Ovid's Homer: Authority, Repetition, and Reception by Barbara Weiden Boyd

Abstract

388 PHOENIX careful assessment of Horace’s representations of the mythic exempla of Ulysses and Teiresias in Serm. 2.5 is especially instructive as he draws out both the contrasts, and the similarities, between the satiric ego and the mythical figures who exemplify the flatterer and the corrupt advisor respectively, to show the satirist confronting the possibility of a reflexive reading of the charges of flattery and false friendship. Horace addresses the charge head-on in Serm. 2.6, a poem of gratitude to his patron for the gift of the Sabine farm, in which he represents himself as the owner of a prosperous estate of the kind sanctioned by Philodemos in his treatise On Property Management. Yona concludes by drawing together the philosophical threads that tie Serm. 2.5 to 2.6: “the poet is able to strengthen his self-portrayal [in Serm. 2.6] as a virtuous client whose frank advice results in financial rewards from a wealthy patron by contrasting it with that of Ulysses, whose riches are a result of opportunistic and ambitious flattery [in Serm. 2.5]” (248). The fifth and final chapter (“Deficient Wealth, Excessive Frankness: Satires 2.2, 2.3, and 2.7”) explores the application of Epicurean ethical precepts in the administration of wealth and the patronage relationship in Serm. 2.2, 3, and 7. Yona reads the speaker of Serm. 2.2, Ofellius, as a dispossessed rustic sage, who bears the loss of his Apulian farm (the location of his erstwhile estate making him an alter-ego of the satirist) with the equanimity of an Epicurean philosopher. He contrasts Ofellius with the long-winded speaker of Serm. 2.3, Damasippus, a recent convert to Stoicism whom Horace portrays as driven to madness (in accordance with the Stoic proverb “all fools are mad”) by his own financial ruin. Upon the sudden and unexpected restoration of his fortunes, Damasippus delivers himself of a diatribe against economic vice that shows him to be both hypocritical and ineffectual in his ostensibly frank criticisms. Like Serm. 2.3, Serm. 2.7 is set in the mouth of an overly harsh Stoic interlocutor, but one who speaks even closer to home, as the satirist’s own slave Davus. Both Damasippus and Davus expatiate at excessive length, offering harsh and unconstructive criticism at odds with the Epicurean principle of therapeutic frankness. Yona succeeds admirably in his goal of demonstrating the unifying presence of Epicurean philosophical doctrine in Horace’s two books of Sermones. He brings to the discussion of Horatian satire an enviably broad and deeply sophisticated knowledge of Philodemos’ treatises that greatly enriches our appreciation of the ethical dimensions of Horace’s earliest poetry collections. The complexity of Yona’s discussions of individual satires can be daunting, but they are richly rewarding throughout. University of Toronto Alison Keith Ovid's Homer: Authority, Repetition, and Reception. Barbara Weiden Boyd. New York: Oxford University Press. 2017. Pp. 320. Even a cursory glance at Ovid’s vast body of work reveals his career-long fascination with Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are the wellspring of all classical literature. Ovid’s sophisticated interpretations of Homeric characters transform them into complicated denizens of his own poetry, from Penelope writing to her absent husband in Heroides 1 through the entire Iliad boldly miniaturized in Book 13 of the Metamorphoses to Ovid reimagined as Odysseus himself in his laments from exile. As no monograph explicitly devoted to Ovid’s intense and sustained engagement with Homer BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 389 existed prior to Boyd’s book, assuredly it will spur further examination of both these bedrock poets. Boyd’s study is divided into a preface, a brief introduction, and nine chapters. Chapter One, “Starting from Homer,” lays the groundwork, though perhaps it could have been incorporated into the introduction proper. The takeaway is this: “A prominent characteristic of Ovid’s reading and reinterpretation of his [Homeric] models generally speaking is a distinctly contrarian perspective” (36). The poet’s famous playfulness is not only a pose but also a creative strategy of startling complexity. Chapter Two, “Seeing Double: Ovid’s Diomedes,” is a case study, in which Boyd argues that...