things which ought not to be suffered by so great a deity')). The vocabulary of passive receptivity is singularly inappropriate when applied to the king of rapists. Such an offence will not be borne lightly. As we have already seen in the account of Callisto's transformation, the intended victim's female companions (here, Juturna's sister-nymphs) are co-opted to the penetrator's gambit.28 Thus, we (the modern reader, not Ovid's intended audience)29 are treated to the unpalatable suggestion that the Tiberine nymphs collectively assent to the following syllogism. 'What is my great satisfaction', Jupiter declares, 'will be to your sister's advantage' (593-4: 'nam quae mea magna voluptas utilitas vestrae magna sororis erit'). Masculinist Voluptas' is identified with female 'utilitas'. Compelled union is (re)presented by the desiring god as 'for (Juturna's) good' (591: quod expedit illi), It is at this point that the subordinationist3* tradition takes a darker turn—and, given the plethora of twisted precedents, that's saying something. A Naiad nymph, Lara (or Lala) by name, unwilling to submit to such specious rationalization of manifest rape, spills the proverbial beans. Not only does this recidivist female speaker31 inform Juturna of Jupiter's compact with a compliant sorority, but she sympathizes with, the adulterer's/rapist's wife, Juno. Jupiter's vengeance is swift and terrible. Like Tereus, Jupiter is incapable of dealing with such 28 We might also cite Livy's retelling of the compact forged between Romulus and the Sabine women (I. 9. 1-13. 6). ^ 1 draw this distinction because many in Ovid's (male) audience would not have found 'Jupiter's1 syllogistic argument 'unpalatable' at all. This is not meant to essentialfae Ovid's gender-peers (elite and non-elite Craeco-Rornan men of rnid- to late Augustan Rome), but only to highlight a clear-cut discontinuity between ancient and modern perceptions of normative gender-relations, * The 'subordinationist' standpoint avows domination of the Other (= any marginalized population}. In relation to gender, it may be glossed as male domination of women's minds and bodies, and reflects a familial-social, ideological, political system of oppression. 31 Ovid tells us that Lara's father cannot compel requisite silence (602;' "oata, lene linguam": nee tamen ilia tenet* ('"Hold your tongue, child!" And still she does not control it*).

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a blatant truth-telling. Swelling up, this time in the heat of anger, he tears out Lara's indiscreet tongue (607-8: 'luppiter intumuit quaque est non usa modeste | eripit huic linguarn*). The destructive force of tumescent rapine is vivid and excruciatingly visceral. And, once again, the 'Law of the Father' intervenes (611: 'iussa lovis fiunt'}. This site of female subjection is well suited to the speechlessness of the dispossessed and deviant (609: locus ille silentibus aptus' ('that place is appropriate for those who are silent')). Disfigured and depersonalized, Lara is condemned to act out the role spared Juturna (612: 'dicitur ilia duel tarn placuisse deo [Mercuric]' ('it is said that she satisfied her guide the god')). Here, the disturbing voyeurism of the Callisto episode is revisited with scopophilic clarity and purpose.32 Mercury's resolution to use force (613: 'vim parat hie'), in apposition to Lara's desperation and ultimately futile supplication (613—14 cited above), seems explicitly formulated to arrest and even stimulate an (inter-) active male imagination. Bereft even of the growl left to ursine Callisto ('gemitus verba parentis erant*), Lara is reduced to an assortment of coveted fragments (Voltus precans', 'os mutum'), qualified by vulnerable terminology ('pro verbis, frustra'). The irony of her name's etymological association (Lala, as if from 'lalein', 'to prattle') is intensified by the twin male burden she bears to her 'divine leader' (615: 'geminosque parit'). The 'prima syllaba' spoken twice (599— 600) has been excised and recast as the paired guardians of the city (the Lares Compitales or Praestiles), The final erasure of identity (Lara) through masculinized appropriation (Lares) completes this sordid episode.33 •w Mulvey (1989) 21 notes thai scopophiha "builds up the beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself. One might compare this to Ovid's (re/presentation of the (unnamed) mistress of Hercules in the 'antiqua fabula plena ioci' of 2, 303-58, This "mistress1 (305; 'dominae iuveois'}, 'Maeuniati damsel* \309, 352: 'Maeonis'), and 'Lydian wvncK (356: 'Lyds pueila*)--Fra7er's instructive translations (1931) 81, 83 art1 italicized—is portrayed as a collection o! desirable fragments suggest' ing hut still concealing the anatomical differences between the sexes. For instance, "scented locks', 'shoulders' (309: 'odoratis eapillis, humeros'}; 'bosom* (310; 'sinn'); 'gauzy timici' (819: 'tennis tunicas'); and so on. ;U Newlands (1.995) 165 notes that, in Ovid's text, 'the Lares commemorate an act of sexual violence and the power of divine authority to restrict speech*. In doing so, she limite the impact of 'erotic and voyeuristic interest' by tying the generic expectations to 'the major founding myths* (160); in this instance, Augustus* restoration of the Lares

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(iv) The (Other) Silence of Lucretia34 recordanti [imaginem] plura magisque [sensus] placent By remembering [her image], more and more [his senses) give him pleasure.

(FastiZ. 770)

Inter alia, Fantham35 and Newlands36 recommend the 'new' reader to compare Ovid's version of events with that found in the Livian corpus. The 'historical romance' of the Regifiigiumconcluding the poet's treatment of February and the historiographer's account of pre-Republican Rome (Fasti 2. 685-852; AUC 1. 53-60)—seems most susceptible to analysis in this context. Ovid's claim to sing of a theme removed from the standpoint of annalistic prose (I. 1-2, 13-14), and the intervening years between publication of his work and Livy's (30 or more since the first edition of Ab Urbe Condita), argue the importance of noting any marked similarities or differences. We may safely bypass the first two elements of this narrative (Sextus at Gabii, Brutus at Delphi). Ovid treads a similar path to Livy's variant, and follows the patavinitasofhis retelling (if not in style or tone, then certainly in sequence and content). The fact that these episodes revolve around pivotal exploits and characterological expositions of male protagonists (the sons of lawless and tyrannical Tarquin and the un-Roman king's sister, Tarquinia) may reflect the social-cultural space within which certain stereotypical or idealized behaviours ('tyrannis', 'libertas') remained embedded over time, at least in the cult I have no difficulty in accepting the interdependency of the discourses of sexuality and power. What I am suggesting is that the affective, psyefaosexual dimension of this extremely (unusually?) brutal pattern of mutilation, rape, and silencing (as it relates to performative elegiac elaboration) cannot be glossed simply as an appropriated genericploy. Ovid's annihilation of the female 'plays* as much with the (male) audience's psyche as its ideological complicities. "l! I adapt this heading from the title of a pivotal discussion-paper in fhliiis (Ciifham 1990).

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means of delimiting and abnegating the perpetuation of the Philomela/Tacita syndrome in contemporary literary-critical studies. Gender as a category of social-cultural and historical interpretation deserves a central role in 'revising and rereading' a work so embedded in the regulatory sociolinguistic system of ancient Mediterranean Rome. Otherwise, the 'dialogic imagination' of today's 'readership' is in danger of succumbing (intentionally or not) to those 'complicitous games of interpretation' by which Ovid sought to explore Roman identity in a period of transition and adjustment.1* In other words, negotiating the serio-ludic quality of the Fasti is a treacherous pastime, and failing to recognize the importance of an anchoring explanatory principle (in this instance, sex/gender analysis) invites problematic interpretative engagement. I hope that this study has cleared, a few of the critical pitfalls adhering to gender-exclusive 'readings' of one ancient text, and demonstrated the advantages of admitting a common focus into the praxis of meaning-production and reception.47 411 Newlands (1,995) 8. Drawing on the work ofjohan Huizinga, Wolfgang Iser, and Mikhail M, Bakhtin, Newlands notes the interplay of 'unexpected, mimetic, subversive, and agonistic' elements in Ovid's text. However, I see the 'interactive readership* assumed to underpin Ovidian 'playfulness' as susceptible to the same power relations permeating all discursive practices. The potential for assimilation or appropriation by a modern audience is an aspect of this 'feedback-loop1 rec|tiiriiig careful treatment 47 For close readings of the relationships among gender, silence, language, and power in the Metamorphoses arid the love poetry, see de Luce (1993), Hardy (1995), and James (1!)97), For a non-gendered treatment of episodes in the Fasti (seen as an exercise in the creation of put'iic mid political authority], sec Feeney (1992).

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7 Representing the Great Mother to Augustus PETER E. KNOX

When Ovid died in exile on the shores of the Black Sea a few years into the reign of Tiberius, among his papers, we may imagine, someone found and rescued six papyrus rolls containing the Fasti, his half-finished poem on the Roman calendar, or, as some would have it, his finished poem on half the Roman calendar. Literary historians will continue to speculate as to whether it was death, desperation, or design that interrupted the composition of the Fasti, but the critical challenge presented by the surviving work is only little affected by the answer to that question. Until recently this challenge has rarely been accepted. With the notable exception of Richard Heinze, the Fastih&d attracted little attention from literary critics since it found its way back to Rome from Tomis. In his much cited monograph 'Ovids elegische Erzahlung*,1 Heinze attempted to characterize Ovid's style in the Fasti, the only surviving example of large-scale narrative in Latin elegiac verse. This characterization was framed from the first by way of contrast with narrative style in epic as Heinze had defined it in his celebrated, earlier book on Virgil.2 Heinze started, with a comparison of Ovid's two versions of the rape of Persephone, the one found in the fifth book of the Metamorphoses, the other in the fourth book of the Fasti, From this comparison Heinze drew up a set of criteria which he proceeded to apply to analyses of other episodes. His study had a more immediate impact on criticism of the Metamorphoses than of the jRw.fi. For the most part, critics have accepted Heinze's observations about the epic quality of the Metamorphoses and have demonstrated an almost obsessive 1

Heiitze {1919},

2

Heinze (1915).

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concern with reconciling the poem's non-epic characteristics with Heinze's definition.3 The consequences of this approach to the Metamorphoses for a reading of the Fasti have become apparent only recently, as critics have shifted the focus of their attention to the elegy. In his influential book The Metamorphosis of Persephone^ Stephen Hinds embraced Heinze's argument about the impact of generic differences between the Fasti and the Metamorphoses and took it one step further, arguing that the narratives of Persephone in the two poems develop a sophisticated intertextual play that alludes to a generic conflict between epic and elegy. Hinds's argument has been widely accepted, and it looms large in the latest efflorescence of criticism of the Fasti, which further presses the question of genre. On this reading, the Fasti stands in pointed contradistinction to epic, as signalled by the text itself at crucial points of intersection. As elegy, it inevitably incorporates the defining characteristics of the genre which, in the words of Alessandro Barchiesi, is Alexandrian, unstable, destructuring', but its content, the Roman calendar, is, again in his words, 'Augustan and traditional'.5 In other words, at the risk of seeming to caricature rather than characterize this approach, while the Fasti might seem to be verging toward epic because of its subject matter, in. reality, because of its form, it is waging subtle generic war.6 What are the bases of such a reading? Begin with the opening lines of the poem: Tempera cum causis Latium digesta per annum lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa canam.' The order of the calendar throughout the Latin year, its causes, and the starry signs that set beneath the earth and rise again, of these I'll sing,

This couplet performs a dual function, identifying both subject matter and literary affiliation, 'tempora.,. digesta per annum' J My own views on die matter have metamorphosed over the years, hut in its essential outlines the reading I offered in Kuux (11)86) remains unchanged. 4 :i Hinds (108?a). Barchiesi (I 1.8. 486). Some security is lent to this attribution by the brief account of Hyrieus given by Nonnus [Dion, 13, 96-103), with which it coincides. O%'id ha,s introduced some significant changes to produce a story of a different type, on the hospitality theme as represented by Callimachus in bis Hecate. In short, Ovid has apparently altered his source in Euphorion to produce a more Callimachean result Earlier scholars have little to say shout Ovid's rendition here, due to embarrassment over the 'conception*, so to speak, of Orion. Meineke (1843) 133, for example, refers to this as 'spurcissirnam . , . fabuiam1. The seeming embarrassment of contemporary scholars who havenothing to say ahout this tale doubtless has a different motivation. On this point T should note that Newiainfe (111115) is a sigTuiieunt exception—she doe^ try to account for this story in its context, although I do not agree with her on its relationship to the following narrative of the foundation of the temple of Mars Ultor. See now iimma Gee's chapter in this volume, which explores a different aspect of this episode in its intertexlual relationship with. Virgil's Geot'gi-ts,

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he asks, 'In what respect are the Fasti more elevated? Having already written the Metamorphoses, it cannot be a higher genre Ovid has in mind,' Citing lines 15-16: at tua prosequimur studioso pectore, Caesar nomina, per titulos ingredimurque tuos Still with an enthusiastic heart I rehearse your titles, Caesar, and enter upon the path opened by your glory

he concludes, 'The key respect in which the Fasti outstrip Ovid's earlier work (or so he disingenuously protests) is in their treatment of the honours of Augustus.'1-5 But in the intervening lines Ovid sounds another note as well (2. 5—6): ipse ego vos habui faciles in amore ministros, cum lusit numeris prima iuventa suis, Myself I found you compliant servants in love, when my early youth toyed with verse,

The contrast is between Ovid's large-scale elegy ('maioribus veils'), the Fasti, and his earlier elegies on a small scale, Ovid neatly reverses the rhetorical stance of the Aetia prologue and, being Ovid, points out the irony (8): 'ecquis ad haec illinc crederet esse viani?' ('who could believe that the path would lead to this?'). Ovid employs the critical terminology derived from Callimachus to describe his approach to the issue of genre, which was central for him and his contemporaries in a way that it was not for Callimachus. The Metamorphoses is a poem, Ovid tells us, in the tradition of hexameter narrative, which is none the less deductum. The poet of the Fasti, we hear from Juno in Book 6, deals with epic content ('magna referre'), but still composes 'per exiguos modes'. The challenge posed by the Fasti, therefore, is to interpret the poem in the context of its relationship to Callimachus and in the process also to account for its distinctly Roman and Augustan, elements. The festival of the Magna Mater has largely escaped analysis in the recent efflorescence of criticism devoted to the Fasti, so it may be considered a test case in recontextualizing Roman 15

Cameron (1995) 470.

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ritual as it is represented in the poem.1* The first foreign cult to be incorporated into the official Roman calendar poses particular problems of interpretation, and yet offers some unique opportunities to evaluate the political orientation of Ovid's representation of ritual. In his account of the institutions established by Romulus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarks upon the resistance of the Roman state to accepting foreign cults and singles out the cult of Cybele as the exception that proves his rule.17 But even in that case, Dionysius notes, the Romans suppressed publicly the more outrageous aspects of her worship and limited service in her priesthood to Phrygians;

But, even though she has, in pursuance of oracles, introduced certain rites from abroad, she celebrates them in accordance with her own traditions, after banishing all fabulous clap-trap. The rites of the Idaean goddess are a case in point,

'Fabulous clap-trap' is the tendentious translation in the Loeb of which might better be rendered as the 'finer points of mythology',1" As 'I', P. Wiseman remarks, the Roman version of the cult featured 'no castration of Uranus, no Cronos devouring his children—and we may add, no Attis, whose self-mutilation was essential to the Phrygian goddess's kieros logos'.w Of course it is precisely the mythology that interests the Roman poets who write of her cult—Lucretius, Catullus, and Ovid, who gives the fullest account in Book 4 of the Fasti, in. the section attached to 4 April.20 Ovid's narrative devotes little space to the 'public' or 'official' aspects of the cult—the procession of the eunuch priests of Cybele, the washing of the goddess's image, or the celebration of the Ludi Megalenses. He is interested in the mythological justification for the rites, in their aetiology. Ovid prays for an ^' A notable exception is Littlewood (1981). '7 Dion. Hal. 2. 19. 3, On Roman antipathy to castrated Galli and other aspects of the cult, cf. e.g. Beard (11)94) 176-8; Beard, North, and Price (1998) i. 96-8. w m Cf. LSJ, s.v. npOptia. Wiseman (1984) 117. -° But contrast Summers (1996), who argues that Lucretius represents only Roman manifestations of (he cult.

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informant and is provided with one by Cybele herself, who commands the Muses to be at the poet's disposal (4. 189-92): quaerere multa libet, sed me sonus aeris acuti terret et horrendo lotos adunca sono. 'da, dea, quern sciter', doctas Cybeleia neptes vidit et has curae iussit adesse meae, I want to ask many questions, but the noise of the shrill cymbal and the bent flute's thrilling sound frighten me. 'Grant me, goddess, someone whom 1 may question.' The Cybelcan spotted her learned granddaughters and. told them to attend to my concern.

Ovid's inquiries about the aetiology of the musical accompaniment of Cybele's worship are answered by Erato. For Barchiesi this use of the Muse as informant destabilizes the narrative. As he puts it, 'This filtering of information through a secondary informant introduces a mediatory element into the various narratives concerning the Great Mother.'2' But it requires some degree of special pleading to demote the Muses to the status of 'secondary informant'. To do so, one must ignore the literary background that also informs the narrative of the Fasti. The structure of Ovid's dialogue with Erato again clearly evokes the framework of Aetia 1-2, in which the Muses serve not as 'secondary informants' but as arbiters of truth. And Ovid's tone is distinctly Callimachean. The form of Ms request, 'da . . . quern sciter', is rather matter of fact: 'scitari' is pegged by Axelson as an epic verb, but there is nothing particularly 'epic' about its distribution in Roman poetry, particularly in the limited use made of it by Virgil and Ovid.22 It establishes the tone for the familiar back and forth banter between Ovid and his Muse. Compare Callimachus, fr. 7. 19 ff.

21

Barchiesi (1