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OVID and LIVY the Relationship Between Ovid and Livy in the Fasti

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OVID and LIVY the Relationship Between Ovid and Livy in the Fasti CHAPTER SIX OVID AND LIVY The relationship between Ovid and Livy in the Fasti is not as varied and complex as that between Ovid and Virgil, but it is still important and well worth studying. Such a study reveals more about Ovid’s engagement with preceding literature and about his narrative techniques in the poem, and the Livian perspective sharpens the focus and is vital for informed appreciation of all thirty-one narratives in the poem on Rome’s origins and early years,1 of four of them in particular. Research has already been done on the poet’s allusions to the historian, establishing numerous similarities and some minor differences in indi- vidual passages,2 but this will be the first analysis to address major issues and present a broad picture, discussing departures from Livy at length. Overall it seems that in the Fasti Ovid is reclaiming these myths and legends for verse and is responding to Livy the sober, moralistic historian (as a tempting target) and to Livy the accomplished story-teller (as a challenge). So Ovid puts the poetry and marvel back into these tales (with poetic language, figures and word order, with divine interventions and so on), eschews Livy’s manner (the solemnity, judicious caution, full and detailed treatment, ethical pur- pose, annalistic narrative and so forth) and also tries to improve on Livy’s stories as stories (making them livelier, snappier, darker etc., and sometimes mischievously out-Livying Livy). The resulting product has little historical value and is certainly open to censure as sheer entertainment, manifestly fanciful and fab- ricated, and lacking any real depth or breadth of vision. Then again Ovid was a poet, not a historian, and he had an outlook and inter- ests that were generally at variance with Livy’s, and with the Fasti he was producing a quite dissimilar type of literary composition. This chapter does not try to argue that one of these authors is better than the other. They are just different. 1 1.259ff., 469ff., 543ff., 2.195ff., 361ff., 383ff., 429ff., 481ff., 585ff., 687ff., 711ff., 3.11ff., 49ff., 179ff., 277ff., 545ff., 663ff., 677ff., 4.249ff., 641ff., 809ff., 879ff., 5.451ff., 639ff., 6.105ff., 131ff., 351ff., 419ff., 485ff., 587ff., 657ff. 2 See SCHENKL, SOFER, MARCHESI, HEINZE 340ff. and BÖMER I 26f. 172 chapter six Part 1: The General Picture The passages on the Fabii, Gabii, Lucretia and Tullia (discussed below), which contain extensive Livian influence, and also brief echoes of the historian throughout the Fasti make it clear that Ovid was acquainted with Livy’s depiction of early Rome and its antecedents.3 So in constructing his own depiction in those four passages and else- where obviously he will have had Livy in mind, and in fact Ovid has much in common with him. So too where there are substantial deviations from Livy in those four passages and elsewhere we can reasonably assume that at least in part Ovid was reacting against his predecessor (and other historians), and that he also had rather different ideas of his own about what that ancient world might have been like and how it should be approached, employed and presented. Nature of the World Depicted The divine and the marvellous in the world of early Rome and its antecedents are much more prominent in the Fasti 4 than they are in Livy (who generally avoids miracles and direct intervention of the gods).5 This is part of the process of ‘remythologization’,6 and as a result Ovid portrays a lively, colourful and unpredictable world of wonder. It is filled with (fully anthropomorphic) gods as well as men, and these divinities constantly step in as major figures doing very important things, especially to ensure the creation and survival of Rome (fathering Romulus, saving the city from the Sabines and the Gauls, from crop failure and barrenness of Roman wives etc.).7 We find the full paraphernalia of divine opponents ( Juno and Janus at 1.259ff.), deities conversing with mortals (e.g. Jupiter talking to Numa at 3.333ff.) and councils in heaven (as at 6.353ff., where the gods discuss the siege of the Capitol). There are numinous touches, such 3 In connection with Livy’s depiction particularly helpful are OGILVIE, LUCE 230–49, LIPOVSKY, PHILLIPS, MILES, FOX 96ff., OAKLEY and FORSYTHE. 4 In only five out of the thirty-one stories are there no intervening deities and no miraculous items (2.361ff., 687ff., 3.663ff., 5.639ff. and 6.657ff.). 5 See WALSH 47f. 6 Compare Virgil’s ‘remythologization’ in the Georgics after Lucretius’ demythol- ogization (see GALE 113ff.) 7 Livy occasionally touches on support for Rome from fate and the gods (e.g. 1.4.1, 46.5, 48.7), but Ovid takes this much further and has heaven intricately and continually bound up with the city. .
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