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OVID, EPISTULAE EX PONTO 4.8, GERMANICUS, AND THE FASTI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

K. Sara Myers
K. Sara Myers*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
ksm8m@cms.mail.virginia.edu
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Extract

In Epistulae ex Ponto 4.8, one of the last poems written from exile (dated to 15 or 16 c.e.), Ovid expresses his increasing hopes for Germanicus' assistance in effecting his recall to Rome. Though ostensibly addressed to his stepdaughter's father-in-law, P. Suillius Rufus, the poem contains a petition to Germanicus (27–88), as a poet to a poet, which promises future commemoration in Ovid's poetry if he is removed from Tomis:

      clausaque si misero patria est, ut ponar in ullo,
      qui minus Ausonia distet ab Vrbe loco,
      unde tuas possim laudes celebrare recentes
      magnaque quam minima facta referre mora.   (85–8)

and if my country is closed against me in my misery, may I be placed in any place less distant from the Ausonian city, whence I might celebrate your praises while they are recent and relate your great deeds with the least delay.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 725 - 734
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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References

1 Syme, R., History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978), 89–90Google Scholar. Herbert-Brown, G., Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study (Oxford, 1994), 204–5Google Scholar, suggests mid-15 c.e.; Bömer, F., P. Ovidius Naso: Die Fasten. Band I (Heidelberg, 1957)Google Scholar, 18, argues for 14 c.e., after Augustus' apotheosis on 17 September. For the Ex Ponto I have used the Teubner text of J.A. Richmond (1990); translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

2 Syme (n. 1), 79; Tac. Ann. 13.42. Fantham, E., ‘Ovid, Germanicus and the composition of the Fasti’, in Knox, P.E. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Ovid (Oxford, 2006) 373–414Google Scholar, at 386 n. 29, observes that he was Germanicus' quaestor and that ‘Ovid assumes he has access to Germanicus in the field’.

3 Cf. Fantham (n. 2); Green, S.J., Ovid: Fasti I (Leiden, 2004)Google Scholar, 17, 32 (in 17 n. 11 he points out a possible allusion to the content of the Fasti at Pont. 4.8.50–1: tempore … scripta ferunt annos).

4 Germanicus is first mentioned (briefly) in Tr. 4.2.9, 39–40 (dated to 11 c.e.); he receives mention in Pont. 2.2.71, 2.2.81–4, 4.5.25–6, 4.9.109, 4.13.31–2. Pont. 2.1.49–68 contains Ovid's prediction of his future triumph, which interrupts a description of Tiberius' Pannonian triumph of 12 c.e., and in Pont. 2.5.41–56 Germanicus' eloquence as an orator is praised. See Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 179–84.

5 Green (n. 3), ad loc.; Syme (n. 1), 7, 46; Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 186, 205. Syme (n. 1), 44, dates 4.9, which celebrates the inauguration of Pomponius Graecinus' suffect consulship for 16 c.e., to the late summer/autumn of 16 c.e. and suggests that it is the last poem. Helzle, M., Publii Ovidii Nasonis epistularum ex Ponto liber IV: A Commentary on Poems 1–7, 16 (Hildesheim, 1989)Google Scholar, 175, tentatively suggests 4.16 may be as late as 17 c.e.

6 Fantham (n. 2), 374. See also Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 206: ‘the date of the revision can be narrowed down to mid-15 to late 16’.

7 Fantham (n. 2), 386; Helzle (n. 5), 32; L. Galasso, ‘Pont. 4,8: il “proemio al mezzo” dell’ ultima opera ovidiana', Dictynna 5.1 (2008), <http://dictynna.revues.org/395>. The lack of a prologue poem for Ex Ponto 4 and its unusual length, however, has suggested to some a posthumous arrangement of the book: see the discussions of Helzle (n. 5), 31–6, and Holzberg, N., Ovid: The Poet and his Work (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2002), 193–4Google Scholar, who both see evidence of poetic arrangement. Allusions to the opening of Verg. G. 3 and Horace Carm. 4.8–9 (see below) may support reading the poem(s) as a ‘proemio al mezzo’. On Ovidian middles, see Hardie, P.R., ‘Ovidian middles’, in Kyriakidis, S. and De Martino, F. (edd.), Middles in Latin Poetry (Bari, 2004), 151–82.Google Scholar

8 Compare his similar appeals to Sextus Pompeius, cos. 14 c.e., at Pont. 4.5.25–6, 15.23–4. For Ovid's increasing appeals to the divinity of the domus Augusta (Tr. 1.2.103–4; Pont. 4.9.109, 4.15.23–4; Fast. 1.701, 721), see Millar, F., ‘Ovid and the Domus Augusta: Rome seen from Tomoi’, JRS 83 (1993), 1–17Google Scholar, at 15–17; also Scott, K., ‘Emperor worship in Ovid’, TAPhA 61 (1930), 43–69Google Scholar, at 64–9; Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 203; Gradel, I., Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford, 2002), 115–16Google Scholar (‘poetic hyperbole’). Germanicus was never deified, but in Pont. 4.9.105–22 Ovid speaks of worshipping at a private shrine with images of the imperial family (Augustus, Livia, Tiberius, Drusus, Germanicus) in his home in Tomis; cf. Pont. 2.8.1–4, and see Gradel (this note), 202–3. See Millar (this note), 10, on the complexity and significance of Ovid's appeals to intermediaries for intercession with the imperial house in the exile poetry; see also Marchetti, S. Citroni, Amicizia e potere nelle lettere di Cicerone e nelle Elegie Ovidiane dall'Esilio (Florence, 2000), esp. 152–62.Google Scholar

9 See Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rome (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar, 299; Stichwortindex s.v. Opfervergleich.

10 Cf. Fast. 1.466, 2.3, 2.863–4, 3.790, 4.18, 4.729–30. For the poetic metaphor of a ship voyage, see Kenney, E.J., ‘Nequitiae poetae’, in Herescu, N. (ed.), Ovidiana (Paris, 1958), 201–9Google Scholar, at 205–6; Bömer, F., P. Ovidius Naso: Die Fasten, Band II (Heidelberg, 1958)Google Scholar, on Fast. 1.4; Robinson, M., A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 2 (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar, on Fast. 2.3; Wimmel (n. 9), 222–3. In his exile poetry Ovid frequently compares his situation with a shipwreck: see Ingleheart, J., A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2 (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar, on Tr. 2.99–102. See Green (n. 3), on Fast. 1.4: ‘Ovid may be asking his powerful patron to help navigate a real ship back to Rome’; cf. Pont. 4.12.41–2: effice … ne sperata meam deserat aura ratem (‘see to it that the hoped-for breeze does not forsake my craft’).

11 For the cumba, a small, lightweight boat, as a symbol of the elegist, see Tr. 1.1.85, 3.4.16; Pont. 2.6.12; Ars 3.26 (with Gibson, R., Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3 [Cambridge, 2003]Google Scholar, ad loc.); Prop. 3.3.22. On the generic (elegiac) associations of the adjective exiguus, see Pont. 3.3.33–4: forsitan exiguas, aliquas tamen, … | ingenii uires (‘slight perhaps, but something … the strength of my talent’); Fast. 6.22: ause per exiguos magna referre modos (‘you who dared to tell of great things in humble couplets’); Hor. Ars P. 77: exiguos elegos (with Brink); Prop. 2.1.72, 2.13.33, 3.1.31, 3.9.35–6, 4.1.59–60; Bömer (n. 10) and Robinson (n. 10), on Fast. 2.4; Williams, G., Banished Voices (Cambridge, 1994), 188–9.Google Scholar

12 For the use of the verb in similar programmatic contexts, cf. Tr. 2.559–60; Fast. 4.830, 5.111; Prop. 4.1.67; Manil. 1.113; Stat. Theb. 10.445–6. I am indebted to the editor for alerting me to these implications.

13 For the allusion, see Helzle (n. 5), 29; Galasso (n. 7), 14; Rosati, G., ‘Il poeta e il principe del futuro: Ovidio e Germanico su poesia e potere’, in Citroni, M. (ed.), Letteratura e civitas: transizioni della Repubblica all'Impero. In ricordo di Emanuele Narducci (Pisa, 2012), 295–311Google Scholar, at 300.

14 On the poetic (Hellenistic) and generic affiliations of elegiac paupertas, see Nagle, B.R., The Poetics of Exile (Brussels, 1980), 125–7Google Scholar; Cairns, F., Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), 20–1Google Scholar. See Williams (n. 11), 74–7, on Ovid's use of the term to characterize the literary allegiances of his exile poetry (cf. e.g. Pont. 2.5.21: uena … paupere). Fantham (n. 2), 387, suggests a parallel with the opening priamel of Hor. Carm. 4.8.5 (diuite me scilicet artium, ‘if I were wealthy, I mean, in skills’). Cf. Pont. 4.9.122: exiguas … opes.

15 Translation from Harder, A., Callimachus: Aetia (Oxford, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 118. On the programmatic associations of the adjective parvus, see Galasso, L., P. Ovidii Nasonis Epistularum Ex Ponto Liber II (Florence, 1995)Google Scholar, on Pont. 2.5.25 (in rebus temptamus carmina paruis, ‘I attempt poems on humble themes’); cf. Tr. 1.1.1: parue … liber, Tr. 2.332: paruos … modos; Hor. Carm. 3.3.72: modis … paruis. See also Williams, G., ‘Conversing after sunset: a Callimachean echo in Ovid's exile poetry’, CQ 41 (1991), 169–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams (n. 11), 73–4, 123, on Callimachus as an important model for Ovid's exilic poetics.

16 See Miller, J., Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar, 228; Fedeli, P., Properzio: Elegie Libro II (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar, 330.

17 See Nagle (n. 14), 125; Wimmel (n. 9), 199. Culmen at Prop. 2.10.23 is a conjecture (Passerat); the MS tradition has carmen, and many read currum (Markland); see Fedeli (n. 16), ad loc.

18 Miller (n. 16), 229; see also Nagle (n. 14), 142–3; Barchiesi, A., The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (Berkeley, CA, 1997), 67–9.Google Scholar

19 Fantham (n. 2), 387. Cf. Hor. Carm. 4.2.54: tener … uitulus.

20 See Ingleheart (n. 10), on Tr. 2.75–6. In Pont. 4.9 Ovid speaks in similar terms of his actual worship at his domestic shrine: talique libenter | exiguas carpo munere pauper opes (‘in such service, though poor, I willingly expend my meager resources’, 121–2).

21 In Pont. 2.5.41–56 Germanicus' eloquence as an orator is praised.

22 On the increasing tendency in Imperial poetry to invoke the emperor for inspiration, see White, P., Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, MA, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 20; Rosati, G., ‘Muse and power in the poetry of Statius’, in Spentzou, E. and Fowler, D. (edd.), Cultivating the Muse (Oxford, 2002), 229–51Google Scholar, at 238–44.

23 Nagle (n. 14), 127, observes that the sacrifice metaphor also appears at Fast. 1.5–6.

24 Cf. Pont. 2.5.45–56 (53: os caeleste; 55: facundia principe digna).

25 Fantham (n. 2), 411, sees an allusion here to Hesiod's Th. 80–110, where ‘both Zeus and the Muses share in honouring kings’. Might it also refer to the fact that Germanicus' Phaenomena began with the words ab Ioue (1)?

26 Ovid is fond of this polyptoton: cf. 2.9.65 (King Cotys); see Wills, J., Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar, 216.

27 See Fantham (n. 2), 388–90, for arguments that Germanicus' poem is Augustan in date and was known by Ovid; see similarly Possanza, M., Translating the Heavens: Aratus, Germanicus, and the Poetics of Latin Translation (New York, 2004), 219–43Google Scholar, on Germanicus' authorship and early dating (4–7 c.e.) of the Phaenomena. See also Volk, K., Manilius and His Intellectual Background (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 189 n. 29; Colborn, R., ‘Solving problems with acrostics: Manilius dates Germanicus’, CQ 63 (2013), 450–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Fantham (n. 2), 389, identifies Virgil, G. 2.475–6 (Musae, | quarum sacra fero) as the model. Germanicus' claim of artistic refinement and learning (Arat. 4: docti laboris) is repeated in both Ovidian passages cited above (docti … principis, Pont. 4.8.77, Fast. 1.19–20). The text of the poem is quoted from the edition of Gain, D.B., The Aratus Ascribed to Germanicus Caesar (Bristol, 1976).Google Scholar

29 Fantham (n. 2), 391.

30 See Fast. 1.2: lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa canam (‘I shall sing of the constellations that set beneath the earth and then rise’). For fragments of Ovid's Phaenomena, see Courtney, E., The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford, 2003), 308–9Google Scholar; on Ovid's use of Aratus in the Fasti, see Gee, E., Ovid, Aratus and Augustus (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar, who less convincingly suggests (66–7) that the astronomy of the Fasti could also have been added at the work's revision stage.

31 See Bernhardt, U., Die Funktion der Kataloge in Ovids Exilpoesie (Hildesheim, Zürich, and New York, 1986), 269–72Google Scholar. The epic associations of these themes are confirmed by their frequent appearance in recusationes: see e.g. Tr. 2.71–2, 2.333–4 (Gigantomachy), 2.317–24 (Troy, Thebes); Am. 2.1.11–16; Prop. 2.1.17–21; Hor. Carm. 2.12.6–9 (with Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc.).

32 Cf. Met. 1.6–7.

33 Cf. Met. 1.152.

34 On the political associations of gigantomachy, see Hardie, P.R., Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), 85–90Google Scholar; Williams (n. 11), 190; Rosati (n. 13), 301–2. Cf. Tr. 2.71–2; Hor. Carm. 3.4.37–60. On Bacchus and Hercules as prototypes for the triumphator and divine apotheosis, see Galasso (n. 7), 18; Cairns (n. 14), 333; Galinsky, K., The Herakles Theme (Oxford, 1972), 136–49Google Scholar; Feeney, D., The Gods in Epic (Oxford, 1991), 161–2Google Scholar; Bosworth, B., ‘Augustus, the Res gestae and Hellenistic theories of apotheosis’, JRS 89 (1999), 1–18Google Scholar, at 2–9; and cf. Ars 1.183–90 (Hercules and Bacchus); Hor. Carm. 3.3.9–15, 4.8.29–34; Cic. Nat. D. 2.62; Verg. Aen. 6.801–5; Sil. Pun. 15.78–82. On the related associations of Germanicus with Alexander, see Tac. Ann. 2.73.

35 McGowan, M.M., Ovid in Exile (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 26 n. 35, observes the verbal echo here of Met. 15.846: recentem animam caelestibus intulit astris (‘she brought his fresh soul to the heavenly stars’). See also Galasso (n. 7), 18.

36 On this famous line, see Rosati, G., ‘L'esistenza letteraria: Ovidio e l'autocoscienza della poesia’, MD 2 (1979), 101–36Google Scholar, at 125–7.

37 See Ingleheart (n. 10), ad loc. for the text; Nagle (n. 14), 72–3; and Stroh, W., Die römische Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung (Amsterdam, 1971)Google Scholar, 175, on the use of praeco.

38 For elegy as a medium for panegyric, see Cameron, A., Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 289–91Google Scholar (Hellenistic), 463–83 (Roman).

39 See Williams (n. 11) 50–99, on Ovid's exilic ‘pose of poetic decline’.

40 See D. Kidd, Aratus Phaenomena (Cambridge, 1997), 261: ‘the association of Pegasus with Helicon and Hippocrene may have been Aratus’ own invention'.

41 Hinds, S.E., The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self-conscious Muse (Cambridge, 1987), 6–24Google Scholar. Barchiesi, A., ‘Discordant muses’, PCPhS 37 (1991), 1–21Google Scholar, at 4, suggests that the use of grata at Fast. 5.8 may constitute a scholarly reference to an Alexandrian etymology of Aganippe connected with ἀγανός (‘pleasant’). Also perhaps apt is McKeown, J.C., Ovid: Amores Vol. III. A Commentary on Book Two (Leeds, 1998)Google Scholar, on Am. 2.19.29–30, where he notes ‘the particular use of gratus to refer to what is pleasing to deities’.

42 Hinds (n. 41), 22, 24, 141 n. 61; for Ovid's use of cauare, cf. Pont. 1.1.70, 1.1.73–4, 2.7.39–42, 4.10.3–8.

43 Hinds (n. 41), 14.

44 Ibid., 141 n. 62, also sees at Pont. 4.8.69–70 an echo of Met. 5.269–70. Fantham (n. 2), 410–12, argues for a close association of Pont. 4.8 and the opening of Fasti 5, suggesting that the associations (Hippocrene, Muses, Chaos, Gigantomachy) are instead Hesiodic; cf. similarly Rosati (n. 13), 307–11, on Hesiod in this poem as a model for Ovid's new ‘etico-politico ruolo’.

45 On the motif, see Scott (n. 8), 44–6; Stroh (n. 37), 235–49. See Evans, H.B., Publica Carmina: Ovid's Books from Exile (Lincoln, NE, 1983), 151–2Google Scholar, and Helzle (n. 5), 8, on the intensification of Ovid's appeals by means of named addressees in the Epistulae ex Ponto; see also Florian, K., Ovids Jahre am Pontus (Innsbruck, 2007), 169–70Google Scholar. In 14 c.e. Tiberius commended Germanicus' uirtus in the Senate (Tac. Ann. 1.52).

46 Pont. 4.8.49–51 (cf. Met. 15.871–2); the rejection of the marble temple at 31–2 also ties in with the (Pindaric) motif of poetry outdoing monuments. Cf. Hor. Carm. 4.8: public inscriptions (incisa notis marmora publicis, 13) are not more powerful than the Muses (Calabrae Pierides, 20).

47 See Hor. Carm. 4.8.11–12 on poetry as a pretium (cf. Pont. 4.8.68), 19–20 (laudes), 26–9 on poetry and immortality, 29–30 (Hercules), 33–4 (Liber); Carm. 4.9.25–6 (Agamemnon). See also Galasso (n. 7), 205; Fantham (n. 2), 387; Rosati (n. 13), 304. On ‘the economy of praise’ in Hor. Carm. 4.8 and 9, see Barchiesi, A., ‘Poetry, praise, and patronage: Simonides in Book 4 of Horace's Odes’, ClAnt 15 (1996), 5–47Google Scholar. On the Pindaric associations of ‘the topic of the fame conferred on great men by poetry’ in Carm. 4.8, see Harrison, S.J., ‘The praise singer: Horace, Censorinus and Odes 4.8’, JRS 80 (1990), 31–43.Google Scholar

48 Oliensis, E., ‘The power of image-makers: representation and revenge in Ovid Metamorphoses 6 and Tristia 4’, ClAnt 23 (2004), 285–321Google Scholar, at 307. Horatian influence is pervasive in the exile poetry: see e.g. Nagle (n. 14), 128–30; Fantham (n. 2), 387; Barchiesi, A., ‘Teaching Augustus through allusion’, in Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets (London, 2001), 79–103Google Scholar; Hardie, P.R., Ovid's Poetics of Illusion (Cambridge, 2002), 297–9Google Scholar; Ingleheart, J. ‘Writing to the emperor: Horace's presence in Ovid's Tristia 2’, in Houghton, L.B.T. and Wyke, M. (edd.), Perceptions of Horace: A Roman Poet and his Readers (Cambridge, 2009), 123–39.Google Scholar

49 See Labate, M., ‘Elegia triste ed elegia liete’, MD 19 (1987), 91–129Google Scholar; Galasso (n. 7), 203.

50 Recentes is critical here; cf. 88: minima … mora. Ovid can only sing of recent events if he is back in Rome: cf. Tr. 4.2.57–72; Pont. 3.4.18–64 (est quoque cunctarum nouitas carissima rerum, | gratiaque officio, quod mora tardat, abest, ‘freshness also is the most precious of all things, and homage which delay makes tardy, receives no favour’, 51–2). See also Labate (n. 49), 103–8, on Ovid's projected ‘poetica del poeta presente: spettatore e partecipe’ (104); Hardie (n. 48), 307–15.

51 Syme (n. 1), 156, also 87–90; Helzle (n. 5), 28–30. Cf. Sextus Pompey (4.1, 4, 5, 15); Albinovanus Pedo (4.10); Carus (4.13).

52 Hinds, S.E., ‘Dislocations of Ovidian time’, in Schwindt, J.P. (ed.), La Représentation du temps dans la poésie augustéenne (Heidelberg, 2005), 203–30Google Scholar, at 227.

53 Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 176; Green (n. 3), on Fast. 1.6. On the prominence of Ovid's exilic officiosa (programmatically framing Pont. 1–3 at Pont. 1.1.20, 3.9.55–6), see Williams (n. 11), 89–90, 102–3; Helzle (n. 5), 22–6; Evans (n. 45), 149–50; Stroh (n. 37), 250–3 (‘Nützlichkeitstopik’).

54 See Fantham (n. 2), 379–82; Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 173, who suggests (204–12) that Ovid stopped composing in late 16 c.e. owing to his perception of the deteriorating relations between Germanicus and Tiberius, which was exacerbated by the failed conspiracy of Libo Drusus in mid-16 (Tac. Ann. 2.27–31).

55 Hadrill, A. Wallace, ‘Time for Augustus: Ovid, Augustus and the Fasti’, in Whitby, M., Hardie, P.R., and Whitby, M. (edd.), Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bristol, 1987), 221–30Google Scholar, at 227. On Ovid's choice of Germanicus, rather than Tiberius, see Syme (n. 1), 44–6, 157; Herbert-Brown (n. 1), 173–204, 229–33; Helzle, M., Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto Buch I–II: Kommentar (Heidelberg, 2003), 22–30Google Scholar; Knox, P.E., ‘The poet and the second prince: Ovid in the age of Tiberius’, MAAR 49 (2004), 1–20Google Scholar, at 16.