Lucy Mudie, University of Manchester
In Tristia 3.1, Ovid’s little book finally reaches Rome. Upon its arrival, it is taken on a tour of the city, which, on closer inspection, reveals itself as a revised version of Ovid’s description of Rome and its landmarks in Ars Amatoria 1. While the tour of the Ars focuses largely on the theatrical locations of the city, this Tristia “re-tour” homes in on a different type of theatrical display, namely: the princeps’ imperial image as Pater Patriae. This paper proposes to read Ovid’s description of Rome at Tristia 3.1 as a form of intratextual retrospection, which specifically engages with the Ars in order to emphasise the poem’s socio-political impact on Augustan Rome. The poet’s allusions to the Ars here may seem apologetic, but they serve to perpetuate the poem’s subversive influence, and moreover its ability to dismantle, distort and destroy Augustus’ image as Pater Patriae even while Ovid is in exile.
Ovid’s Tristia “re-tour” recalls Tristia 1.1, where the poet envisages what his little book will see when it arrives in the author’s inner sanctum. Ovid centres our focus on the curved bookcase where his book will see its three older brothers, the three books of the Ars, lurking shamefully in an obscure corner (Trist. 1.115-16). The Ovidian poet not only configures his erotic poem as a problem child which his little Tristia should avoid, but he also significantly likens the three books to the parricides Oedipus and Telegonus because of their role in their author’s exile, a fate Ovid strongly linked with death. The exiled poet constructs this fraught relationship between himself and his Ars as a foil to his troubled relationship with the emperor, who condemned him to exile. After all, the Pater Patriae, metaphorically speaking, is a father to his citizens and Ovid makes it very clear that even in exile he is still one of these (problem) children (Trist. 3.1.47-52).
In the Tristia “re-tour” we are invited to view Ovid as the anonymous tour guide, who is reflecting, receiving and revising the Rome of his Ars to suit his new poetic and political agenda as an exile. The strong intratextual engagement with the Ars here serves to emphasise the poet’s affinity with the carmen which earnt his punishment. Two poems later, the poet declares on his deathbed that his Ars will not only be the monument to his life (Trist. 3.3.77-8), but also his ticket to poetic immortality. Ovid constructs himself and his Ars as one and the same. The blurring between the poet and his poem changes the dynamics of the parricide metaphor in Tristia 1.1. While the metaphor highlights Ovid’s part in his own exile, it also holds the poet and his Ars accountable for the potential character assassination of Augustus. Like parens, like parricide: the Ovidian poet and his Ars Amatoria are both equally responsible for killing the Pater Patriae in name and influence.