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            The importance of constellations and astrological references in Ovid’s Fasti and Metamorphoses has been well-documented (Newlands 1995; Gee 2000), but such references in the Ars Amatoria have received relatively little attention.

            The paper argues that the references to the stars in the Ars Amatoria should be read as carefully placed literary, political, and generic markers that situate the Ars Amatoria as an important predecessor to the Metamorphoses and Fasti.  This demonstrates that Ovid manipulates the natural world around him to fit his poetic needs, just as he does with myth and history.  While the Ars Amatoria is different in many ways from these two longer works it shows evidence that Ovid was beginning to experiment with ‘greater themes’ than his elegiac corpus is often given credit.  Matters of astronomy, alongside those of topography and time, have been deftly interwoven into Ovid’s ‘handbook’ of seduction.

            The first part of this paper briefly catalogues and surveys the role of astronomical references in the Ars Amatoria.  These demonstrate Ovid’s literary engagement with Aratus, Callimachus, Catullus, and Virgil. 

            In the second, longer, portion of the paper, I look closely at a pair of connected references to the constellations Leo and Virgo.  These come in the catalogues of places in Rome to find a lover in Books 1 and 3, respectively, which each begin with the Portico of Pompey and a reference to a constellation entered by the sun in the late summer.  For the men in Book 1, Ovid uses Leo (cum sol Herculei terga leonis adit, 1.67) to describe late July, while for the women, he uses Virgo (Virginis aetheriis cum caput ardet equis, 3.388) to describe August.  However, in typical Ovidian fashion, these references serve more than one function.  The description of Leo, signified by Hercules’ defeat of the Nemean Lion, does double duty, as both a reference to Pompey, who connected himself with Hercules, and a continuation of the hunting metaphor found throughout the first two books of the poem.  Likewise, in addition to suggesting that women seek the shade of the portico in the summer heat, the reference to Virgo in Book 3 contrasts the female spaces of the catalogue with the male spaces that Ovid has just told his female readers to avoid.  Furthermore, the constellation reinforces the virginal identify of his female readers and marks them as appropriate targets for the poem’s male readers to ‘hunt.’  This image of male chasing female is enhanced by the adjacency of Leo and Virgo in the Zodiac. 

Simpson’s (1992) assertion that these astronomical references are intended to make the reader think of Augustus’ recently completed (10 BCE) Horologium further supports the idea that Ovid’s gendering of the sky is reflected in Rome’s monuments.  In an additional connection to the princeps, Leo and Virgo meet in the end of the newly added month of August.  By connecting the stars with the sexual dynamics of Rome, Ovid once again demonstrates that nothing claimed by Augustan ideology cannot be repurposed for erotic means.