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Ceres, Liber and Flora: Georgic and Anti-Georgic Elements in Ovid's Fasti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Elaine Fantham
Elaine Fantham
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The Georgics stand at the threshold of Augustan literature, the Fasti at its end, but despite Ovid's respect for Rome's first great didactic poem, Lucretius' De rerum natura, and despite all the intervening achievements of Augustan poets in incorporating national and aetiological themes into other poetic genres, Ovid's poem repeatedly acknowledges by echoes of form and theme the primacy of the Georgics as model for his aetiological work.

This paper attempts to measure Ovidian response to the Georgics at two levels, the level of formal, verbal allusion and the level of themes and values. I have been led to focus on Ovid's treatment of Ceres/Demeter (and less prominently Liber/Bacchus) because Ceres as teacher of agriculture and benefactor of men is central to Virgil's representation of evolving human culture. But Ceres is equally important to the Fasti (although her sober personality makes her unappealing as a candidate for interview by the poet) as a major deity in the largely rural Roman calendar, as a symbol of the didactic principle, and for her very centrality in the Virgilian poem that Ovid is emulating.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 38 , 1993 , pp. 39 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

Notes

1. The recent major commentaries by Thomas, R. F., Virgil: Georgics Vols. I and II (cambridge 1988)Google Scholar and Mynors, R. A. B., Virgil: The Georgics (Oxford 1990)Google Scholar have been a precious resource for this paper as they will be for many other papers to come. It is impossible to acknowledge fully my debt to their work.

2. See especially the discussion of the topos Prima Ceres below, and compare Perutelli, Alessandro, ‘Prima Ceres: Ovidio Amores 3.10, 11 e Met. 5.341ff’, Studi Classici e Orientali (1973) 179–89Google Scholar, which treats two such Georgic allusions, but misses the recurrence in Fasti. On the relative chronology of parallel passages in Metamorphoses and Fasti see Bömer, F., ‘Uber das zeitliche Verhältnis zwischen den Fasten und den Metamorphosen Ovids’, Gymnasium 95 (1988) 207–21Google Scholar.

3. The details of Ovid's revision in Book I were first argued by Merkel, F., P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum Libri Sex (Berlin 1841) cclxii–cclxixGoogle Scholar: see also Bömer, F. (ed.), Ovid, Die Fasten (Heidelberg 1957–1958) I 15–20Google Scholar, Lefèvre, E., ‘Die Lehre von der Entstehung der Tieropfen in Ovids Fasten’, Rh. Mus. 119 (1976) 39.64Google Scholar and Fantham, E. ‘Ovid, Germanicus and the composition of the Fasti’, PLLS 5 (Liverpool 1985) 243–82Google Scholar.

4. This is not to overlook that the Fasti were originally dedicated to Augustus (cf. Tristia 2.551–2 tuo nuper scriptum sub nomine Caesar / et tibi sacratum … opus), whether or not the present proem to Book 2 (2.3–18) was once the proem dedicating the whole collective poem to Augustus.

5. On ingredere, the commentary of R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford 1990) notes ‘ingredere of entering a new sphere of activity as in A. 8. 513.Caesar is asked not quite “to enter on his divinity” (Conington) but to enter on some of its functions, so that adnue is not inappropriate.’

6. Here surely Ovid's fetus evokes a play on the procreative meaning of concipere (OLD 3a of women and animals, cf. Fasti 4.771 and Met. 4.611: OLD 3d of the land, cf. Met. 1.430-1) and the technical religious use (OLD 12b) that underlay feriae conceptiuae.

7. On the sacrifice to Ceres and Tellus, and other aspects of Roman cults related to Ceres, see le Bonniec, H., Le Culte de Cerès a Rome (Paris 1957), which deals with the religious aspects of both Ovid's Feriae Sementiuae and Tibullus' rather hybrid festival.Google Scholar

8. The garlanded oxen at full mangers, Fasti 1.663 = Tib. 2.1.8-9; the suspended ploughshare, 1.665 = Tib. 2.1.6. The anaphora of da requiem in 1.668–9 copies the repeated requiescant of Tib. 2.1.5.

9. The priority of 4.402 is quite likely if Ovid revised this prayer at the time he re-edited book I for Germanicus.

10. Virgil uses active populare of both ravaging armies (Aen. 1.527 and 12.263) and ants (again at Aen. 4.403): Ovid uses the deponents populor (e.g. Met. 1.249; 2.319) and depopulor (besides this passage only Tr. 3.10.56).

11. Cf. Met. 5.485–6, lolium tribulique fatigant / triticeas messes et inexpugnabile gramen, the climax of Ovid's list of hazards attacking the fields when Ceres withdrew from her protective function. This too is clearly modelled on the same passages in Georgics I. Apart from Virgil's single use in Geor. 1.219, and the two passages in Ovid, Iriticeus belongs exclusively to agricultural writing.

12. I have passed over here an earlier complex of allusion in Ovid's praises of spring (Fasti. 1.149–60) to the laudes ueris of Geor. 2.323-30 and the receptive ploughland of Geor. 2.223 (cf. tumpatitur cultus ager Fasti 1.159 with patiens uomeris unci Geor. 2.223).

13. sub love ‘under the open sky’ is surely an Ovidian joke in view of ante Iouem genitum!

14. For man's durum genus cf. Mynors on Geor. 1.63. For his nakedness, Lucr. 5.970–2 membra / nuda dabant terrae nocturno tempore capti / circum se foliis et frondibus inuoluentes.

15. Lucr. 5.933–4 nec robustus erat curui moderator aralri, / quisquam, nee scibant ferro molirier arua.

16. This view is still debated, and it is difficult to see how it can be settled one way or the other. See most recently this author's review of Thomas, R. F.'s Georgics commentaries in CP 86 (1991) 163–7Google Scholar, and the dispute between Habinek and Thomas over Virgil's attitude to animal sacrifice (see n. 32 below).

17. This is the first instance of the prosaic panis in the Ovidian corpus; it will recur only in the sense of ‘loaves’ in Fasti 6.311 and 315. Elsewhere Ovid's word for ‘bread’ (and other cooked forms of grain) is Ceres; cf. Fasti 2.539 mollita Ceres (mush); 6.381 quodcumque est solidae Cereris (grain); 6.391 esse Ceres uisa est: iaciunt Cerialia dona.

18. See Thomas and Mynors on Geor. 1.147. Thereafter praises for the invention of bread come in the form of praise for teaching the art of ploughing, cf. Tib. 1.7.29–31 primus aratra manu sollerti fecit Osiris I et teneram ferro sollicitauit humum / primus inexpertae commisit semina terrae or 2.1.41–3 of the ruris dei: Mi etiam tauros primi docuisse feruntur / seruitium et plaustro supposuisse rotam. / tum uictus ablere feri etc.

19. On Ovid's simultaneous and interrelated treatments of Ceres' quest for Persephone see Hinds, S., The Metamorphosis of Persephone (Cambridge 1987) 10–11, 42–1, 77Google Scholar, and Bömer, F., ‘Die zeitliche Verhältnis zwischen den Fasten und den Metamorphosen Ovids’, Gymnasium 98 (1988) 207–21Google Scholar (published without knowledge of Hinds' book). Bömer's introduction to Fasti 1.15, and commentary on Metamorphoses 5 also precede Hinds' discussion, but see below for the debate between Bömer and Lefèvre over the relative dating of the passages on animal sacrifice in Met. 15 and Fasti 1.

20. See Perutelli, Alessandro, ‘Prima Ceres’, Studi Classici e Orientali (1973) 179–89Google Scholar.

21. Ovid's coined epithet chalybeia evokes both Geor. 1.58 at Chalybes nudi ferrum, and the Callimachean/Catullan curse on these mythical ironworkers: Callim. Aetia fr. 110.48 Pf. = 66.48.

22. Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum/ iamque nocens ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum / prodierat: prodit helium quod pugnat utroque.

23. For Ceres and peace cf. Fasti 1.704 Pax Cererem nutrit: Pacis alumna Ceres. For honours given to leaders whose victories have brought peace to Rome, compare the praise of Germanicus at Fasti 1.287 lane, fac aeternos pacem pacisque ministros and of the dynasty in connection with the Ara Pacis in Fasti 1.711–21.

24. Here I accept Lefèvre, E.'s thesis of Rh. Mus 119 (1976) 39–64Google Scholar, that Fasti 1.337–56 was composed for Ovid's final revision of Book 1. His argument is based on both internal evidence of dependence on the Met. 15 passage, and the specific allusion to the poet's experiences on his voyage to Tomis. Note that the second allusion to his Black Sea voyage, Fasti 1.440, Hellespontiaco uictima grata deo, is designed to recall Geor. 4.111 Hellespontiaci… tutela Priapi, the only previous use of the epithet in surviving Latin poetry.

25. Compare the accounts in Varro, R. R. 1.2.18–20 and 2.4.9: Virgil reports the goat-sacrifice in Geor. 2.378–81, but omits the pig-sacrifice from the feast of Ceres in Geor. 1.338–50.

26. Bömer on Met. 15.112 notes that epulor occurs here only in Ovid, and is absent from Hor., Tib., Prop. He does not draw atention to Geor. 2.537, although it handles the same theme, and is the first of only four instances of epulor in Virgil. In Fasti 4.398 epulae is more probably a reminiscence of Geor. 3.527.

27. Note that Fasti 1.351 sata uere nouo teneris lactentia sulcis (or sucis with the Teubner) copies the rare epithet of Geor. 1.315, frumenta in uiridi stipula lactentia turgent, and the dentals of spectans aliquis denies in uite prementem, Fasti 1.355, evoke Geor. 2.378-9 duri… uenenum dentis, while the stress on guilt in Fasti 1.361 echoes both Met. 15.115 and Geor. 2.380.

28. An obvious echo of Met. 15.116 quid meruistis oues? and 120 quid meruere boues, animal sine fraude dolisque, / innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores?

29. Porte, Danielle, L'Etiologie dans les Fastes d'Ovide (Paris 1987) 44Google Scholar stresses the illegitimacy of the Aristaeus narrative as aition: ‘la seule excuse à cette étiologie, c'est qu'il lui permet de pasticher un texte illustre’. I am arguing for a more aggressive motive, that is, Ovid's desire to expose or correct the myth of Georgics 4 so as to reconcile it with Virgil's expressed judgement in Geor. 2.536–7.

30. Barchiesi notes that in obrue mactati Ovid has economically combined both the suffocation attributed to the Egyptian Bougonia in Geor. 4.296–304, and the sacrificial act of Aristaeus.

31. For completeness I note echoes of Virgil's longer narrative: flebat Aristaeus quod apes cum stirpenectas / uiderat inceptos destituisse fauos draws on Geor. 4.320 multa gemens, 339 lacrimans, 375 ftetus inanes, 363 genus … nouae stirpis and 104 contemnunlque fauos et frigida tecta relinquunt. Cyrene, caerula genetrix, Fasti 1.365, echoes genetrix, Geor. 4.363, but co-opts Proteus' colour from 388. Ovid draws on transformat, Geor. 4.441 and uictus in sese redit (442) to represent Proteus in 1.373-4: transformisadulterat arte / mox domitus uinclis in sua membra redit, but of Virgil's final phase (Geor. 4.531–58) the only echo is mactatam at Fasti 1.377.

32. Habinek, T. N. ‘Sacrifice, society and Vergil's ox-born bees’, Cabinet of the Muses, ed. Griffiths, /Mastronarde, (Chico 1990) 209–23Google Scholar, and Thomas', R. F. reply, CP 86 (1991) 212–18Google Scholar. Thomas asks ‘why should we assume that Virgil is interested in expressing support for the notion of civilized society's need “to restore itself by re-establishing the right relation between man, god and beast?” (216) and makes a strong case for the attitude in Virgil that I have claimed for Ovid.

33. See Thomas, Vol. I 20 and 242–3, Ross, D., Virgil's Elements (Princeton 1987) 144–5Google Scholar.

34. On the festival see Bömer (n. 3) II 193, 197. Ovid points in Fasti 3.785–6 to Liber's loss of independent ludi, and their supposed incorporation into the Ludi Ceriales, (quos cum taedifera nunc habet illa dea), but he omits Liber (and Libera too) from Fasti 4.393–416 and 619–20, framing the Proserpina narrative. Frame and myth alike treat the goddess in terms of Greek Demeter cult.

35. If only they were noted in commentaries! Le Bonniec (in the separate commentaries on Books 1 and 2 (Paris 1965, 1969), and the editions with translation of the entire surviving poem (Fasti I–III, Catania 1969; IV–VI, Bologna 1970)) is naturally more interested than Bömer in the passages related to agriculture and to the worship of Ceres, but the scale of his work leads him to pass over many clear instances of Georgic allusion.

36. Roman syncretism equated Pan with Faunus (cf. Fasti 2.271–81) but Virgil has both Pan and the collective Fauni, equivalent of the Satyrs, as companions of the nymphs.

37. Quarto Robigum ac Floram, quibus propitiis neque robigo frumenta atque arbores corrumpit, neque non tempestiue florent. Itaque publice Robigo feriae Robigalia, Florae ludi Floralia instituti (R.R. 1.6).

38. Aristaeus, Fasti 1.364–80 discussed above; Triptolemus, 4.550; Dryads, 4.761.

39. Robigo is feminine, and aspera; she has scabrae manus (921) and a dangerous embrace (amplectere 924). Is there a hint of a diseased prostitute?

40. To Maira, the dog of Erigone, who joined his mistress in the sky.

41. For ancient testimonia to Flora see Wissowa, , RE VI.2, 2747–9Google Scholar; for the Floralia ibid. 2749–51.

42. Livy reports theatrical events fully from the Megalesia, made annual in 191 B.C. (Livy 36.36) to the end of our text in 167 B.C. In 173, however, his report of domestic affairs is focused on the scandal of Fulvius Nobilior's appropriation of tiles from the shrine of Hera Lacinia for his own foundation to the Muses (Livy 42.3).

43. Cf. the anecdote of Cato's withdrawal in Val. Max. 2.10.8, Sen., Ep. 97Google Scholar; Martial, Praef. 1.35, and Christian polemic from Minucius, Oct. 25.8 and Tertullian, Spect. 17 on.

44. Tac. Ann. 2.49: deorum aedes uetustate aut igni abolitas coeptasque ab Augusto dedicauit… Libero Liberaeque et Cereri iuxta Circum Maximum … eodemque in loco aedem Florae ab Lucio et Marco [sic] Publiciis aedilibus constitutam. It has been suggested that Flora's temple was damaged by a fire late in Augustus' reign and had not needed restoration until then.

45. Alessandro Schiesaro has suggested to me that Flora's Lucretian associations with Venus, here and implicitly in the hymn to Venus 1.7-8 tibi suauis daedala tellus / summittit flores, would also endear her to Ovid.

46. Bömer (n. 3) I 22 notes the dating of the inscribed calendar (CIOL I, 2nd edn p. 206Google Scholar) to A.D. 4 10, and attributes Ovid's knowledge of its contents to his consultation of Verrius' work of preliminary research, the de Fastis Romanis.

47. See Pline l'Ancien: Histoire Naturelle XVIII, ed. le Bonniec, / Boeufflé, Le (Paris 1972)Google Scholar with notes complémentaires on 281–6; Gaio Plinio Secondo: Storia Naturale III Botanica: Libri 12–19 ed. Aragosti etc (Turin 1984) 816–22Google Scholar.

48. This is the meaning of iidem which resumes Pliny's main argument from 18.284 rudis fuit priscorum uita atque sine lilteris: … instituterunt ferias diesque festos, Robigalia, Floralia Vinalia, after the astronomical digression on the Robigalia in 285.

49. Le Bonniec, , Le Culte de Cérès à Rome (Paris 1957) Ch. 6, iii, 196–201Google Scholar, argues that Flora is only an aspect of Ceres: but their original mythical identity has no bearing on their perception as distinct by Romans of the Augustan age.

50. Cf. Met. 5.482–4 primis segetes moriuntur in herbis / et modo sol nimius, nimius modo corripit imber. / sideraque uentique nocent. We might note too the variant reading Ceres for seges at 5.322 (cf. 4.917), an exploitation of the standard metonymy that would mark Flora's power to hurt the rival goddess by her neglect.

51. Or jurisdiction? This seems to be a dispute over prouinciae.

52. The end of October, according to Thomas ad loc., who notes that pulse is harvested in the spring.

53. Cf. OLD florere 3a, flos 4a. Bömer has no comment on this section.

54. Even the Fourth Georgic is touché. Flora has chosen honey flowers cited at Geor. 4.32, 112 and 281. Only the Cytisus (Geor. 2.431 and 3.94) though commended by Varro for bees is absent from Georgics 4.

55. Bömer on Fasti 5.343 notes that these are the only instances in Latin of the Greek use of Achelous for water.

56. Cf. Fasti 3.713 faue uati, dum tua festa cano and 789–90 des ingenio uela secunda meo.

57. Fasti. 5.377–8. This couplet is generally recognized as Ovid's adaptation of Callimachus' prayer to the Muses at Aetia fr. 7.13–14. The Muses' unguents have been replaced by Flora's divine fragrance and fertilizing inspiration.

58. This paper has grown out of my presentation to the Laurence Seminar in June 1989, and owes a great deal to the valuable suggestions of Philip Hardie, Gareth Williams and the audience on that occasion. Besides taking the opportunity to thank Cambridge for its welcome then and in 1991, I would like to acknowledge helpful and stimulating comments from the journal's referees, from Sandro Barchiesi and Alessandro Schiesaro.