1 'audite, o proceres,' ait 'et spes discite uestras. Creta Iouis magni medio iacet insula ponto, mons Idaeus ubi et gentis cunabula nostrae. centum urbes habitant magnas, uberrima regna, maximus unde pater, si rite audita recordor, Teucrus Rhoeteas primum est aduectus in oras, optauitque locum regno. nondum Ilium et arces Pergameae steterant; habitabant uallibus imis.
It has long been recognized that Cupid's intervention in Ovid's poetic project in Amores 1.1 functions as a humorous reworking of the cliché of the would-be epic poet diverted by a god to 'lighter' genres. What has received less attention is the question of whether it is particularly significant that a role which is usually played by Apollo, the patron god of poetry, is here taken over by Cupid. It is my contention that the displacement of Apollo by Cupid in Amores 1.1 forms part of a larger Ovidian project of sidelining the god in order for the poet to assert his own greatness and independence more loudly than ever. In addition to the Cupid encounter, Ovid's various disavowals of divine inspiration add flesh to the bones of the picture of his poetic independence, and have been the focus of some scholarship already, the proem to the Ars Amatoria being the most obvious and most fertile ground for such discussions. 1 The quarrel between Cupid and Apollo in Metamorphoses 1 has also been seen as a competition between genres, a meta-poetic struggle which playfully asserts the superiority of the elegiac and erotic over the epic within a poem which is, at least superficially, itself an epic. Apollo's subsequent unsuccessful attempt to rape Daphne displays him as a failed lover (and failed elegiac poet?) as well as a failed promoter of epic. 2 What I want to do here is collect together the various appearances of Apollo in Ovid's love poetry, 3 as well as some instances when we might have expected him to appear, but he does not. I believe that it is possible to see these not just as a string of unconnected jokes at the god's expense, but as a conspiracy of one against Apollo, and a conspiracy with both poetic and political ramifications. The importance of Apollo to the Augustan regime is a familiar subject: the identification between Octavian/Augustus and the god, which began in the forties .., 4
In ancient literature and religion, Hercules—in common with many other deities—is frequently associated with particular trees or types of tree. There are tales connecting him with the wild olive, laurel and oak, but his most prominent and frequent arboreal link is with the poplar (populus Alcidae gratissima, ‘the poplar is most delightful to Hercules’, Verg. Ecl. 7.61), an association mentioned twice in the Hercules-heavy first half of Aeneid Book 8 (276, 286). The festival of Hercules celebrated by Evander and his people takes place just outside the city within a ‘great grove’ (Aen. 8.103–4) of unspecified species, in an area surrounded by less defined expanses of trees. Trees crowd the banks of the Tiber, leaning out for wonder as Aeneas’ fleet passes by (Aen. 8.91–2) and soon uariisque teguntur | arboribus, uiridisque secant placido aequore siluas (‘[the Trojans] are covered by different trees and cut their way through green woods on the calm water’, Aen. 8.95–6); looking up through the sacrificial smoke on the altars, Pallas and his friends are initially frightened ut celsas uidere rates atque inter opacum | adlabi nemus (‘as they saw the tall ships glide towards them through the dark grove’, Aen. 8.107–8). When Evander later shows Aeneas around, the emphasis on trees recurs, with the huge grove destined to become Romulus’ Asylum (Aen. 8.342), and the bramble- and god-haunted woods of the Capitol (Aen. 8.347–54). Later, Aeneas and his men camp in a vast grove of Silvanus, as Venus approaches to bring her son his new shield (Aen. 8.597–607).
This chapter focuses on the depiction of Ariadne by Ovid. Ovid gives extended attention to the story of Ariadne in three of his works, following later events along the narrative line in later poems, moving from Ariadne freshly deserted in Heroides 10, to the approach of Bacchus in Ars Amatoria 1, to a later moment when she finds herself deserted once more, this time by her divine husband, in Fasti 3.2 Although the same, or similar, elements naturally recur in all three episodes, there is a palpable sense of difference and of development which can be perceived in Ariadne's movement from a well-known mythical figure speaking for herself, through an incarnation as didactic exemplum, and into the realization of a future life which, it turns out, cannot escape from its troubled past even whilst theoretical happiness and immortality beckon.
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