RES EST PUBLICA CAESAR: OVID AS POLITICAL THEORIST? Roman Republicanism 10-11 April 2015 Nandini Pandey Assistant Professor of Classics
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Ovid’s Poetic (and Political?) Stages 1. Early Love Poems: Heroides, Amores, Ars Amatoria (c. 16 BC-2 AD) 2. Grand Ambitions: Metamorphoses and Fasti (c. 2-8 AD) 3. Exile Poems: Tristia, Epistulae Ex Ponto (8-17 AD) (exile to Black Sea town of Tomis, in 8 AD)
1. The Love Poems • • • •
Res publica in its material sense: buildings, luxury goods, wealth Freedom to pursue desires, enjoy public goods for private ends Freedom from arbitrary interference (temporary, not structural) Slippage/chiasmus between public and private Let ancient times please others: I congratulate myself that I wasn’t born until now: this age suits my character.’ (Ars Amatoria 3.121-2) Certainly young men and girls came from each coast, and the whole world was in the city. Who did not find someone to love in that crowd? (Ars Amatoria 1.172-4)
2. The Metamorphoses • Tyrannical gods’ abuse of power, lack of popular sovereignty • Running analogy between Jupiter and Augustus This [Olympus] is the place that, if audacity were granted to my words, I would not at all fear to have called the Palatine of great heaven. (Met. 1.175-6) Caesar is god in his own city – whom … his own progeny turned into a new star and a flaming comet; for, from the works of Caesar, there is no greater achievement than the fact that he became father of Augustus. (Met. 15.746-51) (Defying the wrath of Jove)… the better part of me will be borne, immortal, beyond the high stars, and my name will be indelible, and wherever Roman power extends over the lands it has conquered, I will be read by the mouths of the people: and through all the ages, if there’s truth in poets’ prophecies, I shall live on in fame. (Met. 15.875-79)
3. The Exile Poems • Res est publica Caesar = Caesar is the state? (Tristia 4.4.15) • But Ovid begins to redefine ‘public’ and redeem popular choice by appealing directly to the people through his poetry The communal festivities evade us, expelled far away … still, whenever I hear of it, I’ll be glad. That day will come when I may lay aside my gloom and the public cause will outweigh the private. . (Tristia 4.2.72-4) Meanwhile, since a public place is denied me, May I be permitted to have lain hidden in some private spot. You too (if it’s allowed), hands of the people, take up Our poetry, upset by the shame of its rejection. (Tristia 3.79-82) And it can’t be prohibited, since Caesar is a public property and even I have a share in the common good. (Tristia 4.4.15-16)
Preliminary Bibliography (1/2) Barchiesi, Alessandro. 1994. Il Poeta E Il Principe : Ovidio E Il Discorso Augusteo. Bari: Laterza. Brunt, P. A. 1988. “Libertas in the Republic.” In The Fall of the Roman Republic, 281–350. Casali, Sergio. 1997. “Quaerenti Plura Legendum : On the Necessity of « Reading More » in Ovid’s Exile Poetry.” Ramus 26 (1): 80–112. Connolly, Joy. 2015. The Life of Roman Republicanism. Princeton. Kapust, Daniel J. 2011. Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mader, Gottfried. 1991. “Panegyric and Persuasion in Ovid, ‘Tr.’ 2.317-336.” Latomus 50: 139–49. Markell, Patchen. 2008. “The Insufficiency of Non-Domination.” Political Theory 36.1: 9–36. McGowan, Matthew M. 2009. Ovid in Exile: Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto. Brill. Millar, Fergus. 1998. The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic. Ann Arbor. Moulakis, Athanasios. 2011. “Civic Humanism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, 2011. Mueller, Dietram. 1987. “Ovid, Iuppiter und Augustus.” Philologus 131: 270–88.
Preliminary Bibliography (2/2) Newlands, Carole Elizabeth. 1997. “The Role of the Book in Tristia 3.1.” Ramus 26: 57–79. Oliensis, Ellen. 1997. “Return to Sender: The Rhetoric of Nomina in Ovid’s Tristia.” Ramus 26: 172–93. Pandey, Nandini. 2011. Empire of the Imagination: The Power of Public Fictions in Ovid’s “Reader Response” to Augustan Rome. Diss., UC Berkeley. -----. 2013. “Caesar’s Comet, the Julian Star, and the Invention of Augustus.” TAPA 143.2: 403–47. Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford. Segal, Charles. 2001. “Jupiter in Ovid’s « Metamorphoses ».” Arion 3: 78–99. Skinner, Quentin. “The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty.” In Machiavelli and Republicanism. Smith, Alden. 2006. “Books in Search of a Library: Ovid's Response to Augustan Libertas." Vergilius 52: 45–54. Yavetz, Zvi. 1969. Plebs and Princeps. Oxford.
