Playing with marble: the monuments of the Caesars in Ovid’s Fasti1

A bimillennium has failed to dampen the fascination surrounding the volatile relationship between Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor, and Ovid, the most prominent poet to live through his entire rule. This volatility is no more apparent than in Ovid’s Fasti, in which the poet makes specific promises to engage seriously with Augustan Rome. The opening section of the poem invites us to look forward to a didactic treatment of the festivals of the Latin year as they are organized in Augustus’ time (1.1),2 the reasons behind these festivals (1.1), and the imperial family’s crucial place within these institutions (1.9–14). The choice of the calendar as the governing structure for the poem is itself a form of flattery to Augustus, who had recently completed reformation of the calendar so that it became, for the first time, a reliable means of measuring time. In effect, Ovid follows closely on from Verrius Flaccus, who produced the magnificent inscription of the calendar at Praeneste soon after A.D. 6.3 The poem, it would seem, has a clear purpose that gets to the heart of imperial achievement. But modern scholars have rightly drawn attention to the ways in which the Fasti consistently undermines itself and resists being pinned down on anything. A few examples will suffice here: Ovid’s grand claims for the thematic outlook of the Fasti are met with regular references to the instability of the metre and genre to sustain the subject-matter;4 his purported didactic persona is undermined by his regular uncertainty and increasing reliance on (dubious) informants;5 his juxtaposing of very different types of episode potentially invites subversive readings of Augustan ideology.6 The instability of the Fasti can be further demonstrated if we consider the way in which the poem handles the physicality of the city of Rome, through the evocation of monuments associated with the imperial family.7 Ovid makes the physicality of Rome an essential part of his agenda for the poem: he makes specific claims to honouring the imperial family by celebrating the arae Caesaris (1.13), by which we should understand all types of ‘sacred area’ set up or revitalized by the Julian family.8 This intention on Ovid’s part should come as no surprise. In their reformation of the Classical Quarterly 54.1 224–239 (2004) Printed in Great Britain 224