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The Fasti has often been regarded as one of Ovid’s less successful works; it has also been one of the more neglected, even during the present revival of interest in Ovid. There are diminishing returns to be gained from the re-editing of the text, from the investigation of Ovid’s sources, and from the study of the chronology of the work; and it is doubtful whether significant progress has been made in these fields in the last twenty years. There has been progress in our understanding of Roman religion and of the calendar, but this has not revealed any unsuspected insights or deficiencies on Ovid’s part. It is on the literary side of the Fasti that the most interesting work is to be done.
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Footnotes
1.
There have been recent texts of Fast. by F. Bömer, H. Le Bonniec (i Catania, 1969: ii Bologna, 1971), and G. B. Pighi (Turin, 2 vols., 1973); of these Le Bonniec’s is the most interesting (Pighi’s has been generally criticized for its excessive reliance on G). There has not been a new English translation since Frazer’s. Frazer’s monumental commentary (London, 5 vols., 1929) is being outdated by advances in anthropological method and in comparative religion; the standard commentary is now Bömer’s, which is very thorough on content and (unlike Frazer’s) on language. Le Bonniec’s Érasme editions of Book I (Paris, 1961; 2nd end. 1965) and Book II (Paris, 1969) can be warmly commended in spite of their small scale; the English-speaking student is still sadly neglected. The best general discussion of Fast. is in Bömer’s Introduction; see also Santini. F. Peeters, Les Fastes d’Ovide (Brussels, 1939), is thorough and still useful, though some of his conclusions (for example, on chronology) cannot be accepted. There is a comprehensive bibliography in Pighi’s edition (i. 58 ff.).
References
Notes
2. There is only one Fasti article in Ovidiana, one in Atti, and two in Wege zu Ovid; Binns ignores the work completely.
3. On sources and models see Borner, i. 22 ff. The relevant texts of Varrò and Verrius Flaccus and the other evidence for the Roman calendar are conveniently collected in Pighi’s second volume.
4. On the relative chronology of Fast. and Met. see above (p. 5, with nn. 8 and 9). Books I–VI were completed before Ovid’s exile with the rest at most in rough draft (Tr. 2. 549 ff.), but there is no means of dating the inception of the work or the separate books. Outside Book I, which was revised after Augustus’ death and re-dedicated to Germanicus (1. 3 ff., 1. 285 f., 1. 637 ff.), the latest datable reference is to A.D. 3 (4. 348), though the passage 4. 81 ff. must have been added in exile. On the whole question see Bömer i. 15 ff.
5. See e.g. Michels, A. K., The Calendar of the Roman Republic (Princeton, 1967)Google Scholar; Ogilvie, R. M., The Romans and Their Gods in the Age of Augustus (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Dumézil, G., La Religion romaine archaique (Paris, 1966 Google Scholar; Eng. tr. Chicago, 1970);
Grant, M., Roman Myths (London, 1971)Google Scholar. Citations of Ovid in these studies are not as frequent as commentators on Fast, might have led us to expect.
6. On Ovid’s treatment of the gods and its literary background see Santini, 48 ff., Frécaut, 275 ff., and Lieberg, G., Latomus 28 (1969), 923-47Google Scholar; on Ovid’s feeling for rite and common religion see D’Elia, 364 ff., and Frécaut, 283 ff.; on syncretism see Schilling, R., REL 46 (1968), 222-35Google Scholar.
7. See Wilkinson, 264 f., and Bomer, i. 28 f.
8. Many of the more extreme passages are in the revised first book, where winning Germanicus’ favour is a major objective and satire is unthinkable.
9. For an analysis of Augustan propaganda in Fast., see Allen, K., AJPh 43 (1922), 250–66Google Scholar; on the ‘Einst-Jetzt’ motif in Virgil and Ovid see Döpp, 77 ff.; on the failure of Ovid to recapture the spirit of the Roman legends see D’Elia, 327 ff. (Frécaut, 298 ff., is more sympathetic); on the Anna story see Döpp, 56 ff., and Santini, 54 ff.
10. Heinze’s whole thesis is subjected to a searching examination by D. A. Little in Zinn, 64-105. On Heinze and Fast. see Bömer, i. 44 ff., Otis (2) 23 ff., and Santini, 46 ff. Brunner, T. F., AJPh 92 (1971), 275-84Google Scholar, shows that the similes of Fast. and Met. do conform to the eXeeivov / beivòv distinction.
11. On the Sabine rape episodes see D’Elia, 330 (cf. Heinze, 333 ff.); on Hercules and Cacus see Otis (2), 25 ff.
12. The echoes can be traced in Zingerle, Lüneburg, and Ganzenmüller. On the diction of Fast. see also Bömer, i. 49 f., who points to its innovative qualities (prose words, religious terms, new compounds, new iuncturae), and suggests that it contains less rhetoric and more pathos than Ovid’s amatory elegies.
13. See Kraus (1), 136 ff., and Bömer, i. 47 ff.
14. See e.g. Lee, A. G., G & R 23 (1953), 107-18Google Scholar, on Lucretia (cf. Bömer, i. 46 f.); M. von Albrecht, Wege zu Ovid, 451–67, on the Chiron episode; Littlewood, R. J., Latomus 34 (1975), 1060-72 on the LupercaliaGoogle Scholar.
15. See further Heinze, 353 ff.; Kraus (1), 133 ff.; Bömer, i. 47; Frécaut, 282 f. As Bömer points out, the figures for apostrophe are much higher in Fast. (once in 50 lines) than in Met. (once in 120).
16. Compare the negative verdicts of Wilkinson, 268 f., and D’Elia, 342 ff.
17. The variety of Ovid’s transitions is illustrated by Bömer, i. 48 f., and Frécaut, 274; D’Elia, 346 f., finds them monotonous.
18. For these two examples see Drossart, P., IL 24 (1972), 67–76 Google Scholar, and R. J. Little-wood, art. cit.
19. So Frécaut, 300; contrast the unfavourable judgements of Fränkel, 147 ff., and D’Elia, 342 ff.