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PLUTARCH's Life of NUMA

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PLUTARCH's Life of NUMA CHAPTER FIFTEEN A V ARRONIAN VATIC NUMA?: OVID'S FAST! AND PLUTARCH'S liFE OF NUMA Molly Pasco-Pranger By the early second century B.C.E. Rome's second king, Numa Pom­ pilius, was associated with a nymph or minor goddess named Egeria who advised him in his administration of the young city; the tradi­ tion's earliest extant appearance is in a one-line fragment of Ennius (fr. 113 Sk.). The relationship between Numa and Egeria, most often figured as a marriage, finds a place in a wide range of sources and is clearly a standard piece of the Numan tradition by the Augustan period.' Egeria's close narrative and cultic links to the Camenae2 also bring Numa into association with these figures who emerge, probably in the third century with Livius Andronicus, as the Roman equivalent of the Muses. 3 When we have, then, a tradition associating Numa with Egeria and the Camenae, and a reinterpretation of the Camenae in the third century making them the Italian counterpart to the Muses, we should not be surprised to find this literary develop­ ment exerting an influence on the historico-legendary tradition. We should not be surprised to find authors asking what Numa had to do with poetry. A pair of unusual treatments of the life of Numa in Ovid's Fasti and in Plutarch show traces of exacdy this inquiry in their association 1 E.g., Cicero Leg. 1.1.4; Livy 1.19.5, 1.21.3; Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 2.5 7-76; Ovid Met. 15.4 79-551. On the history of the narrative, see Buchmann ( 1912) 38-56; Buchmann argues that the story has a Greek origin and is more a poetic than a historical tradition. 2 Egeria shared a grove cult with the Camenae outside the Porta Capena which both Livy andjuvenal report was founded by Numa (Livy 1.21.3,Juvenal 1.3.llff.). The connection between Egeria and the Camenae is not entirely clear, but it seems sure that both she and they were originally water goddesses and indeed both the Porta Capena site and Egeria's other major cult site at Lake Nemi are associated with springs. Dionysius reports that some actually consider Egeria one of the Camenae (2.60.5). 3 Ross ( 197 5) 146-69 offers a concise history of the identification of the Camenae as the Italian Muses. 292 MOLLY PASCO-PRANGER of Numa with the vatic ideal which rose to such prominence in the Augustan period. I will argue that it is likely that the two share a Varronian source, and consider in particular this theory's implica­ tions for the relationship between Varro's antiquarianism and Augustan discourses on the nature of poetry and the role of the poet in the political world. Before turning to the aetiological narratives shared by Plutarch and Ovid, I will briefly examine how each author estab­ lishes Numa as a poetic figure upon his introduction into the text and into Roman history. In a 1992 study of Book 3 of the Fasti, Hinds noted the strong poetic overtones of two passages that introduce the poem's most extended set of Numan narratives,4 overtones which draw connec­ tions between Numa and the poet of the Fasti. The first passage in question sends out signals for a reader familiar with the language of Roman 'Alexandrianism': primus, o1iviferis Romam deductus ab arvis, Pompi1ius menses sensit abesse duos, sive hoc a Samio doctus, qui posse renasci nos putat, Egeria sive monente sua. Numa Pompilius, led down to Rome from the olive-bearing fields, first perceived that the year was missing two months, whether he had been taught by the Samian who thinks we can be reborn, or whether Egeria advised him about this. Fasti 3.151-4 In line 151, Numa is 'led down' (deducere) to Rome. The cannen deduc­ tum, widely recognized as the Latin equivalent of Callimachus' Moucrav AE7ttaAET]V (Aet. 1 fr. 1.24),1 would perhaps not necessarily leap to mind were it not for the word doctus two lines later: N uma may have been taught by the Greek sage Pythagoras, Ovid tells us. 6 The doctrina 4 Hinds (1992) esp. 119-20 and n. 5, and 124 n. 9. My discussion owes much to Hinds's, which seeks to demonstrate an affinity between Numa and the mater­ ial and genre of the Fasti. Barchiesi (1997) 110-12 also treats this episode briefly, emphasizing in particular Numa's composition of the Carmen Saliare (Fast. 3.388). 5 For a recent discussion of the programmatic use of deductum with thorough bib­ liography see Myers (1994) 4 n. 13. For further discussion of the primary sources, Hinds (1987) 18-21 and notes. ,; The word deductus is used of Numa in Livy as well ( 1.18.6) without arousing any suspicion of Alexandrianism. Livy also (quite rightly) rejects Pythagoras as Numa's teacher, primarily on chronological grounds (1.18.2-5); on the history of this tradition and its rejection, see Ogilvie ( 1965) ad loc. .
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