Martin
HELZLE From praeceptor amoris
to praeceptor Amoris:
Ovid, Cupid and Fabius Maximus in ex Ponto 3.3
In
ex Ponto 3.3 Ovid recounts to his patron Fabius Maximus
how Cupid appeared to him at night. The poet blames him
for his exile, but the god denies that the Ars
Amatoria
was the cause for Ovid's banishment and that the poet is
concealing the real cause. Cupid also claims that
Augustus will relent. The poem ends with an appeal to
Fabius's sense of duty towards his clients. The present
paper argues that this poem uses, expands and inverts
themes from Latin love elegy, especially the topos of the
poet-lover presenting himself as praeceptor amoris.
These adaptations create humour and cast the poet as
larger than life. In addition, the erotic echoes are an
appropriate subject in a poem addressed to a Fabius whose
family had special ties to the goddess Venus.
As
early as verse 5, it becomes evident that Ovid reworks
Corinna's quasi-divine epiphany in Amores
1.5 as well as some aspects of Cupid's epiphany in
Rem.
549-76. This time, however, Ovid drops some of the erotic
features of his earlier work (what Helzle 2002, 24 calls
"Enterotisierung"). Further down (23 magistro),
he also casts himself in the role of the praeceptor
amoris,
well-know from Tibullus 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, Propertius 1.7,
1.9, 1.10, 1.20, Ovid Am.
1.4, 2.19, 3.1, 3.4 and, of course, the Ars Amatoria
and
Remedia Amoris
(see the introductions of McKeown on Am.
1.4, Maltby on Tib. 1.4). This elegiac commonplace in
itself can be seen as an adaptation of earlier
presentations of Cupid or Venus as the one who teaches
how to love (cf. Plato Phaedr.
257a3-8, Kall. Aitia Frg.
67.1 Pfeiffer, Moschus Frg.
3,8 Gow, Prop. I 1.5-6, Tib. II 1.75, Am.
I 6.7-8; see Janka 1997, 32 n.11 and Maltby on Tib.
1.2.19-24). In this very vein, Ovid here presents Cupid
as his original teacher (Pont.
3.3.29-30 tu mihi dictasti iuuenalia carmina primus,/
apposui senis te duce quinque pedes).
At other points in the poem, however, the poet advances
from Cupid's student to Cupid's teacher (29, 37-48 and 69
te magistro).
In so doing, he takes the elegiac role of the
praeceptor amoris
somewhat literally and presents himself as praeceptor
Amoris.
The divinity, now in the subordinate role of student,
protests in an obvious reference to Ars
1.33 that he has learnt nothing illegitimate from the
poet (Pont.
3.3.69-70 nil nisi concessum nos te didicisse
magistro,/ Artibus et nullum crimen inesse tuis).
By appropriating the role of the teacher and reducing the
god to being the consumer of his product, Ovid gets the
divinity, rather than the poet-speaker, to protest that
what he has learnt from the magister amoris
was innocuous. The "palinode" (Kenney 1968, 531) is
therefore presented by the divinity himself.
All
this sounds like vintage Ovid: he echoes himself, he
adapts, expands and inverts themes from his love-elegy.
The most surprising trait of this poem, however, seems to
be the addressee: Q. Fabius Maximus, the quintessential
Roman nobleman who became Augustus' right hand man in his
later years. One would expect the poet to avoid topoi
from love-elegy when addressing such a prominent pillar
of the Augustan rÈgime until one realizes that the
family of the Fabii must have had some association with
the goddess Venus. Their family feast was the Lupercalia
on 15th February (Fast.
II 283-358), which, far from being the festival of Faunus
as which it is on record, must have had its origin in
some fertility ritual (NP 7,509-10) at which a goat was
sacrificed (Plut. Rom.
21, Ov. Fast.
2,361 with Bˆmer's note) which means that its
original deity was probably female. The connection
between the Fabii and Venus is also suggested by the fact
that two of them founded a temple to the love-goddess,
namely Q. Fabius Gurges (Liv. 10.31.9) and Q. Fabius
Maximus Cunctator (Liv. 22.10,10, 23,30,10). In this
context we should also not forget that Horace dedicated
his fourth book of Odes
which starts with the phrase Intermissa, Venus, diu/
rursus bella moves?
to Ovid's very Fabius. In short, addressing a poem in
which themes from love-elegy are omnipresent to a Fabius
is highly appropriate. More than that, Ovid's
self-presentation as the paedagogue to Fabius's patron
deity's unruly child adds to the humour and esprit of
this poem.
Bibliography:
E.J.
Kenney, "Ovids Exildichtung" in Ovid. Wege der
Forschung
ed. by Michael v. Albrecht and Ernst Zinn, Darnmstadt
1968, 513-35
J.C.
McKeown, Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and
Commentary,
Leeds 1989-
Markus
Janka, Ovid. Ars
Amatoria, Buch 2. Kommentar,
Heidelberg 1997
Robert
Maltby, Tibullus: Elegies. Text, Introduction and
Commentary,
Cambridge 2002
Martin
Helzle, Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto. Buch I-II.
Kommentar,
Heidelberg 2002