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Home , Fasti (poem)

CHAPTER SIX

THE FAST!: STYLE, STRUCTURE, AND TIME

John F. Miller

1. Introductory

Long neglected, 's elegiac calendar-poem, the , has been voluminously recognized by recent scholarship as a literary master• work.' The poet himself calls it "greater" (2.3, 4.3) than his earlier poetry, no doubt in reference to its grand scale as well as the august central topics-Rome's religious feasts, national legends, and the Emperor. The plan called for twelve books but we have only six• January through -totaling 4,972 verses (this outstrips the 4, 7 55 lines of 1-6). Speaking to from his exile at Tomis, Ovid claims that he has written twelve books of Fasti (Tr. 2.549, scripsi), but most now agree that he is overstating the achievement for apologetic purposes. Although the calendrical narrator on three occasions explicitly anticipates sacra of the year's second half (3.5 7-58 and 199-200; 5.145-48), no trace of the last six books survives. Strong intratextuallinks between Books 1 and 6 (among other things) suggest to some that Ovid finally designed the calendrical fragment which we possess as an integrated work. 2 Even the poem's incom• pleteness has been interpreted as part of its meaning, as Ovid's refusal to surrender his identity to the Emperor and the state3-just ahead lay the months of Julius and Augustus. However, Book 6 ends with straightforward praises of the imperial family (6.80 1-1 0), and the closely knit structures of the first six months hardly rule out a bal• ancing final half.

1 Surveys of much recent work: Fantham (1995a) and (1995b); also Miller (1992a). 2 E.g., Newlands (1995) 124-45 and Holzberg (1995) 353-62. 3 Feeney (1992) 19, Newlands (1995) 26 ("[Ovid] resisted the subsuming of his poetic identity in the powerful, controlling of his age by leaving his poem unfinished"); cf. Barchiesi (1997b) 262. Fantham (1983) 210-15 concludes that Books 5 and 6 reflect that Ovid's available material "was drying up" (215). 168 JOHN F. MILLER

In T ristia 2 Ovid notes that he dedicated the Fasti to the Princeps and that his exile (in A.D. 8) interrupted the poem (Tr. 2.552, tibi sacratum sors mea rupit opus). The work as we have it opens with an address to , adopted son of Tiberius and grandson of Augustus (1.1-26). Nearly everyone takes this discrepancy to point to revision of the "interrupted" Fasti in exile: 4 after the death of Augustus in A.D. 14, Ovid changed the dedicatee to another member of the imperial house,5 added references to Tiberius and Germanicus in Book 1, and one direct allusion elsewhere (4.80-84) to his own sad T omitan plight. Recent scholarship has argued for additional revisions at Tomis,6 and Ovid's exile colors many contemporary read• ings of the Fasti, whether the critic aims to demonstrate how the banished poet seeking recall updated his encomia7 or tries to uncover his subtle protests against the regime. 8 The poem's "political" stance has dominated recent criticism. By incorporating into the Jasti new firiae celebrating anniversaries of his achievements and honors, Augustus, like before him, firmly fixed his mark on the calendar, as on everything else in Rome's public life. Many of these feasts Ovid scrupulously includes in his calendar, and he also weaves the imperial fa~nily into some tradi-

4 But see now Holzberg (1995) 351-53, who argues that the evidence would suit a poem begun shortly before exile and continued (rather than revised) at Tomis: nothing in Book 1 assumes the death of Augustus; tibi sacratum at Tr. 2.552 can be interpreted indirectly--compare 's opening address to Octavian's intimate asso• ciate Maecenas in the Georgics, a poem concerned in essential respects with Octavian himself. 5 Many have taken the proem to Book 2, addressed to Augustus, to be the whole work's original preface, but see below, n. 56. 6 Lefevre (1976), (1980) shows that the discussion of the origin of animal sacrifices (1.335-456) and the sections on the Fabii-from exile Ovid approached P. Fabius Maximus as a potential advocate for his recall to Rome--likely date from the later period. Fantham (1986) 266-73 argues that the proem to Book 5 reflects the atmos• phere of the early Tiberian age; Fantham (l992b) considers how much of the Evander-Carmentis story in Books 1 and 6 was the product of the years at T omis (in both cases similarities with Ovid's exilic poems form an important part of the argument). Herbert-Brown (1994) 159-62 suggests that the whole section on Carmentis in Book 1 (1.461-542) was written after the death of Augustus. Courtney (1965) 63-64 identifies metrical grounds for Ovid's work on the Fasti in exile. 6.666, exilium quodam tempore Tibur erat calls Ovid's banishment to mind, even without ref• erence to Pont. 1.3.82, exulibus tellus ultima Tibur erat. 7 Lefevre (1980), Fantham (1986), Herbert-Brown (1994). 8 Barchiesi (1997b) starts his analysis of the Fasti from the vantage point of the exilic elegies; Newlands (1995) prefaces her study by quoting Pont. 2.6.4, et si non liceat scribere, mutus ero. Cf. Feeney (1992) and Johnson (1978).