Ovid in Augustan Tomis

v d n t n T

T. r H ndr n

Syllecta Classica, Volume 25, 2014, pp. 59-77 (Article)

P bl h d b D p rt nt f l , n v r t f DOI: 10.1353/syl.2014.0002

For additional information about this article

Access provided by University of Chicago (27 May 2015 14:52 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/syl/summary/v025/25.hendren.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/syl/summary/v025/25.hendren.html

SYLLECTA CLASSICA 25 (2014): 59–77

OVID IN AUGUSTAN TOMIS

T. George Hendren

ABSTRACT: Ovid enacts his own poetic biography in his letters from Tomis, with implications for his ostensibly fawning position towards the princeps. Ovidian seafaring language in Tristia 1 recre-ates the circumstances under which carmina led to relegatio, while his resurrection of the Hero and Leander myth (Tr. 3.10 from Heroides 18 and 19) reflects the impossibility of his pre-exilic themes being continued in Tomis. Such a focus on the intersection between poetry and reality necessitates a reconsideration of Ovid’s Augustus, and renders the poet’s encomium at P. 4.13 a condemnation of the emperor as little more than a malus interpres.*

Until the twentieth century many scholars were content to take Ovid at his word and reject the exilic epistles as sycophantic, redundant complaint: a major break from his contemporary intellectual triumph, the Metamorphoses, or the irreverent wit of the Ars Amatoria. Defeated by exile, readers assumed, Ovid’s ingenium withered along with his lin-guistic agility. Nothing could be further from the truth. While scholars today are right to recast Ovid’s exilic works as a literary response to rel-egatio, they do so not without interpretive difficulty: why such emphatic self-deprecation?1 Why blur the lines between exilic fact and fiction,2 between poetic genius and imperial toady?3 Although these pages offer * I owe many thanks to the careful and thoughtful comments of an anonymous referee. Any remaining errores are of course my own.1 On the sincerity or insincerity of Ovid’s self-deprecation see esp. Luck 243–61; Kenney; Claassen (1986, 53–273); Nagle; Williams 50–99; Green 350; Stevens. Contemporary consensus summarized by Green (vii–xii) accounts for Ovid’s continued stylistic mastery in Tomis, and confronts the subsequent “ambiguity” of his exilic verse.

2 Gareth Williams (2) considers Ovid’s “large scale deception” in detail.

3 Augustus is frequently deified in the exilic poems (Ovid is one of the earliest poets to make this claim outright) or compared with any number of epic or historic heroes

60 SYLLECTA CLASSICA 25 (2014)

no complete answer to such foundational issues in Ovidian scholarship, a few examples of otherwise undocumented Ovidian wit, with special attention to his misrepresentation of the Pontic environment and the local Tomitans,4 may nevertheless elucidate two familiar yet problem-atic points: first, how the poet’s insincerity in his self-deprecation (with reference to the poetic act) is programmatic for the Tristia and ex Ponto, and second, the impact of this insincerity on his professed subservience to Augustus and the imperial family.

I. POETA AS MATERIA

From the outset of his exile Ovid connects the world of Tomis and the Black Sea with his poetic output on the negativity of exile. Tristia 1.1 and 1.11 highlight this strategy in programmatic positions that resonate throughout the exilic poems. In Tristia 1.1, Ovid speculates on the addition of his personal history to the Metamorphoses:

sunt quoque mutatae, ter quinque uolumina, formae, nuper ab exequiis carmina rapta meis. his mando dicas, inter mutata referri fortunae uultum corpora posse meae, 120 namque ea dissimilis subito est effecta priori, flendaque nunc, aliquo tempore laeta fuit.

(e.g. Achilles and Alexander the Great in Tr. 3.5), encomium befitting a Hellenistic monarch, but not a Roman princeps; cf. Theoc. Idyll 17 on Ptolemy Philadelphus (r. 285–247 BCE). For Hellenismus as a major aspect of Roman culture in the late republic, see Zanker 5–32; cf. Galinsky 5. For ante mortem deification of Augustus see Clauss; Gradel (109–11), who points out that Ovid’s trailblazing deification of the emperor, as well as other private religious images of Augustus, must be treated differently from state sanctioned worship and imperial cult, which did not exist during Augustus’ lifetime.

4 On Ovid’s distortion of Tomis and the Pontic world, see Claassen (1999) 190–98, esp. 190: “These details are purposely fantastic and have little if any relation to physical reality. They represent the externalization of internal misery, and are not the causes of that misery.” See also Williams (26–34) on P. 1.8, who argues that Rome forms an intellectual, rural-urban paradise, and Tomis is a backward hell (Stygias, 27); cf. the lack of intellectual pursuits and companionship in Tomis in, e.g. Tr. 3.14.37–40 and 4.1.89–90. See also Stevens, for whom Ovid’s depictions of Tomis are again linguistic reversals of Roman geography.

HENDREN: OVID IN AUGUSTAN TOMIS 61

Also there are three times five rolls on changed forms, songs recently snatched from my funeral. I ask you to tell them that the visage of my fate can now be added into those changed bodies, for suddenly it was made something different from before, at one time happy, now woeful.5

Ovid’s condemnation, his journey into exile, and his experience therein become materia for poetic composition: as with the characters of his Metamorphoses, Ovid has undergone a tragic transformation. Likewise, in Tristia 1.11 Ovid claims that he wrote while he was sailing, and that sailing had an impact on his compositional act, represented by pages that are stained with seawater (saepe maris pars intus erat; tamen ipse trementi / carmina ducebam qualiacumque manu, “often part of the sea was on my ship and I was writing whatever verses I could with a trembling hand,” Tr. 1.11.17–18). The physical impact of seawater on his page connects the act of sailing with his act of writing verse about sailing. Elsewhere Ovid employs similar language to conflate his miser-able state with the style and theme of his narrative when his pages are portrayed as blotched with tears in important passages from Tristia 1.1 and 3.1. Just as the reader can find the stains of teardrops (liturarum, 1.1.13; lituras 3.1.15; cf. 4.1.95–6) on Ovid’s pages, a reference to the immense sorrow found in his poetry, so too are they sprayed with seawa-ter (caeruleis charta feritur aquis, 1.11.40), bearing the marks of Ovid’s exilic voyage. Sailing imagery has long been recognized as a common metaphor for the poetic act, one especially frequent in Ovid’s other works. Here, however, it must not be disregarded as generic or expected. Instead, I argue, this conflation of poetry and reality acts within a larger paradigm that connects poetry with reality and transforms Ovid’s exilic journey and the world of Pontus into manifestations of his verse: en route to Tomis his verse is daring and novel. From the Pontic shore his poetry deteriorates into provincial panegyric, losing its pre-exilic genius, and eventually the Latin language.

II.THE PATHS TO TOMIS: SAILING AND POETRY

As suggested above, Ovid presented his composition of poetry on the way to Tomis as an enactment of what had become a popular poetic

5 Translations are my own unless otherwise noted; the Latin text is that of Owen.


device in the late republic and early empire: the use of sailing language as a metaphor for the poetic act. In doing so, he also participated in a tradition that connected his poetry to the voyage of the Argo,6 thus emphasizing the novelty of his poetic act.7 Catullus drew heavily on the Argonautica for his poem 64, providing an earlier example of the type of the themes upon which Ovid relied as well as the vocabulary crucial to Ovid’s self-fashioning:

Peliaco quondam prognatae uertice pinus dicuntur liquidas Neptuni nasse per undas Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeeteos, cum lecti iuuenes, Argiuae robora pubis, auratam optantes Colchis auertere pellem 5 ausi sunt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi, caerula uerrentes abiegnis aequora palmis. diua quibus retinens in summis urbibus arces ipsa leui fecit uolitantem flamine currum, pinea coniungens inflexae texta carinae. 10 illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten; quae simul ac rostro uentosum proscidit aequor

They say that pine trees born atop Pelion once sailed through the flowing waters of Neptune to the Phasian waves and the borders of Aeëtes, when select young men, the strength of the Argive youth, desiring to snatch the golden fleece from Colchis, dared to rush over salt waves in a swift ship, brushing the deep-blue seas with palm wood oars. The goddess who looks over citadels in the high

6 The Odyssey also figures prominently in Ovid’s exilic epistles, esp. in Tr. 1: see Rahn (1958); Evans 34–6, 40; Claassen (1999) 68–72; Ingleheart (2006) and (2010); McGowan 169–202.

7 The primacy of the Argo’s voyage to Pontus is evidenced at P. 3.1.1: aequor Iasonio pulsatum remige primum (“sea first struck by the Jason’s oars…”); cf. Met. 6.719–21: ergo ubi concessit tempus puerile iuuentae, / uellera cum Minyis nitido radiantia uillo / per mare non notum prima petiere carina, “And so when childhood ended they they sought out the brilliant pelt, with shiny fur, along with the Minyans, on a ship through the unknown sea,” and Od. 12.69–72, in which the Argo is described as “known to all” (πᾶσι μέλουσα, 70), an important comment not only on the primacy of the myth (for the epithet to make sense it must be thought to predate the Odyssey), but also on the popularity of that epic tradition; see Heubeck and Hoekstra 2.121; West; Harrison 3. Cf. Tib. 1.3.35–50, on the end of the golden age and the beginning of martial epic with the sailing of the Argo.


cities herself made the craft, which would fly under a gentle breeze, joining together the worked pine beams of the curved ship. That boat first touched the youthful sea with its course. As soon as it carved the windy sea with its bow…

Stephen Harrison (3–4) argues that these references to the Argonautica extend beyond shared plot. Catullus’ epyllion is so unique in the his-tory of Latin literature that it rewrites the book on epic, with a nod to Hellenistic compositional aesthetics, making his contribution at least as important as the institution of the genre itself, as embodied in the Argo myth. The language and themes recall that of Pindar and Callimachus, first through emphasis on the vessel itself, and second on the seafaring path of the ship. Pindar focuses on his own poetic vessel, whether ship (P. 11.39; N. 3.26–7; O. 13.49) or chariot (O. 9.81; I. 2.2). In Catullus currum (“chariot,” 64.9) can function as a poetic expression for a boat (OLD 2). Harrison groups currum with decurrere (6) and cursu (11), both of which recall the progress of poetry or prose.8 Catullus’ cursu (11) over the sea (aequora, 7 and aequor, 12) suggests Apollo’s warning in the Aetia that the poet should stick to untried paths (ἑτέρων ἴχνια μὴ καθ’ ὁμά / δίφρον ἐλᾶν, 1.26–7 Pf.), and the god’s estimation of the immensity of epic (“things as great as the ocean,” ὅσα πόντος, Hymn 2.106 Pf., or “the flow of the Assyrian river,” ’Ἀσσυρίου ποταμοῖο…ῥόος, Hymn 2.108 Pf.). Finally the plowing motion of proscidit (12) can also be used in poetic fashion to refer to the composition of verse. Plowing in general was related both to the act of writing9 as well as

8 Cf. the usage to “read through” in Quin. 9.2.48, 10.3.17; Plin.7.16.15; or “to sing” in Stat. Silv. 5.3.149: equum pugnasque uirum decurrere uersu, which must be related to the passage Harrison (4) cites from Hor. Sat. 1.10.1: incomposito dixi pede currere uersus.

9 Of plowing: Lucr. 5.209; Var. R. R. 1.10.1, 27.2, 29.2; Verg. G. 2.237; of writing: Cic. Att. 12.1, 13.38, 16.6; Fam. 9.26, 12.20; cf. Tr. 3.7.1–2 (which may refer to either writing or versification); of composing verse: Prop. 3.5.19: me iuuat in prima coluisse Helicona iuuenta, “it was helpful for me to cultivate Helicon, in my first youth,” i.e. to compose poetry, cf. P. 4.2.11–12; of satirical or defamatory verse: P. 4.16.47; Suet. Aug. 13, Calig. 30. Ingleheart (2010) 274 notes that verbs of plowing are used for writing in the early fragments of Roman Comedy: Atta Com. 13; Tintin. Com. 160; cf. Mart. 4.86.12: inuersa pueris arande charta.


sailing,10 making it the perfect verb for connecting the two disparate images.11 As participant in this tradition Ovid etymologically links his place of exile, Tomis, with the Greek τόμη in Tristia 3.9, a figura etymologica that connects his alternating usage of cutting and plowing verbs for sailing and writing, and one which emphasizes the author’s overlap between exile and poetry. Finally, the Argonauts “dared” (ausi sunt, 6) to set out over the sea, a concept that aligns the literary danger inherent in novel poetic composition with the actual danger of the Argo’s voyage.12 Ovid, however, can claim a second level of novelty for his verse: not only did the poetic epistles from exile fulfill the metaphoric emphasis on innova-tion inherent in the Argo myth (since Ovid claimed to have invented the genre), but in making the trip to Tomis Ovid became the first poet to enact the metaphor as well. Ovid’s accomplishment in the exile poetry, and a major response to the emperor’s ostensible justification for his exile (his poetry), was the ability to transform exile itself and his exilic prison into original work of the highest quality. In this regard Ovid expands on the diction and poetic imagery of sailing found in previous Augustan poets through the addition of his own actual experience. That is, he risks the danger of new poetic composition when he dares to compose poetry in exile, not only for its literary novelty, or for the elegiac couplets that sent him into exile in the first place, but also because he physically made the journey to Tomis. Ovid’s presentation of the journey in this way constitutes multi-faceted self-aggrandizement that contradicts the defeated narrative tone of the exilic epistles and ironizes his groveling addresses to Augustus and the imperial family. His reliance on the Argo myth in the first book of the Tristia, especially poems 1.1 and 1.10, corroborates this conclusion. Although Tristia 1.10 purports to be a geographic description of Ovid’s journey to Tomis, a close reading reveals veiled references to the Argo myth. The poem opens with a prayer to Minerva:

10 Aen. 2.780; Am. 2.10.33; Met. 4.707.

11 Cf. the similar use of “plowing” or “cutting” verbs in Greek poetry: Od. 2.434; Ibycus fr. S223a PMG: βαθὺν ἀέρα τάμνων; Pindar, Pyth. 6.1–4, Nem. 6.33; Call. fr. 399 Pf., fr. 572 Pf.; Apollon. 1.1167, 2.332–33, 660–68, 774–5, 4.225–6, 980; Prat. fr. 712 PMG.

12 Pind. P. 10.51–2; cf. Prop. 1.17.


est mihi sitque, precor, flauae tutela Mineruae, nauis et a picta casside nomen habet. siue opus est uelis, minimam bene currit ad auram, siue opus est remo, remige carpit iter.

As there is now, may there ever be, for me, I pray, blonde Minerva’s protection, and my ship bears her name from her painted helm. Whether she needs sails, she runs well under the slightest breeze, or if it’s the oar that’s needed, the rowers rush her journey onward.

While Ovid’s ship is not only blessed and protected by Minerva, famous for her governance of Odysseus and Telemachus in the Odyssey,13 its very construction is a testament to her influence: the Latin tutela can refer to the intangible protection provided by a deity as well as the actual image of the god or goddess attached to the bow of a ship. These lines connect the poetics of Tristia 1 with the primary sea-voyage of the Argo: both Ovid’s vessel and that of the Argonauts were constructed under the protection of Minerva14 and both undertook a novel and dangerous endeavor. Because Tristia 1.11 forms an epilogue to the first book in which Ovid describes the circumstances of composition for the previous ten poems (1.11.1–2) and directly addresses his poetic audience, rather than a hidden addressee (candide lector, 1.11.35), poem 1.10 completes the action of the first book. The opening of the poem also includes a direct reference to the Argonautica:

nec comites uolucri contenta est uincere cursu, 5 occupat egressas quamlibet ante rates, fert pariter flatus atque assilientia longe aequora, nec saeuis uicta fatiscit aquis.

13 Rahn considers these lines evidence for his Odysseus-Rolle (115–118). Although right in assigning them to Ovid’s self-glorifying comparisons with Odysseus, he misses the key references to Minerva’s role in the construction of the Argo, and thus the double-headed comparison: Minerva protects Ovid/Odysseus as a character, but also oversees Ovid’s exilic poetry and his Argonautic/Odyssean journey. Cf. Nagle 166, on the evidence for Ovid’s special relationship with Minerva: he was born on the day of her festival, the Quinquatrus (Tr. 4.10.13–14) and invokes her as if a muse (Tr. 3.14.13–14).

14 Ap. Rhod. 1.109; cf. Tr. 3.9.7, on the Argo: nam rate, quae cura pugnacis facta Mineruae.


illa, Corinthiacis primum mihi cognita Cenchreis, fida manet trepidae duxque comesque fugae, 10 perque tot et uentos et iniquis concita uentis aequora Palladio munere tuta fugit.

Neither is she [the Minerva] content to defeat her companions with her swift course, but she overtakes other ships no matter how much earlier they set out, and equally she bears the blow-ing winds and the dashing waves, nor does she grow weary, defeated by savage waters. She, first known to me in Corinthian Cenchreae, remained faithful as both leader and companion in fearful flight, safe by the gift of Minerva through so many winds and waves stirred up by hated gales.

The Minerva (Ovid’s ship) acts as code for his poetry and as such it outstrips (uincere, 5) other “vessels” on similar paths (contemporary poets), even those that set out earlier (egressas…ante rates, his Latin and Greek predecessors). She is also unaffected by the dangers of the sea (7–8), a double edged reference both to the versatility of his poetry, which was suited to any theme15 as well as to the unpredictable nature of individual fortune, poignant given Ovid’s circumstances.16 Finally, the Minerva was Ovid’s leader and companion in exile (trepidae duxque comesque fugae, 10) and his source of safety (tutela, 1.10.1; tuta, 12). The protective guidance of his ship intersects with Ovid’s own confessions as to the nature of his poetry: that he wrote for utilitas,17 that is, to forget his misery. Just as Ovid’s ship had the power to protect him from the dangers of a long journey at sea, his poetry can soften the misery of exile to Tomis. Taken together, the entire encomium of Ovid’s ship stands as

15 Cf. the timidae nauis of the Fasti (1.3–4) or Propertius’ paruula cumba (1.11.10).

16 On the danger of seafaring in Latin elegy (metaphoric or otherwise), see Prop. 1.17; 2.25; Tib.3.7.173, 193–7. For the exilic letters these images unify references to the poet’s dangerous journey to Tomis, his own political downfall, and his aversion to writing new poetry; see Tr. 1.5.35–6, 1.6.7–8, 2.99–102; P. 1.2.59–60, 1.5.39–42, 1.6.33–4, 2.2.126; Cucchiarelli; Tola.

17 Ovid’s Muse is likewise his dux et comes at Tr. 4.10.119. Utilitas: Tr. 4.1.7–14; P. 1.5.55–8; 3.9.55–6. Ovid also claims to write for his own gloria and that of his addressees: Tr. 1.6.33; 3.7.49–52; 4.10.129–30; 5.1.23–4; P. 2.6. For the origin of these themes in erotic elegy and their usage in Ovid’s exilic poetry, see Stroh 235–49, 250–53, 262–63; Nagle 71–80.


an extended praise for his own verse,18 which, like the unprecedented voyage of the Argo, travels an unknown and dangerous path, ultimately to the benefit of its pilot. In addition to the protection afforded by Minerva for both the Argonauts and Ovid, the author’s geographic list recalls the Argonautica three times. The passing mention of Sestos, Abydos, and Dardania begins the list of places visited by the Minerva on her lonely trip,19 which, coupled with the Helle myth (quodque per angustas uectae male uirginis undas, 27), form a familiar set of geographic and mythic iden-tifiers for the Hellespont region: et te, ruricola, Lampsace tuta, deo, / quodque per angustas uectae male uirginis undas / Seston Abydena separat urbe fretum, “…[the Minerva sailed through] even you Lampsacus, protected by the rural deity, and even through the narrow waves of the girl borne with such uncertainty, those waves that separate Sestos from the city of Abydos” (Tr. 1.10.26–28). From there Ovid continues on to Cyzicus, where he is careful to emphasize the island’s founda-tion myth (Cyzicon, Haemoniae nobile gentis opus, 30). The Argonauts made just the same journey, in the same order, and within the same passage: through the Hellespont: specifically past Abydos and Dardania (Δαρδανίην δὲ λιπόντες ἐπιπροσέβαλλον Ἀβύδῳ, 1.931; the Hel-lespont, 1.935) finally arriving at Cyzicus. There, an extended stay by the Argonauts (1.936–1078) resulted in the tragic death of the city’s eponymous founder.20 Following the Argonauts, the Minerva next passes safely through the Cyaneae (transeat instabilis strenua Cyaneas, 1.10.34), beyond Thynia and “Apollo’s city.” While Thynia may be

18 For the poet’s association between Minerva and his verse, see also Tr. 3.14.13–14: Palladis exemplo de me sine matre creata / carmina sunt; stirps haec progeniesque mea est, “by the example of Pallas my poetry was created from me without a mother; / this is my lineage and my family.”

19 Ovid chose a land route from Thrace to Tomis: nam mihi Bistonios placuit pede carpere campos, Tr. 1.10.23.

20 Cyzicus is called “son of Aeneus” (ἐν δ’ ἥρως Ἀἰνήιος υἱὸς ἄνασσε / Κύζικος, Arg. 1.948–9), who himself may have been among the Argonauts, though this is not the case in Apollonius’ account. For a list of the Argonauts see Apollon. 1.32–228; Apollod. 1.9.16; Hyg. Fab. 14.


a veiled reference to the famous prophet of Argonautica 2, Phineas,21 the mention of the Cyaneae and Apollo are surely meant to echo the opening lines of the Argonautica (1.1–4): Ἀρχόμενος σέο Φοῖβε παλαιγενέων κλέα φωτῶν μνήσομαι οἳ Πόντοιο κατὰ στόμα καὶ διὰ πέτρας Κυανέας βασιλῆος ἐφημοσύνῃ Πελίαο χρύσειον μετὰ κῶας ἐύζυγον ἤλασαν Ἀργώ.

I begin with you, Phoebus, as I recall the famous deeds of ancient-born men, who at the command of King Pelias, through the mouth of the Pontus and past the Cyanean rocks drove the well-benched Argo after the Golden Fleece.

Ovid situates his journey to Tomis within the world of a pre-Odyssean poetic tradition. Just as Ovid’s ship, the Minerva, sails through the physical landscape of the Pontus region, so too does his poetry venture through original themes similar to that of the Argonautica tradition, placing Ovid’s own verse alongside the origins of Greek and Latin poetry. To emphasize his self-association with the Argonautica and to balance his prayer to Minerva, with which he opens the poem, Ovid closes Tristia 1.10 with a prayer to two of the more famous Argonauts, Castor and Pollux:

haec si contigerint, meritae cadet agna Mineruae: non facit ad nostras hostia maior opes. uos quoque, Tyndaridae, quos haec colit insula, fratres, 45 mite, precor, duplici numen adeste uiae. altera namque parat Symplegadas ire per artas, scindere Bistonias altera puppis aquas. uos facite ut uentos, loca cum diuersa petamus, illa suos habeat, nec minus illa suos. 50

If these things happen, rightly a lamb will die for Minerva: a greater victim won’t do in my current situation. And you also, brothers Castor and Pollux, whom this island cultivates, I pray be present, gentle divine power, for our double journey! For one ship is ready to go through the narrow Symplegades, and the other to plow the Bistonian waves. You see to it that, although we seek out different places, the one has its own winds, no less than the other.

21 Part of Bithynia, named for Thynus, son of Phineas, who figures prominently in Arg. 2.178–528.


He prays that they may favor both his ships (literary and physical) whether they pass through the Symplegadae (parat Symplegadas ire per artas, 47), a further reference to the Argo myth, or “cleave” the Bistonian seas (scindere Bistonias… aquas, 48), where the verb scindere shares its semantic range with verbs of plowing that reflect the act of writing.22

III. OVID’S PONTIC PRISON

Ovid extends the metaphoric paradigm that linked sailing and poetry to include his time spent imprisoned in Tomis: just as poetry and sailing brought him to relegatio and Tomis, the physical landscape of Tomis, a reflection of the emperor’s exilic sentence, renders his pre-exilic poetry impossible. Such a connection between Ovid’s actual relegatio and exile as an impediment to the composition of poetry must have been at work in Tristia 3.10:

si tibi tale fretum quondam, Leandre, fuisset, non foret angustae mors tua crimen aquae.

tum neque se pandi possunt delphines in auras tollere conantes dura coercet hiems et quamuis Boreas iactatis insonet alis, 45 fluctus in obsesso gurgite nullus erit; inclusaeque gelu stabunt in marmore puppes, nec poterit rigidas findere remus aquas. uidimus in glacie pisces haerere ligatos, sed pars ex illis tum quoque uiua fuit. 50

If such a sea was once yours, Leander, your death would not have been the crime born by those straits. Then dolphins would not be able to throw themselves into the breeze; hard winter would hold them back in their attempt; and although Boreas would shriek with beating wings, there would be no wave in the besieged waters; and ships would stand enclosed in frozen marble, nor would oars be able to break the solid water. I’ve seen fish bound up and stuck in the ice and some of them even then still alive.

22 As with verbs of plowing in other Greek and Roman authors (see note 9 above), Ovid employs verbs of cutting for both sailing (Met. 7.1; Tr. 5.2.61–2) and writing; see, e.g. caedo at Tr. 3.3.71–2: quosque legat uersus oculo properante uiator, / grandibus in tumuli marmore caede notis, “in the marble tomb carve these words, in huge letters, which the traveler may read with a swift eye;” cf. the metaphorical use of aratur at Tr. 2.327.


The Hero and Leader myth, replayed from Ovid’s Heroides 18 and 19, becomes almost absurd in exile: Leander could simply walk over the ice to his lover every night, rather than having to swim across the dangerous Hellespont, if only they had lived further north. The reference to Ovid’s earlier work however (another set of novel poetic epistles, the Heroides), contains an undercurrent of impossibility. The nature of the sea has been perverted in Tomis: dolphins cannot jump out of the sea,23 and the surface of the water itself stands motionless. This imagery recalls Ovid’s effective use of adynata to emphasize the pathos of his exile: impossible terrors have become reality in Tomis, and as such the sea is more like the land (Claassen 1999, 231–33). The entire Hero and Leander poem would have been impossible to write in exile: the Pontic environment would have foiled Ovid’s otherwise fecund ingenium had he attempted to compose the Heroides from exile. To complete the reference to his poetic act, Ovid ends his allusion to Hero and Leander with a return to the imagery and language that connects sailing with the composition of poetry, both of which are now impossible: Ovid’s poetic ships stand motionless, locked in ice (inclusaeque gelu stabunt in marmore puppes, 3.10.47). As with his journey into exile, this mixture of the metaphorical subtext with the implied (though probably exaggerated) reality of his exile compounds the poem’s pathos and highlights its author’s genius against the backdrop of his unique experience. The Getic and Sarmatian barbarians that inhabit Ovid’s Tomitan landscape24 form a second facet of his exilic geography. Like the Pon-tic landscape the Tomitans themselves reject Ovid’s refined pre-exilic Latin poetics and encourage a new, loathsome encomiastic style. In the conceptual universe of Ovid’s exile this Tomitan style mirrors the emperor’s declaration of relegatio on account of the Ars Amatoria. The local condemnation of Ovidian verse and the subsequent celebration of imperial praise poetry in ex Ponto 4.14 project the poet’s historical relationship with the emperor onto his fictitious relationship with the

23 A possible reference to the impossible realities of Ovid’s own flood at Met. 1.293–312 (esp. 301–3).

24 Ovid is careful to characterize his place of exile as dominated by barbaric tribes in terms of ethnography and language (see esp. Tr. 5.10, but also Tr. 5.2.64–71, 5.7.9–12; cf. Strabo 7.3.11–12), despite the alleged Greek colonization (Tr. 3.9.1–4). Their characteristic violence can be found throughout the exilic letters: Tr. 3.14.41–2, 5.2.64–71, 5.7.13–20; P. 2.7.1–2, 2.8.69, 4.8.83–4; Ibis 537–38.


locals, and subtly imply that Augustus was the head of an intellectually bankrupt imperial machine. As a case study, ex Ponto 4.14 reveals Ovid’s tacit connection between emperor and barbarian. In his second letter to the learned critic Tuticanus Ovid explains that, just as poetry once caused his downfall in Rome, so too has it harmed him in Tomis (4.14.15–20). He even includes the sailing imagery that previously connected his physical journey to Tomis to the poetry that landed him in exile (4.14.21–2). His subsequent self-association with Metrodorus of Scepsis renders his relationship with the Tomitans a microcosm of his stance toward Augustus (P. 4.14.37–42):

Non loca, sed mores scriptis uexauit amaris Scepsius Ausonios actaque Roma rea est: falsa tamen passa est aequa conuicia mente, obfuit auctori nec fera lingua suo. 40 at malus interpres populi mihi concitat iram inque nouum crimen carmina nostra uocat.

Not the place, but the Italian traditions did the Scepsian attack in his harsh writings, and Rome was accused; nevertheless the city endured the false polemic with a fair mind and his savage language did not harm its own author. But a poor interpreter has incited the rage of the people against me, and accuses my verse of a new crime.

The comparison is transparent enough: Hesiod counseled avoidance of Ascra (4.14.31–4), and Ulysses knew the harsh landscape of Ithaca well (4.14.35). Poet and hero provide Ovid with appropriate comparanda,25 specifically those who met with no reproach for denigrating their home-lands. But Ovid is no native to Tomis: here he reprimands the hypocriti-cal locals who are offended by his verse but would otherwise agree with his estimation of the Black Sea region (culpatis uestrum uos quoque saepe solum, “you also often find fault with your own land,” P. 4.14.30). The

25 The selection of poet and hero restates (in miniature) Ovid’s overarching self-presentation as a new Odysseus (Rahn’s so-called Odysseus-Rolle) or Jason, with the poetic powers of Homer: see Tr. 1.1.105–14 (the Ars is called “Telegonus,” cf. Ibis 567–8), 1.5.45–84; 3.9.61–2, 5.5.1–4, 51–2; P. 3.1.53–4, 6.19–20 (cf. Ibis 277–8), 4.10.9–34, 14.35; for Jason and the Argonauts: Tr. 1.4.21–46; P. 1.3.75–6; likewise Homer (e.g. Tr. 1.1.47–8). On epic and the Odyssey in Ovid’s exilic epistles, esp. Tr. 1, see Rahn; Evans 34–6, 40; Claassen (1999) 68–72; Ingleheart (2006) and (2010); McGowan 169–202.


final example, Metrodorus of Scepsis (a dubious self-defense to say the least) clarifies Ovid’s strategy. The supposedly civilized Romans were charitable enough to endure the false invective of Metrodorus, which specifically targeted Roman customs; Ovid’s Tomitan mob gathers pitch-forks and torches for his verse, which he argues, only echoes his neigh-bors’ professed opinions concerning the poverty of the local landscape. Never mind the fact that Ovid consistently fails to draw a well-defined distinction between Tomitan and barbarian throughout his poetry, or that the comparison functions at best as a back-handed compliment, elevating Roman austere self-control over Tomitan reckless insecurity. The example of Metrodorus draws Rome and the emperor back into the reader’s focus, emphasizes the poet’s unjust treatment at Tomis rela-tive to the way in which the Scepsian was treated by Rome, and manages to insult the Tomitans, even as he claims never to have done so. The addition of a new Augustus-like figure (a new malus interpres, 4.14.41) invites blatant comparison with the emperor: such is the overt implica-tion of Tristia 2,26 and the poet’s emphasis on the replay of his Roman condemnation in Tomis corroborates the reading that a new Augustus has condemned his poetry unfairly in exile. Ovid encapsulates his own ambiguous stance towards Augustus in the double-sided statement on Metrodorus, where the dubious sincerity of his convictions towards the Tomitans mirror his wavering between celebration of the imperial family and subversive questioning of Augustan justice. His treatment of the local Tomitans, then, reflects his professed relationship with the emperor. Ovid prefigures this association in P. 4.13 with similar nega-tive connotations. In the preceding poem (P. 4.13) Ovid’s encomium of Augustus re-hashes the catasterism of Caesar in the Metamorphoses (15.745–852).27 While the exilic praise poem itself is probably an authorial fabrication, Ovid nevertheless supplies an ostensible subject:

26 Tr. 2.211–12; cf. the similar, albeit limited, argumentation of Barchiesi, Davis, and Ingleheart (2010), who focus on Tristia 2 as a didactic work meant to correct (or at least highlight) the emperor’s misunderstanding of Latin elegy.

27 Cf. the extensive interaction between the Metamorphoses and Ovid’s promised praise for Germanicus in P. 4.8 (esp. 49–62), where the poet recycles major topoi from the earlier work: Thebes (4.8.53) figures prominently in the Metamorphoses, and Chaos (57) is the very first topic in the entire work (Met. 1.1–20). The gigantomachy (59; Met. 1.151–76), the river Styx (60), Bacchus conquering India (61; Met. 15.413) and even Hercules at Oechalia (62; Met. 9.136–40) can be found in Ovid’s pre-exilic masterpiece.


nec te mirari, si sint uitiosa, decebit carmina, quae faciam paene poeta Getes. a, pudet, et Getico scripsi sermone libellum structaque sunt nostris barbara uerba modis: 20 et placui (gratare mihi) coepique poetae inter inhumanos nomen habere Getas. materiam quaeris? laudes: de Caesare dixi. adiuta est nouitas numine nostra dei. nam patris Augusti docui mortale fuisse 25 corpus, in aetherias numen abisse domos

You should not be amazed if my poetry is faulty, which I wrote as almost a Getic poet. Ah, shameful, I have written a little book in the Getic language, and the barbarian words were set to our me-ters: and I was liked (congratulate me), and I have begun to hold the name of poet among the inhuman Getae. You ask after my theme? Praise poetry: I have spoken about Caesar! My novel task was aided by my god’s divine power. For I taught how the body of our father Augustus was mortal, but his divine spirit departed to the heavenly sphere.

Ovid’s theme matches Metamorphoses 15.746–9 with one catch: the apotheosis of Julius Caesar was rendered in Latin, while Augustus’ is in Getic (a, pudet, et Getico scripsi sermone libellum / structaque sunt nostris barbara uerba modis, “Ah, shameful, I have written a little book in the Getic language, and the barbarian words are set to our meter,” P. 4.13.19–20). Libellum recalls Catullus’ feigned modesty in poem 1.1 (lepidum nouum libellum), signifying that Ovid’s shame (pudet, 19; barbara uerba, 20) masks deeper feelings of pride. The breakdown of language and art imposed upon the poet by Augustus have worked their magic (so to speak),28 and Ovid, who earlier could not compose another Hero and Leander myth with the wit of his pre-exilic style, now writes only the barbarian panegyric that the emperor’s punishment demands. Stylistically, this is a damning association: Augustus is figured as a Hel-lenistic monarch who not only desires such tedious poetry or praise,29 but 28 They have degraded Ovid’s poetic skill to the extent that he now composes in barbarian languages. See Williams (1994: 55–60) on Tr. 5.12, and e.g. P. 3.2.40 (=Tr. 5.12.58): nam didici Getice Sarmaticeque loqui, “I’ve learned to speak Getic and Sarmatian.”

29 Flattery of a monarch became something of a topos for bad verse in the Roman adoption of Hellenistic aesthetics: such is the opinion, for example, of Alexander the


also encourages the composition of that poetry in a backward, provincial language, a flagrant deconstruction of the imperial image Augustus had long fostered among the Roman elite.30

The Tomitans, antithetical as they are to the norms of cultured Latin, enjoy Ovid’s poem (et caput et plenas omnes mouere pharetras, / et longum Getico murmur in ore fuit, “they nodded both their heads and full quivers, and there was a long rumble in their Getic mouths,” P. 4.13.19–20), but Ovid himself does not relish their praise. The award Ovid receives for his composition at ex Ponto 4.14.55–6 further implicates Augustus: tempora sacrata mea sunt uelata corona, / publicus inuito quam fauor inposuit “my head is veiled with a sacred crown, which public favor placed there, though I was unwilling.” It may be reasonably assumed that the crown was laurel, a symbol for poetic achievement and, ironically, Augustus’ patron deity Apollo (Green 376). That Ovid unwillingly accepted the crown may be a double entendre: while he receives Getic (and by exten-sion, Augustan) approval for composing praise poetry, his apprehension rests not on the poverty of his verse but rather the language and genre of its composition, both dictated by the emperor’s decision to exile Ovid and both anathema to the high minded aesthetics of contemporary Ro-man poets. His response, then, to the collapse of his native language and ars was to produce the new poetry of the Augustan age: provincial encomium (here with a twist of Ovidian irony), perhaps because it had occurred to him that any genuine attempt at such poetry would be fruitless in securing a return.31 In doing so, he has re-envisioned the emperor as a Roman malus interpres to match his Tomitan detractors, and added new meaning to his own now timeless description of exile: barbarus hic ego Great’s court poets Agis and Choerilus. See Hor. Ep. 2.1.232–4; Festus De Verb. Sig. 360.10–11 (quam malus Homerus, tam bonus Choerilus poeta est); Porphyry ad Hor. A.P. 357 (pessimus poeta); RE s.v. “Agis,” “Choirilos.” Cf. Pope’s Horatian epistle “To Augustus”: “Besides, a fate attends on all I write, / That when I aim at praise, they say I bite. / A vile encomium doubly ridicules: / There’s nothing blackens like the ink of fools.”

30 Augustus notably rejected Hellenistic displays of autocratic power in favor of a more republican persona. On the development of his late republican image, see Zanker 5–77; cf. Galinsky 10–41; Cooley 1–41. On the encomiastic role of Hellenistic panegyric see esp. Cameron 263–302.

31 Such is the immediate realization at P. 4.13.39–42.


sum, qui non intellegor ulli, / et rident stolidi uerba Latina Getae, “here I am the barbarian, I who am understood by none, the stupid Getae laugh at my Latin words” (Tr. 5.10.37–8). Ovid was an outcast in both Rome and Tomis — an intellectual exile in a world of obtuse Augusti.

527B Ashe Administrative BuildingDepartment of Classics

University of MiamiCoral Gables, FL 33146

[email protected]


Works Cited

Barchiesi, A. “Insegnare ad Augusto: Orazio, Epistole 2.1 e Ovidio, Tristia II.” MD 31 (1993): 149–84.

Cameron, A. Callimachus and his Critics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Claassen, J. M. Poeta, Exul, vates. A Stylistic and Literary Analysis of Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Dissertation: Stellenbosch, 1986.

———. Displaced persons: the literature of exile from Cicero to Boethius. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

Clauss, M. Kaiser und Gott. Herrscherkult im römischen Reich. Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1999.

Cooley, A. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Cucchiarelli, A. “La nave e l’esilio (allegorie dell’ ultimo Ovidio).” MD 38 (1997): 215–24.

Davis, P. “Instructing the Emperor: Ovid, Tristia 2.” Latomus 58 (1999): 785–98.

Evans, H. Publica Carmina: Ovid’s Books from Exile. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.

Galinsky, K. Augustan Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Gradel, I. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Green, P. The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

Harrison, S. “The Primal Voyage and the Ocean of Epos: Two Aspects of Metapoetic Imagery in Catullus, Vergil and Horace.” Dictynna 4 (2007): 2–17.

Heubeck, A. and Hoekstra, A. A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Ingleheart, J. “What the Poet Saw: Ovid, the error and the Theme of Sight in Tristia 2.” MD 56 (2006): 63–86.

———. A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Kenney, E. J. “The Poetry of Ovid’s Exile.” PCPhS 11 (1965): 37–49.

Luck, G. “Brief und Epistel in der Antike.” Altertum 7 (1961): 77–84.

McGowan, M. M. Ovid in Exile: Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Nagle, B. R. The Poetics of Exile. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.


Owen, S. G. P. Ovidi Nasonis Tristium Libri Quinque Ibis ex Ponto Libri Quattuor Halieutica Fragmenta. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1915.

Rahn, H. “Ovids elegische Epistel.” A&A 7 (1958): 105–20.

Stevens, B. “Per gestum res est significanda mihi: Ovid and Language in Exile.” CP 104.2 (2009): 162–83.

Stroh, W. Die römische Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1971.

Tola, E. “La métafora de la nave en Tristia y Epistulae ex Ponto o la identidad fluctuente en la escritura del exilio.” CFC(L) 21 (2001): 45–55.

West, M.L. “Odyssey and Argonautica,” CQ 55 (2005): 39–64.

———. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Williams G.D. Banished voices: readings in Ovid’s exile poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Zanker, P. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, translated by A. Shapiro. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Ovid in Augustan Tomis

Documents

Transcript of Ovid in Augustan Tomis