Kresho Vukovic (University of Munich)
While many authors have written on fluid identities in the Metamorphoses, Ovid’s epic of
change, the role of rivers and fluid characters in the Fasti has been less explored. It is widely
agreed that rivers are often used to mark intertextual engagement with poetic sources (Jones
2005). River characters are given agency and allowed to speak as the Tiber does in Fasti 5
but too often this is dismissed as an instance of “pathetic fallacy”. However, Ovid’s portrayal
of rivers in the Fasti is far more complex than the scope of any single model. The Tiber
presents a particularly interesting case study: the river of Rome appears in every single book
of the poem and always in different guises. This paper aims to analyse the ambivalent
relationship between Ovid’s rivers (particularly the Tiber), gender, and liminal characters in
the Fasti (though some examples from the Metamorphoses are cited for comparison). As
Holmes (2015) argues, the many and polyvalent associations of ancient rivers led to apparent
contradictions: the same river is depicted as both aggressive/destructive (normative
masculine traits) and nurturing/caring (normative feminine). In other words, perceived river
identities are always shifting and their fluidity spills over onto riverine landscapes and human
characters, challenging identity boundaries and gender binaries.
The best examples of fluvial fluidity in the Fasti is the god Vertumnus, a shapeshifter deity
that derives his name from the turning of the river (ab averso amne deus, 6.410). Ovid also
relates the Tiber to the ambiguous characters of Janus (1.200-246), a god whose nature
escapes stable definitions (thus reflecting the generic instability of the work itself, Barchiesi
1997, 229-37). Moreover, the river is linked to female characters such as Anna Perenna (a
fluvial deity relating the flowing river to the flow of time) and Claudia Quinta, the heroine of
a scene set on the Tiber (4.305-48) that questions Roman gender normativity via the cult of
Magna Mater. The Tiber is also the setting of Carmentis’ prophetic monologue (1.495-540)
in which the exiled seer summons the deities of rivers, springs, and forests to witness the
future greatness of Rome. The Tiber actively acts to save the twins in the Roman foundation
myth and shares some of the she-wolf’s motherly features (2.381-422). Gender play is also at
work in Ovid’s description of the fluidity of Vertumnus, revealed in a dialogue with an old
woman (rather than with the god himself like in Ovid’s model, Propertius 4.2). Finally, the
fluid and unstable character of advena Tiberis is stressed in Ovid’s conversation with the god
of the river on the festival of the Argei (5.635-62): “the stories Tiber tells are stories of
migration” (Heyworth 2018). In sum, the Tiber’s connections to migrants, ambiguous
characters, and fluid identities reflect the fluid character of the river himself/itself and
reinforce the unstable and ambiguous nature of the calendar poem where love elegy rubs
shoulders with politics and epic themes with slapstick comedy.