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Mr and Mrs Ovid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Martin Helzle
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Extract

The title of this paper will immediately make the informed reader ask himself ‘which of Ovid's three wives does he mean?’ Writing about the first two, however, would hardly be more than a paraphrase of the poet's own words:

paene mihi puero nee digna nee utilis uxor

est data, quae tempus per breue nupta fuit.

illi successit, quamuis sine crimine coniunx,

non tamen in nostro firma futura toro.

(When still almost a boy I was given a completely useless wife who was married to me for a short time. She was succeeded by a spouse who, although flawless, was still not going to remain faithful to me.)

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Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , October 1989, pp. 183 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

NOTES

1. Trist. 1.6,3.3,4.3,5.2,5. 5,5. 11,5. 14, Pont. 1.4, 3. 1.

2. Gould, J., ‘Women in Classical Athens’, JHS 100 (1980), 45Google Scholar.

3. The empress Livia is also mentioned eight times in the exile-poetry.

4. For hostile non-naming of men see Adams, J. N., ‘Conventions of naming in Cicero’, CQ n.s. 28 (1978), 163fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. filia (Trist. 4. 10. 75, Fast. 6. 220, 233), nata (Trist. 1. 3. 19).

6. nam tibi quae coniunx, eadem mihi filia paene est (Pont. 4. 8. 11). Perilla, (Trist. 3. 7)Google Scholar cannot be regarded as an argument against this practice since there is nothing to suggest that she was related to Ovid in any way, see Wheeler, A. L., ‘Topics from the Life of Ovid’, AJP 46 (1925), 27Google Scholar, Kraus, W., ‘Ovidius Naso’ in Ovid, WdF, ed. Albrecht/Zinn, V. (Darmstadt, 1968), p. 73Google Scholar.

7. See previous note.

8. RE vi. 1780, 53ff., PIR2 F 47.

9. Nemethy, G., Commentarius exegeticus ad Ovidii Tristia (Budapest, 1913), pp. 129ff.Google Scholar; this is also tacitly assumed by Braginton, M. V., ‘Exile under the Roman Emperors’, CJ 39 (1943–1944), 399Google Scholar.

10. Der kleine Pauly iv. 545, 41ff.

11. Pont. 4. 8. 1 If. quoted above.

12. Trist. 4. 10. 35f.

13. Fast. 2. 193–242 with Heinze, R., ‘Ovids elegische Erzahlung’, Verh. d. sacks. Ak. d. Wiss., phil.-hist., Kl. 71, 7 (1919), 43ffGoogle Scholar.

14. Pont. 1.2. 131f.

15. Juv. 3. 160f., see also White, P., ‘Amicitia and the Profession of Poetry in early Imperial Rome’, JRS 68 (1978), 91Google Scholar.

16. Nagle, B. R., The Poetics of Exile, Coll. Lat. 170 (Bruxelles, 1980), p. 43Google Scholar.

17. Nagle's, points of analogy (op. cit. pp. 43f.)Google Scholar are extremely tenuous. Her main piece of evidence is the fact that Ovid calls Fabia his domina. A look at Thes. v. 1, 1935, 53ff. shows that this was a standard term for a female head of household.

18. Trist. 3. 3. 39f. cf. Tib. 1. 1. 61; 41f. cf. 62; 48f. cf. Prop. 2. 13, 27; 50 cf. 28; 51 cf. Tib. 1. 1. 67f.; 65f. cf. Prop. 2. 13. 31f., 3. 12. 13f.

19. There is, of course, a whole host of imaginary epitaphs, e.g. Tib. 1. 3. 55f., with Smith's and Murgatroyd's notes, Prop. 4. 7. 85f., Lygd. 2. 29f., Ov. Am. 2. 6. 61f., Epist. 2. 147f.; 7. 195f.; 14. 129f., Fast. 3. 549f.

20. Luck on 73f., 75f., 77f.

21. Eur, . Alk. 463ff.Google Scholar, Hel. 853f., Meleager, AP 7. 461Google Scholar, Verg, . Eel. 10. 33Google Scholar, Tib. 2. 4. 49f., Prop. 1. 17. 23f., , Ov.Am. 3. 9. 68Google Scholar, Epist. 7. 162, Pers. 1. 37, Juv. 7. 207; see Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, 1948), pp. 65ffGoogle Scholar.

22. Verbal reminiscences of Procris' death at Ars 3. 741–4 are most frequent: Trist. 4. 3. 41 cf. Ars. 3. 741; 42 cf. 744; 44 cf. 742. It seems most unlikely that the Tristia passage is a deliberate reworking of Cephalus' death in Ars III, since there is no further evidence for the view that in the Tristia Ovid has exchanged the female Procris for himself and is suggesting that he has suffered a fatal blow at his wife's hands.

23. Hellegouarc'h, J., Le vocabulaire des relations et des parties politiques sous la République (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar, Sailer, R. P., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Trist. 4. 3. 14 (bis), 5. 14, 20. 41.

25. Trist. 3. 3. 84, 5. 14. 26, Pont. 3. 1. 86.

26. Trist. 1.6.6.

27. Trist. 1. 6. 23, Pont. 3. 1. 48, 80.

28. Trist. 4. 3. 71, 5. 14. 15, Pont. 1. 4. 39, 3. 1. 146.

29. Trist. 1.6.30, Pont. 3. 1.80.

30. Pont. 3. 1.80,99.

31. Trist. 4. 3. 10, 17, 24; Pont. 3. 1. 146.

32. A similar statement is made years later to Sextus Pompeius, one of Ovid's patrons in his last years: tutelaeque feror munus opusque tuae (and I am said to be the product and the gift of your protection, Pont. 4. 1. 36).

33. See also 5. 14. 11–14.

34. op. cit., pp. 51f.

35. Stroh, W., Die rdmische Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung (Amsterdam, 1971), pp. 235ffGoogle Scholar.

36. e.g. Ol. 10. 91ff., Nem. 9. 6f.; Stroh, , op. cit., p. 237 n. 10Google Scholar.

37. e.g. 16. 58f.; 17. 115ff.; Stroh, , op. cit., p. 241fGoogle Scholar.

38. The obvious exceptions are the genethliakon (Trist. 5. 5) and the piece on relegatio and exilium (Trist. 5. 11).

39. Reitzenstein, R., ‘Zur Sprache der lateinischen Erotik’, Sitzungsber. d. Heidelb. Ak. d. Wiss. 12 (1912), 9ffGoogle Scholar.

40. Ann. 1. 5 with Koestermann.

41. Syme, R., History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978), pp. 149ffGoogle Scholar.

42. See Luck's, introduction to Trist. 4. 10Google Scholar.

43. Ovid tells his reader at the very beginning of the book (Trist. 5. 1. 1f.).

44. Froesch, H. H., Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto I–III als Gedichtsammlung (Diss. Bonn, 1968), pp. 53fGoogle Scholar.

45. In Tristia 5, only poem 10 is datable to A.D. 12 (Trist. 5. 10. 1). Since Tristia 4 had appeared in A.D. 11 (see Luck's general introducton to his commentary, p. 8) and ex Ponto 1–3 were composed in A.D. 12–13 (Syme, op. cit. 39f.Google Scholar) it seems likely that the last book of Tristia contains poems not included in books 1, 3, and 4 together with a few new ones.

46. There is evidence for Ovid dictating verse at Tomis, e.g. Trist. 3. 3. 86, but it is quite a big step from a scribe to a clerical freedman who collects his former master's writings and has them published in Rome.

47. Helzle, M., ‘Ovid's Poetics of Exile’, ICS 13 (1988), 79ffGoogle Scholar.

48. The authenticity of the Halieutica must remain a matter of debate, see Kraus, , op. cit. 150Google Scholar against Axelson, B., ‘Eine ovidische Echtheitsfrage’, Eranos 43 (1945), 23ffGoogle Scholar.

49. I personally think it is about as real as the second half of the Fasti. 50. Syme, , op. cit. p. 146Google Scholar.

50. Syme, op.cit.p.146

51. Nisbet, R. G. M., ‘Greater and Lesser Bear’, JRS 72 (1982), 53Google Scholar.

52. Pont. 3. 1.73.

53. Braginton, loc. cit.

54. Seibert, Jakob, Die politischen Flüchtlinge und Vertriebenen in Griechenland 600 v.Chr.-400 n.Chr., Impulse der Forschung (Darmstadt, 1985), p. 380Google Scholar.