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EXEGI MONUMENTUM: EXILE, DEATH, IMMORTALITY AND MONUMENTALITY IN OVID, TRISTIA 3.3*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2015

Jennifer Ingleheart
Jennifer Ingleheart*
Affiliation:
Durham University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Tristia 3.3 purports to be a ‘death-bed’ letter addressed by the sick poet to his wife in Rome (3.3.1–4), in which Ovid, banished from Rome on Augustus' orders, foresees his burial in Tomi as the ultimate form of exilic displacement (3.3.29–32). In order to avoid such a permanent form of exclusion from his homeland, Ovid issues instructions for his burial in the suburbs of Rome (3.3.65–76), dictating a four-line epitaph to be inscribed upon his tomb (3.3.73–6). However, despite the careful instructions he outlines for his burial and physical memorial, Ovid asserts: maiora libelli | et diuturna magis sunt monumenta mihi (‘my little books are a greater and more long-lasting monument for me’, 3.3.77–8), expressing his belief in his continued poetic afterlife. Scholars have seen this poem's concerns as above all literary, concentrating on Ovid's exploitation and development of elegiac and Augustan models which also treat the themes of death and poetic immortality. However, although Ovid's portrayal of what purports to be personal experience draws extensively upon earlier poetry, and, as we shall see, the poem gains much of its power from its engagement with the tradition that poetry alone can memorialize, previous studies have failed to analyse how Ovid consistently plays up the element that marks him out from the predecessors who had imagined their own deaths and poetic afterlives: that is, his status as an exile. Ovid's insistence on burial in his native land – from which he had been excluded in life – and his assertion of his poetic immortality in a poem which repeatedly stresses his exilic status, thus take on a markedly political angle, which had been absent or more muted in the models he exploits.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , May 2015 , pp. 286 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were delivered in Oxford at the Corpus Christi Classical Seminar on Exile in 2001, the Classical Association Annual Conference in 2002, a colloquium on Exile and Exiles at the School of Renaissance Studies, York University in 2005, and a one-day workshop on Augustan Poetry at Durham University in 2007. I am grateful to the audiences at each of these events for their helpful comments, to Felix Gaertner, John Roe and Ingo Gildenhard for invitations to speak at the above events, and to Steve Heyworth, the late Adrian Hollis, Claire Jamset and Wendy Pearson for reading early drafts; I am grateful too to CQ's anonymous referee and editors for comments on the submitted version. Funding for the period during which the research for this paper was carried out was provided by the AHRC of the British Academy.

References

1 Recently, see Huskey, S.J., ‘In memory of Tibullus: Ovid's remembrance of Tibullus 1.3 in Amores 3.9 and Tristia 3.3’, Arethusa 38 (2005), 367–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which concentrates on the complex web of allusions between this poem, Tibullus 1.3 and Ovid, Amores 3.9; see too (e.g.) Luck, G., Tristia, vol. 1 (Heidelberg, 1977)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Nagle, B.R., The Poetics of Exile: Program and Polemic in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto of Ovid, Collection Latomus 170 (Brussels, 1980), 48–9Google Scholar; Videau-Delibes, A., Les Tristes d'Ovide et l'élégie romaine: une poétique de la rupture (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar, 334.

2 I follow Ovid's frequent usage of the term ‘exile’ to describe his situation (found e.g. in the programmatic positions of Tr. 1.1.3, 3.1.1, 4.1.3; Pont. 1.1.22), despite his insistence elsewhere that he was actually relegated (e.g. Tr. 2.137, 5.2.57–8, 5.11.9–10, 5.11.21–2); legal differences between these two punishments (for which, see e.g. [Paul.] Dig. 48.1.2 or Garnsey, P., Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire [Oxford, 1970], 111–22)Google Scholar matter less for Ovid's (soi-disant) exile poetry than the emotive effect of Ovid labelling himself an exile. Whether Ovid was actually banished to Tomi or not (for doubts, see e.g. A.D. Fitton-Brown, ‘The unreality of Ovid's Tomitan exile’, LCM 10.2 [1985], 18–22) is irrelevant to my analysis of Ovid's presentation of his exilic plight in this poem.

3 See e.g. Boyle, A.J., Ovid and the Monuments: A Poet's Rome (Bendigo, 2003)Google Scholar and Green, S.J., ‘Playing with marble: the monuments of the Caesars in the Fasti’, CQ 54 (2004), 224–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly 237.

4 Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet 3.3.

5 Exile apparently became a legal penalty after Cicero's Pro Caecina, which can be dated to 69 b.c.: Garnsey (n. 2).

6 See Garnsey (n. 2) and Polybius 6.14.7.

7 As noted by Helzle, M., Publii Ouidii Nasonis Epistularum ex Ponto Liber IV: A Commentary on Poems 1 to 7 and 16 (Hildesheim, Zurich and New York, 1989)Google Scholar, 78, citing (e.g.) Cic. Att. 3.20.1, 4.1.8; Q.Fr. 1.3.1. Cf. also Hor. Carm. 2.3.25–8 (omnium | uersatur urna serius ocius | sors exitura et nos in aeternum | exilium impositura cumbae ‘The lot of each one of us is tossing about in the urn, destined to come out sooner or later and place us in the eternal exile of Charon's boat’). See further Gaertner, J.F., Ovid, Epistulae Ex Ponto, Book 1 (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar on Pont. 1.5.86 and Claassen, J.-M., ‘Exile, death and immortality: voices from the grave’, Latomus 55 (1996), 577–90Google Scholar, at 574–6 on the earlier exile, Cicero and his use of the exile–death equation.

8 See Enn. Scaen. 231 Jocelyn: (Medea speaks) exitium illi, exilium mihi (‘death for him, exile for me’).

9 Cf. Nagle (n. 1), 22–32; also Claassen (n. 7), 576–85 (who notes of Ovid's exile poetry at 583: ‘Death is his theme from first to last’). Ovid's insistent linking of exile and death has influenced later exiled authors: see the index to Ingleheart, J., Two Thousand Years of Solitude: Exile after Ovid (Oxford, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, s.v. ‘exile and death’.

10 See e.g. Tr. 1.1.3–12 (Ovid's book is told to go to Rome in mourning garb; cf. in particular luctibus, 6), 27 (me ... ademptum puns on Ovid as both ‘removed’ from Rome and ‘dead’: for the latter sense, consult OLD 2 s.v. adimo 8), 118 (exequiis ... meis), 1.2.22 (the waves on Ovid's journey seem about to touch Tartarus), 40 (adesse necem).

11 Cf. e.g. Tr. 1.3.21–4, 89, 97–8; Evans, H.B., Publica Carmina: Ovid's Books from Exile (Lincoln and London, 1983)Google Scholar, 37; and Videau-Delibes (n. 1), 29–49.

12 Cf. Tr. 5.1.5–14; for such origins, cf. e.g. Am. 1.1.21, 3.9.1–4; Her. 1.8; Nisbet, R.G.M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes 1 (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar, on Hor. Carm. 1.33.2; Brink, C.O., Horace on Poetry: Ars Poetica (Cambridge, 1971)Google Scholar, on Hor. Ars P. 75–8; and Hinds, S.E., The Metamorphosis of Persephone (Cambridge, 1987), 103–4Google Scholar.

13 See the excellent analysis by Williams, G., Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry (Cambridge, 1994), 12–13Google Scholar.

14 See e.g. Tr. 1.1.72, 81–2, 1.3.11–12 (where Ovid survives the thunderbolt), 5.14.27; Kenney, E.J., ‘Ovid’, in Kenney, E.J. and Clausen, W.V. (edd.), The Cambridge History of Latin Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1982), 420–57Google Scholar, at 444; Bretzigheimer, G., ‘Exul ludens: zur Rolle von relegans und relegatus in Ovids Tristien’, Gymnasium 98 (1991), 39–76Google Scholar, at 43–7; and Barchiesi, A., The Poet and the Prince (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1997), 42–3Google Scholar.

15 See below and also Claassen (n. 7), 583–5.

16 For the Ars as a cause of Ovid’s exile, see (e.g.) the classic Stroh, W., ‘Ovids Liebeskunst und die Ehegesetze des Augustus’, Gymnasium 86 (1979), 323–52Google Scholar. See too Tr. 2.207; for the Ars' alleged teaching of adultery, see Tr. 2.211–12; and, most conveniently, on the link between the Ars’ offence and Augustus’ anti-adultery laws, see Ingleheart, J., A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2 (Oxford, 2010), 2–4Google Scholar.

17 See Tr. 3.1.65–72 with Syme, R., History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar, 229.

18 Tr. 1.7.15–20 and 4.10.63.

19 Tr. 1.7.23–6: note especially his prayer ut uiuant at 25.

20 Tr. 1.6.29–36.

21 The theme of Ovid's burial is anticipated at Tr. 1.1.33–4, where Ovid wishes that ablataque principis ira | sedibus in patriis det mihi posse mori (‘with the anger of the princeps removed, it might be granted to me to be able to die in my ancestral home’) and 1.2.53–6, as Ovid, fearing death at sea, ruefully comments: est aliquid, fatoue suo ferroue cadentem | in solida moriens ponere corpus humo, | et mandare suis suprema et habere sepulcrum | et non aequoreis piscibus esse cibum (‘It is something, whether falling by one's fate or the sword, dying, to place one's corpse in solid ground, and to give some last orders to one's kinsfolk and to hope for a tomb, and not to be a meal for the fish of the water’).

22 I follow the vulgate's tristia; Hall, J.B., Ovidius: Tristia (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1990)Google Scholar, 89 conjectures pessima. However, tristia fata may recall the opening of the ‘new Gallus’ fragment (cf. J. Fairweather, ‘Ovid's autobiographical poem, Tristia 4.10’, CQ 37 [1987], 181–96, at 190, on Tr. 4.10.112: tristia, quo possum, carmine fata leuo), and the echo of Gallus here would fit with allusion to Gallus at 76 (see below). Note too the characteristically Ovidian pun: Ovid's death will be tristia (‘sad’ or ‘grim’) because of its physical location (he will die in Tomi, the grimness of which he outlines in Tr. 3.9), but also through its poetic location, by featuring in the verse collection entitled Tristia. For puns on the title of the Tristia, cf. e.g. Tr. 2.133, 493–4, 3.1.9–10, 4.10.112, 5.1.47; Pont. 1.1.15–16, 3.9.35; cf. Stat. Silv. 1.2.254–5 tristis in ... | Naso Tomis.

23 Cf. Huskey (n. 1), 368–72, who also treats the use of Amores 3.9 in Ovid's allusive engagement with Tibullus 1.3.

24 As is emphasized here by procul and extremis; cf. also Ingleheart (n. 16), on Tr. 2.188 and 195.

25 OLD s.v. ora I 2b; the alternative sense of ‘region’ (OLD 3, 4) is also possible, although ‘shore’ is preferable here as evoking the connections outlined in the discussion above.

26 See Cohen, S.T., ‘Augustus, Julia and the development of exile ad insulam’, CQ 58 (2008), 206–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Drogula, F.K., ‘Controlling travel: deportation, islands and the regulation of senatorial mobility in the Augustan principate’, CQ 61 (2011), 230–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 It is impossible to interpret caput in this context as having the frequent sense ‘life’ (OLD s.v. 4 and 5), given that Ovid talks of barbarian earth covering it.

28 Cf. e.g. Verg. Aen. 2.557–8, an aside which looks forward to the fate on the shore of the headless corpse of Priam, king of Troy, yet is not motivated by its narrative context, and thus strongly evokes the end of Pompey (cf. Bowie, A.M., ‘The death of Priam: Allegory and history in the Aeneid’, CQ 40 [1990], 470–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 473–4). See two examples post-dating Tr. 3.3: Lucan 8.692–9 (where Pompey's fate is contrasted with those who gain pyramids and Mausolea) and Juvenal 10.285.

29 Given that Tibullus 1.3 is such a major model for Tr. 3.3, it is appropriate that the latter should evoke the myth of Antigone and Polynices: this parallel may have been suggested by the description at Tibullus 1.3.7–8 of the sister who will not be there to mourn him. The sister is a figure otherwise absent from Tr. 3.3, as Ovid concentrates on the role his wife – or elegiac mistress (cf. dominae, 41)? – will not be able to play in mourning him: Tr. 3.3.41–4.

30 TLL 7.1.1136.75 gives as the only other instances of this word Ib. 163–4 (where Ovid wishes this fate on ‘Ibis’: nec tibi continget funus lacrimaeque tuorum; | indeploratum proiciere caput) and Met. 11.670 (where Ceyx' image goes to his wife Alcyone and begs her not to allow him to be indeploratum sub inania Tartara).

31 Ovid recalls the parua ... urna which holds Tibullus' remains at Am. 3.9.40; cf. Huskey (n. 1), 381–2, who recognizes the significance of the size of the urn in relation to the size of the poet's literary corpus, but does not, however, treat Ovid's evocation of the modest rites required by Propertius at 2.13.17–40 and in particular plebei paruae funeris exsequiae (24) and paruula testa (32).

32 Cf. e.g. Tr. 1.4.21, where Italy is uetitas ... terras, with Augustus the one keeping Ovid from home.

33 For Ovid's exilic self-portrayal evoking characters from tragedy, cf. Ingleheart, J., ‘I'm a celebrity, get me out of here: the reception of Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians in Ovid's exile poetry', in Gildenhard, I. and Revermann, M. (edd.), Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions with Greek Tragedy from the Fourth Century b.c.e. to the Middle Ages (Berlin, 2010), 219–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 219–20.

34 For Polynices as an exile, cf. e.g. Eur. Phoen. (passim); Soph. Ant. 200.

35 Cf. e.g. Tr. 1.5.41–2, 2.51–2, 5.2.33; Pont. 2.2.11–14.

36 The employment of this myth may achieve another dig at the princeps: rege uetante alludes to Creon's punishment of Antigone in the aftermath of Polynices' burial, which ultimately led to the destruction of his own family, by causing Haemon, Creon's son and heir, to commit suicide (at least in the Sophoclean tragedy, here alluded to at 45–6; cf. e.g. Tr. 2.402, which includes Haemona in a catalogue of the erotic themes of tragedy, and perhaps alludes not to Sophocles, but primarily to Euripides' Antigone, which ended with marriage between Haemon and Antigone: see e.g. Jebb, R.C., Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments: Part III: Antigone [Cambridge, 1900], xxxvii).Google Scholar The reader might reflect that Augustus is similar to Creon in more ways than one: for he had relegated the two Julias, his own daughter and granddaughter.

37 There is play here upon condo in the sense ‘bury’ (OLD s.v. condo, -ere 4) and ‘compose’ (i.e. a literary work: OLD s.v. 14); Ovid teases us with what we already suspected: that his death and burial takes place only in literature. When we turn to the next poem in the collection, despite Ovid's pose in 3.3 of being at death's door, there is no mention of his continued sickness or recovery, further hinting at the literary–fictional nature of this ‘death’ foretold.

38 Cf. e.g. Serv. auct. Aen. 2.638 exilium dictum quasi extra solum and Maltby, R., A Lexicon of Latin Etymologies (Leeds, 1991)Google Scholar, 214.

39 For this play, cf. also Met. 3.132 (where Cadmus is described as exilio felix, after a description of how he founded Thebes with the help of the brothers sprung from its soil).

40 On fictive epitaphs within Latin elegy, see Schmidt, V., ‘Hic ego qui iaceo: Die lateinischen Elegiker und ihre Grabschrift’, Mnemosyne 38 (1985), 307–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On inscriptions within literary texts, see Dinter, M., ‘Epic and epigram: minor heroes in Virgil's Aeneid’, CQ 55 (2005), 153–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Inscriptional intermediality in Latin elegy’, in Keith, A. (ed.), Latin Elegy and Hellenistic Epigram: A Tale of Two Genres at Rome (Newcastle, 2011), 7–18Google Scholar, and ‘Inscriptional Intermediality’, in Low, P. and Liddel, P. (edd.), Inscriptions and their Uses In Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2013), 431–49Google Scholar; a chapter in this latter volume which I did not see until making the final revisions to this article, by L.B.T. Houghton, ‘Epitome and eternity: some epitaphs and votive inscriptions in the Latin love elegists’, 349–64, at 361, anticipates me in detecting a response to Augustus' epigraphic attempts to self-memorialize (for which, see now J. Nelis-Clément and D. Nelis, ‘Furor epigraphicus: Augustus, the poets, and the inscriptions’, in Low and Liddel [cited above], 317–47) in the deployment of fictive epitaphs within Latin love elegy; Houghton treats our poem at pp. 355–6 and 360–1, albeit not as an exilic document, nor as a response to the Mausoleum in particular, as I do in section 3.

41 Cf. the elegiac poet's self-epitaph at [Lygdamus,] Corp. Tib. 3.2.27–30, especially 29–30: LYGDAMVS HIC SITVS EST. DOLOR HVIC ET CVRA NEAERAE | CONIVGIS EREPTAE CAVSA PERIRE FVIT.

42 Also relevant are Propertius 2.1.71–8 (where Propertius envisages that he will be breue in exiguo marmore nomen, 72, and that Maecenas will weep over his tomb and the dura puella who caused his death, 78) and 2.11.5 (where a uiator will pass by the grave of an unnamed woman, who is surely supposed to be Cynthia, contemnens ossa).

43 Tibullus’ and Propertius’ omission of their activities as elegists (see, however, below) stand in a long tradition of poets not emphasizing their poetic achievements: for example, in the epitaph recorded in the ancient lives, Aeschylus mentions only his participation at the battle of Marathon, not his poetic claims to fame, and this makes Ovid's insistence that his epitaph note his role as tenerorum lusor amorum even more striking. Propertius' epitaph itself, despite the promise of duo ... uersus (2.13.35), is not even a complete elegiac couplet, and Propertius remains anonymous in his epitaph; however, Propertius may play on the fact that unswerving slavery to one love is so rare that it can identify the lover as effectively as giving a name. See now Houghton (n. 40 [2013]), 358, for the suggestion that this incomplete Propertian epitaph emphasizes that such fictive elegiac epitaphs are embedded within and dependent upon Latin love elegy, which provides the poet's ‘true monument’.

44 Cf. e.g. Tr. 2.223 and 241–2 with Ingleheart (n. 16), ad loc.

45 Cf. e.g. Am. 3.1.27; Ars am. 2.600, 3.809; Tr. 1.9.61 and 4.10.1 (Ille ego qui fuerim, tenerorum lusor amorum, disclaiming such a role for himself as an exile in another epitaphic context), and n. 44 above.

46 See Ramsby, T.R., ‘Striving for permanence: Ovid's funerary inscriptions’, CJ 100 (2005), 365–91Google Scholar, at 372, for surprise at the lack of mention of Ovid's more serious poetic works such as the Metamorphoses and Fasti; Ramsby is surely correct in asserting that this concentration on Ovid's elegiac, erotic productions ‘forces us to reconsider the importance or relative significance of Ovid's works’.

47 Cf. e.g. Tr. 2.547–56 (where Ovid emphasizes his work in the higher genres, directing Augustus' attention to the Fasti, his lost Medea and the Metamorphoses), 3.1.4–8 (Ovid's latest work teaches nothing of love and he condemns the Ars), 5.1.1–10, 15–20 (where Ovid strongly dissociates himself from his fellow love elegists, wishing at 19 that he were not among their number, as his elegiac love poetry has led to his punishment).

48 Herescu, N.I., ‘Le sens de l'epitaphe Ovidienne’, in Herescu, N. I. (ed.), Ovidiana (Paris, 1958), 420–44Google Scholar, at 440.

49 Cf. e.g. CLE 428.15 for the phrase, and see too 478.8–9 (dic, rogo, praeteriens hospes: | sit t(ibi) t(erra) leuis et moliter [sic] ossa quiescant); Cairns, F., Sextus Propertius, The Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar, 233 n. 55 suggests, perhaps correctly, that all CLE examples of this phrasing derive from Ovid, who also uses it at Am. 1.8.108 and Her. 7.162. Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 28 (Urbana, 1962)Google Scholar, 69 notes that the poets give an individual twist to the formula most often found on actual Roman tombs: sit tibi terra leuis.

50 For a convenient summary of both the circumstances of Gallus' downfall and Ovid's exilic identification with Gallus, see Ingleheart (n. 16) on Tr. 2.445–6.

51 Cf. Dio 53.23–4 (note that the inscriptions on pyramids recording Gallus' achievements are not to be identified with the extant Philae inscription, ILS 8995: see Boucher, J-P., Caius Cornelius Gallus [Paris, 1966], 38–45)Google Scholar; it may be instructive to compare Ovid's claim that saying too much got Gallus into trouble: Tr. 2.446.

52 Ovid may allude to Gallus going too far in an inscription at Tr. 2.445–6, when he attributes Gallus' downfall to his inability to restrain his words in ‘real life’ if not in verse (non fuit opprobrio celebrasse Lycorida Gallo, | sed linguam nimio non tenuisse mero).

53 Compare Propertius 2.13, where, despite his short elegiac epitaph, Propertius had envisaged fame of epic and tragic proportions for his tomb, equating it with the tomb of Achilles: cf. lines 37–8 (nec minus haec nostri notescet fama sepulcri, | quam fuerant Pthii busta cruenta uiri ‘No less will the fame of my tomb become known | than was the blood-stained mound of the man from Phthia’). The blood-stained tomb here evokes Euripides' tragic Hecuba, where, in the aftermath of the Trojan war, the Trojan king's daughter Polyxena was sacrificed over the tomb of Achilles as an offering to his spirit. Here, Propertius participates in an on-going debate about the value of different genres of poetry; that the tomb of a love elegist will attain the sort of stature gained by that of an epic hero whose tomb plays an important part in Greek tragedy represents an elegiac challenge to epic and tragedy, the two genres that were believed to represent the highest achievement of ancient literature.

54 This is noted by Houghton (n. 40), 359–60.

55 Less immediately relevant, yet important insofar as they show Ovid creatively engaging throughout his career with these models, are Ovid's allusions to them at the end of the first book of the Amores (1.15.31–42) and the conclusion of his epic Metamorphoses (15.871–9).

56 The end of the Metamorphoses is an exception.

57 Ovid's Metamorphoses had in turn reworked Horace's claim in a suitably elevated generic context, again stressing that it is the poet – this time, an epic poet – rather than a beloved who will gain immortality.

58 Gibson, B.J., ‘Horace, Carm. 3.30.1–5’, CQ 47 (1997), 312–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues for a contemporary political reference to Gallus' regal posturing in Egypt by inscribing his deeds on pyramids in this ode, published in 23 b.c. Whether the reader recognizes such allusion or not, it is clear that reference to the pyramids plants the notion of rulers' monuments within the topos of poetic versus monumental immortality, thus preparing the way for Propertius and Ovid to develop this theme.

59 Augustus' ‘Mausoleum’ seems to have been known as such from an early date: the Fasti Cuprenses (= Inscr. Ital. 13.1.245), which can be dated to a.d. 4, refer to Gaius Caesar's ossa ... in [Ma]eso[laeum] inlata. See too Houghton (n. 40), 360.

60 Compare Ramsby (n. 46), 366 on the large number of epigraphs found within Ovid's poetry: ‘The elegiac inscription may be an attempt to mimic the Roman authoritative voice of the public record.’

61 See Antip. Sid. Anth. Pal. 9.58.

62 On the Mausoleum's impressive dimensions, see Zanker, P., The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1988), 72–7Google Scholar.

63 RG praef. and Suet. Aug. 101.

64 See Strabo 5.3.8; Suet. Aug. 100.4; and Davies, P.J.E., Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, 2000), 137–8Google Scholar.

65 Cf. Alföldy, G., ‘Augustus und die Inschriften: Tradition und Innovation’, Gymnasium 98 (1991), 293–9Google Scholar.

66 Cf. Barchiesi (n. 14), 129 (on Fasti 3.709–10); Michalopoulos, A., Ancient Etymologies in Ovid's Metamorphoses: A Commented Lexicon (Leeds, 2001), 46–7Google Scholar (on Met. 15.480 and Am. 2.14.17–18); and Ahl, F., Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca, 1985), 80–1Google Scholar.

67 The Mausoleum is alluded to as tumulum … recentem in Virgil's reference to Marcellus' death at Aen. 6.874. Cf. Dio 53.30.5.

68 For Augustus' putative claims to have found Rome brick and left it marble, see Suet. Aug. 28.3 and Dio 56.30.4.

69 Fairweather (n. 22) suggests that details in Ovid's ‘autobiography’ (Tr. 4.10) are intended to echo Augustus' own life story, postulating Ovid's use of either Augustus' lost autobiography or early versions of the Res Gestae. For epitaphs which provide a humorous commentary on the Res Gestae, cf. Petron. Sat. 71.

70 For which, cf. e.g. Suet. Aug. 31 and Hor. Carm. 4.8.13 (... incisa notis marmora publicis).

71 For which, cf. Suet. Aug. 85. Cf. also Suet. Claud. 1, which records that Augustus had his laudatory verses inscribed on Drusus' tomb after his death in 9 b.c., and wrote a memoir of him.

72 For Ovid's use of auctor for poetic authors, cf. e.g. Tr. 2.533 (addressed to Augustus, calling Virgil tuae felix Aeneidos auctor: Ingleheart [n. 16)], ad loc. posits an allusion to Augustus' name here), 5.14.3 (of himself, talking at line 1 of the monumenta he has raised to his wife in his books) and Pont. 1.7.3 (of himself).

73 See e.g. Fast. 1.612–14 and Tr. 2.45 (with Ingleheart [n. 16], ad loc.); for the etymological link, see Suet. Aug. 7.2 and Maltby (n. 38), 66 s.v. augustus, -a, -um.

74 Nomen (80) may alert the reader to the play on Augustus' name here.

75 Similarly, Culex 394–414: see W. Ax, ‘Marcellus, die Mücke: politische Allegorien im Culex?’, Philologus 136 (1992), 89–129.