Ovid's Fasti Research Articles

The Ancile in Pro Se Defensio

Late in the Defence of Himself against Alexander Morus Milton taunts his opponent with an ill-judged reliance on irrelevant testimony. Morus has quoted the magistrates of Amsterdam as saying that during his conduct of public office there he had committed no disgrace (nihil admisisti). Milton retorts that since Morus had committed outrages before that time, the testimonials can have little weight, despite being ancile tuum.1 While the Columbia editors omit Milton's Latin phrase from their translation (CW 9: 260-61),2 Paul W. Blackford, responsible for the English translation for the Yale Complete Prose Works, renders it “your divinely-sent shield,” without annotating the allusion, but rather incorporating some exegesis into the English phrase (CPW 4.2.: 812). In translating ancile for the forthcoming Volume 7 of the Oxford Complete Works, we considered modernizing ancile as “flak-jacket” or “bullet-proof vest,” before simply retaining ancile, so as to impel the reader into the note which would explain and interpret. The pungent, erudite sarcasm needs it. The ancile was a small figure-of-eight shield used in religious processions. The military battle-shield (scutum) was much stronger and weightier—so Milton's ancile imputes flimsiness or futile decorativeness to Morus's testimony. On the other hand, Blackford's phrasing shows that it had sacred standing. So sacred, indeed, that it was kept safe by the Salii (priests) by being hidden among eleven more such shields “so that if the genuine was lost, the fact could not be known” (Lewis and Short, s. v. ancile). Thus Milton's quip might suggest that Morus is playing for safety by hiding behind the cover-up by a sly priesthood.3 Other ancient references speak of ancilia, plural, heaven-sent protectors which fell from the sky (meteorites?); but their plural makes it more likely that a singular ancile is the thing on Milton's mind. The allusion connotes obfuscation, hocus pocus, and priestly cover-up. The name itself, ancile, is found in Virgil, Livy, Ovid, Lucan, and Tacitus, all mainstream authors for the humanist reader. The thing and its sacred status would be not unfamiliar. The concealment story in particular is told in Ovid's Fasti 3, a work much read and much enjoyed. On the other hand, the full felicity and bite of the image may not be so widely felt. Some readers would register only erudition, impressive perhaps but not endearing. A few might be teased or tantalized into looking the reference up. Many more would recall reading and enjoying the Fasti, and very likely appreciate the quip. So how erudite is Milton being in alluding to the Fasti? How much does he expect of readers? And how much of the denotation and connotation do his readers register, in what is after all a quick parenthesis within its sentence, a mere byblow—and, one might add, coming late in his least-read apologia? Does it show Milton appealing to fellow-readers of standard authors? Or does its obscurity show an involuntary display of erudite verve? In the end, Milton may not have expected it to do much in way of persuasion. He is entertaining those who have read this far (who were certainly not numerous) by indulging an involuntary eruption of his own erudition in the service of sarcastic wit. His selection of Ovid's ancile from among testimony to plurality is apt and acute. Ancile is the conceit of an erudite self.

COMMEMORATING THE SACK OF ROME (1527): ANTIQUITY AND AUTHORITY IN RENAISSANCE POETIC CALENDARS

This paper aims to advance scholarly understanding of the intellectual significance of Ovid'sFastiduring the European Renaissance by examining a number of early modern poetic calendars modelled on the Ovidian poem. Recent studies of Ovid'sFastihave noted that the poem's propensity to contest the meaning of a particular occasion facilitates a sustained examination of the relationship between the past and present of Rome, through which the poet disrupts the reorganization of the Roman calendar by Augustus. This paper suggests that a similarly politically charged operation underpins a number of Renaissancefastipoems. Using these poems’ remembrance of the Sack of Rome (1527) as a case study, this article argues, firstly, that the genre's commemorative function is mobilized competitively by its early modern authors to reflect on the history and status of Rome, particularly the city's role as thecaput mundisince antiquity. Secondly, it will be shown that in the second half of the sixteenth century the genre of calendrical poetry — and Ovid'sFastiin particular — became an important medium through which Renaissance humanists critiqued the nature of power at a time when political and ecclesiastical schisms hardened across Europe.

The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography ed. by Matthew P. Loar et al.

Reviewed by: The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography ed. by Matthew P. Loar et al. Nandini B. Pandey Matthew P. Loar, Sarah C. Murray and Stefano Rebeggiani (eds.). The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xiv, 192. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-108-48060-4. Publishers are invited to submit new books to be reviewed to Professor Michael Arnush, 53 Warren Street, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866; email marnush@skidmore.edu. This edited collection, the product of a 2014 conference at Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway, asks "what the texts in, on, and about the city of Rome tell us about how the ancients thought about, interacted with, and responded to the city during the transition from Republic to Empire" (1). Given the enormity of the topic, this slender volume makes no claim to comprehensive treatment. What it offers, instead, is a high-quality sampling with suggestions for future research (8-9) that will reward anyone interested in responsions between Augustan writing and building. D. S. Levene, in "Monumental Insignificance: The Rhetoric of Roman Topography from Livy's Rome" (chapter 1), identifies conspicuous absences of topographical and monumental detail where we might most expect them in Livy. Levene suggests that the history is "more concerned with giving an impression of a real environment than evoking the actual city of Rome" (20), supplanting the urban environment as a repository of exempla legible to audiences abroad. In "Cicero, quid in alieno saeculo tibi? The 'Republican' Rostra between Caesar and Augustus" (chapter 2), Thomas Biggs compellingly tracks the process by which the Rostra was reimagined as a "pluperfect" "meta-monument" to the lost Republic, thanks to late-Republican physical and performative interventions including the mise-en-scène of Cicero's corpse on a structure bearing Antony's name and Caesar's memory (36). Peter Heslin, in "The Julian Calendar and the Solar Meridian of Augustus: Making Rome Run on Time" (chapter 3), expertly corrects the belief that the obelisk in the Campus Martius was "preordained" to serve as a gnomon within a unified spatial plan "by an all-seeing Augustus" (71). The meridian is better understood as an "afterthought" among ad hoc continuations of Julius Caesar's calendrical reforms, a pharaonic counterpoint to the senatorial Ara Pacis whose conscription into later emperors' building plans has enhanced confusion about the pavement date. Dan-el Padilla Peralta's "Monument Men: Buildings, Inscriptions, and Lexicographers in the Creation of Augustan Rome" (chapter 4) examines the relationship between Augustus' architectural renovation of Rome and the contemporaneous boom in orthography, lexicography, and epigraphy, with special interest in questions of access, antiquarianism, and "how documenting the monument came to involve monumenting the document" (82) within this text-rich environment. In the archaeological first half of chapter 5, "The Porticus Liviae in Ovid's Fasti (6.637-648)," Maddalena Bassani interprets the Porticus Liviae and its shrine to Concordia as a public reclamation of the lavish domus left to Augustus [End Page 357] by Vedius Pollio.1 On the literary side, Francesca Romana Berno analyzes Ovid's response in Fasti 6 as a failed attempt to square criticism of contemporary luxury with praise of "the magnificence of Livia's monuments as testaments to moral sobriety" (116). The Greek ekphrastic epigrams on Myron's Cow have struck many—notably Michael Squire2—as meditations on mimesis itself, not particularly engaged with the statue's spatial context after its likely relocation to Rome among the armenta Myronis that Propertius 2.31 places on the Palatine. In "Greek Poets on the Palatine: A Wild Cow Chase?" (chapter 6), Carolyn MacDonald reads several epigrams against this Augustan landscape as glimpses into an elusive "Greek discourse on the uses and abuses of Greek art in the Caesars' city of marble" (127). Building from the familiar observation that exile splits Ovid into a body that must remain in Tomis and books that may return to Rome, Stephanie Ann Frampton's "Ovid's Two-Body Problem" (chapter 7) analyzes epigraphical intermediality in the exile poetry as part of Ovid's bid to render himself more permanent in the city, notably via Tristia 4...

John Bellenden's Livy and Les Decades of Pierre Bersuire: The French in Bellenden's Scots

When producing a Scots translation of Livy's History of Rome in 1533, John Bellenden harnessed Les Decades, the Middle French translation of Livy prepared by Pierre Bersuire in 1358. The French intermediary offered Bellenden not only a rich store of lexical possibilities when grappling with Livy's Latin, as has been partly recognized before, but also a way of structuring and presenting his translation. Inspired by the glosses with which Bersuire furnished Les Decades, Bellenden prepared his own commentary, explaining similar items of political, cultural, and religious interest. Following Bersuire's example, Bellenden's commentary encouraged the reader to approach Livy's History alongside a series of comparative texts, especially Ovid's Fasti and the Memorabilia of Valerius Maximus. Above all, Bellenden took from Bersuire the urge to understand antiquity, as far as was possible, on its own terms.

Making Time for Ovid: Renaissance Readings of the Fasti (on A. Fritsen, Antiquarian Voices. The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti)

Making Time for Ovid: Renaissance Readings of the Fasti (on A. Fritsen, Antiquarian Voices. The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti)

Antiquarian Voices: The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti by Angela Fritsen

BOOK REVIEWS 254 Antiquarian Voices: The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid’s Fasti. By ANGELA FRITSEN. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Pp. xvi + 240; 10 illustrations. Hardcover, $69.95. ISBN: 978-0-81421284 -4. Angela Fritsen has written a wide-ranging, nicely illustrated study of the reception of Ovid’s Fasti from the 12th to the 15th century. The book concentrates on the 15th -century commentaries of Paolo Marsi (based in Rome and Venice) and Antonio Costanzi (of Fano). It does not attempt to give an impression of what each is like to use or read, nor to assess the contribution that they made to the study of the poem, but rather connects particular passages with intellectual and political movements. This is most engaging in the pages that explore how the early and recent history of Fano and its neighbors has affected Costanzi’s writing (176–86) or the suggestion in the Afterword that Mantegna’s painting The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele at Rome may owe something to the impact of Marsi’s work among the Venetian elite. When scholarly debates are examined there is rarely any attention paid to who is correct, and in no case any suggestion that their interpretation might inform or be superior to the modern vulgate: on 90–2, for example, it is not clear whether Fritsen thinks there might be a case for taking spica Cilissa at Fasti 1.76 as nard (Marsi) rather than saffron (Costanzi, followed by modern commentators). Chapter 1 considers recent scholarship, commentaries written in Orleans in the aetas Ovidiana, and the intriguing problem of the missing books 7–12: Fritsen has mined some rich material on the 12th - and 13th -century reading of the Fasti from Rieker, Engelbrecht and others. Chapter 2 brings out the importance of facts uncovered in commenting on details, whether of ritual or history (48– 50), before discussing the issue of dedicatee (Tiberius or Germanicus?): this neatly illustrates the difficulties such research posed for humanists working before the discovery of Tacitus, Annals 1–6. Chapter 3 explores the function of the Fasti as a site for professional rivalry: the breadth of historical, mythological and religious reference requires serious learning of its commentators. Lecturing brought income and experience, but it also left ideas, and even full sets of notes, open to publication by others. Publication enhanced prestige, but it also committed scholars to claims that others might show to be false. Chapter 4 includes some vivid, if not novel, material on the topographical researches of the humanists, from Petrarch BOOK REVIEWS 255 through Poggio, Ciriaco d’Ancona, Flavio Biondo to Pomponio Leto and the Academy. There is illuminating discussion of Pomponio Leto’s invention of the temple of Apollo and Clatra (138–9), of Marsi’s seeing “what he wanted to see” (141–7), and of the humanists’ desire “to find a Rome that is whole, whether it be through her visual or literary monuments” (134: this is oddly symbolized by William of Malmesbury’s 12th -century report of the supposed discovery of Pallas’ body, with a lamp still burning in the coffin beside his head). In Chapter 5 we find that even the date of Rome’s foundation, the Parilia, was uncertain (158–66): Fritsen apparently misses Lazzarrelli’s mention of the change from 20th to 21st April in the couplets quoted on 166 (hac celebrata die cessere Palilia; nunc te,/ Victor, habet dederat quae sua liba Pali). Despite the book’s attractions, there is, however, a persistent lack of precision and accuracy, especially in the translations. For example, on page 1 AD 8 (the year of exile) is described as the year Ovid began his poem; on page 16 a phrase of William of Orleans (si vero sol ingrederetur ante diem XI Kalendas Aprilis) is translated “if the sun were indeed to enter the zodiac before March 22” instead of “enter on March 22nd ”; the transmitted Palaestinas at 4.236 is taken (page 83) as Marsi’s emendation of the later conjecture palam Stygias; on page 93 Costanzi’s epigram is printed (and translated) in an unmetrical form (f. 9r in the 1502 Epigrammatum Libellus duly reads...

Livy and Augustine as Negative Models in the Legend of Lucrece

Abstract This article considers the Legend of Lucrece alongside the sources Chaucer engages in dialogue, rather than those he appears to translate closely. It suggests that although Chaucer relies primarily on Ovid's Fasti for the language and structure of Lucretia's story, he builds into his legend a sustained response to Livy and Augustine's writings on Lucretia as well. He does so, however, not by translating their words but rather by rejecting their interpretations of Lucretia's tragedy as negative models for his own, enlisting both authors in a discussion of feminine virtue.

A New Reading of the Belvedere Altar

Controversy over the identification of the figures on the Belvedere altar has long hindered consensus about the meaning of this important Augustan monument. Attention has focused on the chariot-riding figure previously identified as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Romulus-Quirinus, Aeneas, or even Agrippa. I argue that references in Ovid's Fasti and the Consolatio ad Liviam, as well as the dedicatory inscription of the altar, suggest this figure depicts Nero Claudius Drusus at his funeral in 9 B.C.E., which was observed by Livia and Gaius and Lucius Caesar. The Belvedere altar advertises Augustus' dynastic ambitions during the early years of his pontificate, revealing the importance of the Claudii Nerones in Augustus' plans to secure his family's place as the preeminent military guardians of Rome. By implicitly associating Drusus' triumphant career with the promise of empire evoked by the appearance of Vesta and the ancient Trojan "pledges of empire" within the domus Augusta, the Belvedere altar represents an early articulation of the divine claims of Augustus' household to monopolize Rome's military responsibilities. The assimilation of divine and human households on the Belvedere altar also parallels the increasing identification of young Augustan princes as living pledges of empire and as new Dioscuri.

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

Talking with goddesses: Ovid's Fasti and Botticelli's Primavera

The many ancient sources of Botticelli's Primavera have long been recognized, among them a passage in Ovid's calendar poem, the Fasti; the painting quotes Ovid's version of a Roman origin legend, the story of Flora. The poem is however more crucial to the development of the imagery than hitherto suspected, in that the Primavera is marked by an intertextual engagement with the poem as a literary work, even at the level of specific rhetorical, expressive, and even ideological functions. A crucial example is apostrophe, a familiar trope involving direct address, often unexpected, on the part of an orator or poet to a relevant figure or personification. In the Fasti,Flora acts as an active presence conversing directly with the poet-as-character, while in the Primavera she challenges the separation of pictorial space and the viewers' space. Further, both painter and poet exploit the legal associations of apostrophe, giving emphasis to a dynamic process of interaction, even contestation. Finally, Botticelli's appeal to Ovid, the poet of exile, is not innocent. Ovid — like Seneca, also an important presence in the Primavera— was recognized in the Renaissance as a symbol of the difficult relationship between intellectuals and power, between culture and the state. The multiple Ovidian resonances of the Primavera raise the issue of the political character of literary and visual art, whether supportive and even propagandistic or, as in the case of Ovid, also subtly skeptical in its relation to authority.

A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 6 (review)

Reviewed by: A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 6 Niklas Holzberg R. Joy Littlewood . A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. lxxxvi, 259. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19927134-4. Littlewood is well known to students of the Fasti, having published between 1975 and 1981, at a time when this work was only seldom an object of literary criticism, excellent analyses of the artistry (structure, narrative technique, variatio of style, intertextuality, and humor) displayed by Ovid in three longish passages from books 2, 4, and 5. This approach, favored in Fasti studies since the mid-eighties and most notably taken by Barchiesi, Hinds, Miller, and Newlands, is combined here in Littlewood's commentary on book 6 with penetrating discussions of two other aspects: religious history (Littlewood's follows the trail, e.g., of Bömer, Frazer, Le Bonniec, Porte, and Schilling) and the Augustan backdrop, an insightful picture of which was first drawn by Herbert-Brown. Her explications are as complex as we could wish them to be, and their place beside those of Fantham for book 4 and Green for book 1 is assured. Littlewood lays the foundation for her commentary with an exhaustive introduction, addressing there the aspects that will be central to her interpretation. She begins by discussing the political situation in Rome during the composition of the Fasti, focusing in particular on the reorganization of religion by Augustus reflected in the text. Littlewood characterizes the work as a mixture of "Greco-Roman literary tradition with contemporary antiquarian knowledge and personal experience" (xli); she names the principal motifs within its unmistakably thematic structure, describes the narrative technique (paying particular attention to Ovid's adaptation of narratives from Livy), and closes with a short chapter on the text (Littlewood uses, with few deviations, the Alton/Wormell/Courtney edition, 4th ed. [Leipzig 1997]). [End Page 259] In the headnotes for the separate sections, and passim in entries on specific verses, the aspects introduced in Littlewood's preliminaries are then considered in greater depth or supplemented with further information (Littlewood refers, for example, only ad loc. to the influence of didactic poetry). On the whole, her entries read more like portions of a continuous interpretation than typical commentary notes, which tend to drift into not strictly pertinent areas. Littlewood never forgets the priorities defined at the outset. She thus demonstrates convincingly that in book 6, which Ovid drafted in exile as clearly the last (for now? for ever?) within a structural unit, he creates an antithesis between the theme "war" introduced in the proem (by Juno and Iuventas) and that of "peace" in book 1. And she highlights again and again the elegist's humorous handling of his material, doubtless correct in her assumption that, when Ovid slips an erotic double entendre or two into a Roman myth (in 436–460, for instance, Vesta is "on fire" and so Metellus "penetrates" the sanctuary: see pp. 137–40), he is not being subversive, but simply offering a contemporary audience, Augustus included, something as funny as it is clever. One minor quibble: Littlewood skirts round knotty language problems. Should a commentary not steer readers through difficult, not immediately comprehensible passages (and there are some in Ovid, too), presenting a carefully reasoned translation? Littlewood heads the various sections of Fasti 6 with paraphrases which stick closely to the Latin wording, but good, literal translations might have been the wiser choice. She does occasionally render a verse into English, but not always very well (or does she really think that 15f. quas Priamides . . . contulit, for example, means "whom the son of Priam . . . encountered?"), and in rare glances at the meaning of a word or phrase, she invariably refers us not to the TLL, but to the OLD. But Littlewood more than compensates with countless brilliant observations on Ovid's consummate style, particularly where he himself dazzles with sound-play and nifty word-order (cf. esp. 110–11 on 341–342). These contributions alone will make Littlewood's commentary an indispensable tool for readers of the Fasti. If they can afford it, that is. A paperback edition soon please, publisher! Niklas Holzberg University of Munich Copyright © 2008...

Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult (review)

Reviewed by: Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult Jerzy Linderski Roger D. Woodard . Indo-European Sacred Space: Vedic and Roman Cult. Traditions. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. xiv + 296 pp. Cloth, $50. In all cultures gods claim possessions on Earth. Two divine realms stand out: time and space. A perceptive scholar aptly described the religious feasts, in Rome the feriae and dies festi, as "temporal possession of gods" (Jörg Rüpke, Kalender und Öffentlichkeit: Die Geschichte der Repräsentation und religiösen Qualifikation von Zeit in Rom [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995], 492). Divine space manifested itself in Rome in two distinct forms: there were places (loca) that were sacred (sacra), places that were holy (sancta), and places that were both sacred and holy (on this distinction, see more below). Roman cult of the period illuminated by literature and monuments was a confluence of Indo-European inheritance, Etruscan and Greek elements, and home-grown Italic, Latin, and Roman innovations. The Indian component of the Indo-European tradition has been brought into prominence by the voluminous publications of Georges Dumézil and his theory of the tri-functional Proto-Indo-European society: the three spheres were those of worship and legal writ, war, and work, with the classes of priests/governors, warriors, and producers and with the corresponding patron deities. In India we have Mitra and Varuna, Indra, and the As;vins and the castes of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, and wayśya. Georges Dumézil demonstrated great ingenuity in applying this Indian scheme to Rome; see especially his summa, Archaic Roman Religion (English trans.: Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). This theory has captivated many, especially among the linguists and popularizers; Woodard is its ardent supporter. Students of Roman history and religion following the lead of Arnaldo Momigliano (and the indologist Jan Gonda) have been generally cautious; see recently Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome I: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 14–16: while granting that "Dumézil's work has prompted much useful discussion about individual festivals or areas of worship in Rome," they do not find any compelling evidence for his overarching scheme and observe that all this "theorizing shows us once more how powerful in accounts of early Roman religion is the mystique of origins and schemata" (cf. in a similar vein, but concerning archaic Rome in general and in particular the views of Kurt Latte, Jerzy Linderski, Roman Questions II [Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007], 31–33, 595–96). Woodard has made his name with studies in Greek and Indo-European linguistics; his previous forays into the realm of Roman religion were the notes to the Penguin translation of Ovid's Fasti (2000) and a piece on "The Disruption [End Page 125] of Time in Myth and Epic" (Arethusa 35 [2002]: 83–98). The current book is to a great extent a measured polemic against skeptics and unbelievers, but Woodard's ultimate goal is more ambitious: his objective is not only to present a clear summary of Dumézil's arguments but also "to jump forward from that Dumézilian platform and to offer a new understanding of Roman and . . . primitive Indo-European religious structures and phenomena," an understanding which "differs appreciably from Dumézil's own interpretations" (ix). The book consists of five chapters. Here is a synopsis: I. "The Minor Capitoline Triad" (1–58). In the Capitoline temple built by Tarquinius Superbus, the reigning triad was that of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Now there were in Rome fifteen priests called flamines, three of whom were Maiores: the priests of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus—Flamen Dialis, Martialis, and Quirinalis. That here we have before us another, earlier triad was already recognized by Georg Wissowa (Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2d ed. [Munich: C.H. Beck, 1912], 154); for Dumézil and Woodard this is the prime exhibit of the original trifunctional scheme of law and religion, war, and production/fecundity. But Woodard discovers still another minor triad. Before Jupiter's temple was built, various deities had inhabited the hill. Two of them, Juventas and Terminus, despite all the religious ceremonies and entreaties, refused to relocate, and...

Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium (review)

Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium (review)

A commentary on Ovid: Fasti book VI

INTRODUCTION 1. Ovid's Fasti in its historical context 2. Augustus' reorganization of Roman religion and its impact on Fasti VI 3. Genre and antiquarianism 4. Themes 5. Ovid's narrative technique 6. Ovid's debt to Livy in Fasti 6 7. The text LIST OF ALTERNATIVE READINGS STRUCTURAL OUTLINE OF OVID'S CALENDAR FOR JUNE COMMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Desiring Rome: male subjectivity and reading Ovid's Fasti

Desiring Rome: male subjectivity and reading Ovid's Fasti

Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium (review)

Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium (review)

Ovid's "Fasti": Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium

1. martial Arts: Mars Ultor in the Forum Augustum a verbal monument 2. The Fasti as a Source for Women's Participation in the Roman Cult 3. Vaga Signa: Orion and Sirius in Ovid's Fasti 4. Varro's Three Theologies and their Influence on the Fasti 5. Ovid and the Stellar Calendar 6. Seen, Not heard: feminea lingua in Ovid's Fasti and the critical gaze 7. Representing the Great Mother to Augustus 8. Imperii Pignora Certa: the role of Numa in Ovid's Fasti 9. Ovid's Liberalia 10. Contesting Time and Space: Fasti 6. 637-48 11. Added Days: calendrical Poetics and the Julio-Claudian Holidays 12. Ovid and the Stage

The Hag and the Household Gods: Silence, Speech, and the Family in Mid‐February (OvidFasti2.533–638)

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Hag and the Household Gods: Silence, Speech, and the Family in Mid‐February (Ovid Fasti 2.533–638)Christopher Michael McDonoughChristopher Michael McDonoughUniversity of the South Search for more articles by this author University of the SouthPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 99, Number 4October 2004 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/429941 Views: 70Total views on this site [© 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Playing with marble: the monuments of the Caesars in Ovid’s Fasti

Playing with marble: the monuments of the Caesars in Ovid’s <i>Fasti</i>

Male Homosocial Readership and the Dedication of Ovid's Fasti

In dedicating his Fasti from exile (F. 1.1-26), Ovid longed for Rome's male-dominated literary culture, where audience response to the recitation of works-in-progress guided composition. Such a desire for alternating cooperation and competition among men drives the poet to construct Germanicus, a popular warrior-prince, as an ideal male adviser and literary guide. Shifting erotic and military metaphors in the dedication and in subsequent prefaces position both the author and his unfinished poem-in-progress as passive objects of the potentially active, editorial desire for a Roman male readership. Analysis begins with Eve Sedgwick's notion of male homosocial desire, but illuminates a concept of a feminized and eroticized elegiac text.