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The speech of Pythagoras in Ovid Metamorphoses 15: Empedoclean Epos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Philip Hardie
Philip Hardie
Affiliation:
New Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

Ovidians continue to be puzzled by the 404-line speech put into the mouth of Pythagoras in book 15 of the Metamorphoses. Questions of literary decorum and quality are insistently raised: how does the philosopher's popular science consort with the predominantly mythological matter of the preceding fourteen books? Do Pythagoras' revelations provide some kind of unifying ground, a ‘key’, for the endless variety of the poem? Can one take the Speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic, or is it all a mighty spoof, as intentionally laughable, perhaps, as the imperial panegyric with which the narrative of book 15 concludes? Or should we beware of imposing modern tastes on Ovid's original audience, and respect the Hellenistic and Roman predilection for scientific poetry? This article seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid's allusive practice within the Greco-Roman tradition of hexameter epos. The figure who provides a foundation for Ovid's construction of his own poetic genealogy turns out to be the Greek philosophical poet Empedocles. The resulting reflections on Ovid's manipulation of generic conventions may be timely in the light of the recent appearance of sophisticated and fresh approaches to the question of whether the Metamorphoses is, or is not, an epic.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 204 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Hermann, G., Die Pythagorasrede im XV Buch als Schliissel zum Gesamtwerk der Metamorphosen (Staatsarbeit Saarbrücken, 1955)Google Scholar; Viarre, S., L'Image et la penseé dans les ‘Metamorphoses’ d'Ovide (Paris, 1964), pp. 223–88Google Scholar; Little, D. A., ‘The Speech of Pythagoras in Metamorphoses 15 and the Structure of the Metamorphoses’, Hermes 98 (1970), pp. 340–60Google Scholar(with a survey of earlier attempts to find unity).

2 The case for parodic or satirical intention has been argued by Segal, C. P., ‘Myth and Philosophy in the Metamorphoses: Ovid's Augustanism and the Augustan Conclusion of Book XV’, AJPh 90 (1969), 257–92Google Scholar; Holleman, A. W. J., ‘Ovidii Metamorphoseon Liber XV 622–870 (Carmen et Error?),’ Latomus 28 (1969), 42–60Google Scholar; Johnson, W. R., CSCA 3 (1970), 137–48Google Scholar; Galinsky, G. K., Ovid's Metamorphoses (Oxford, 1975), pp. 104–7Google Scholar; id., ‘The Cipus Episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses (15.565–621)’, TAPhA 98 (1967), 181–91Google Scholar. Arguments against this, seemingly the now prevailing, view of Met. 15 are brought byLittle, D. A., ‘Non-Parody in Metamorphoses 15’, Prudentia 6 (1974), 17–21Google Scholar; id., ‘Ovid's Eulogy of Augustus: Metamorphoses 15.851–70’, Prudentia 8 (1976), 19–35Google Scholar. Little points out that George Sandys and Dryden thought that the Speech of Pythagoras was the high-point of the poem, Renaissance judgments which should at least give us pause for thought.

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6 Cf. Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Miner, E. L., transl., Cambridge, MA, 1972), pp. 218–20Google Scholar. The parallels between Empedocles and the cosmogony of Met. 1, as well as the Speech of Pythagoras, were listed byPascal, C., Graecia Capta (Florence, 1905), pp. 129–51Google Scholar; Robbins, F. E., CPh 8 (1913), 403–4Google Scholar dismissed Pascal's Empedoclean parallels on the grounds that they were all mediated through Lucretius; this was excessively sceptical, but the Lucretian colouring is also important (see below). The Empedoclean parallels in the Speech of Pythagoras are also discussed byBignone, E., Empedocle (Turin, 1916), p. 272Google Scholar; Segl, R., Die Pythagorasrede im 15. Buch von Ovids Metamorphosen (diss. Salzburg, 1970)Google Scholar; Corte, F. della, ‘Gli Empedoclea e Ovidio’, Maia 37 (1985), 3–12Google Scholar(who airs the possibility that Sallustius' Empedoclea was an intermediary model for Ovid, but is otherwise silent on the relation of the Speech of Pythagoras to the Latin hexameter tradition).

7 I list the Empedoclean parallels (varying in their degree of closeness): Met. 15.60–64: Emped.B 129 DK: 15.63–4: B 17.21; 15.75–6,459–68: B 136, 137; 15.93: B 139.2 (cf. Od. 9.295); 15.96–103 (Golden Age): B 128; 15.102: B 130; 15.111–26: B 128.8; 15.143–52: cf. B 112; 15.153: cf. B 124; 15.192: cf. B47; 15.239–51 (four elements): B 6.1; 15.252–8: B 8,12,17.6–13,26.8–12; 15.340–55 (Etna): cf. B 52. Many of these parallels are discussed byBomer, F., P. Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen Buch XIV–XV (Heidelberg, 1986): p. 323Google Scholar for a list. The Empedoclean colour is virtually absent in the long section of admiranda and paradoxa at 259–452.

8 Bomer (n. 7), p. 271; Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge, 1970 2), pp. 296–9Google Scholar.

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10 See Bomer (n. 7), pp. 252–3; Ferrero, L., Storia del pitagorismo nel mondo romano (Turin, 1955)Google Scholar.

11 Burkert (n. 6), pp. 218–20.

12 , Diog. Laert. 8.54–7Google Scholar.

13 Cf. Lucr. 1.792–3 ‘nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit, continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante’.

14 In detail note the shared pattern of two negatives followed by adversative (‘nee… nee…sed’; οὐδενς…οὐδέ…λλŰ), and the closeness of ‘nasci…uocatur’ to ϕύσις…νομάζεтαι.

15 See Spoerri, W., Spdthellenistische Berichte iiber Welt, Kultur und Gotter (Basel, 1959), p. 50Google Scholar. For other Empedoclean echoes in Apollonius see Livrea on 4.672–81; Hunter, R. L., Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica Book III (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar, index s.v. ‘Empedocles’.

16 Pascal (n. 6), pp. 129ff.; Alfonsi, L., ‘L'inquadramento filosofico delle Metamorfosi ovidiane’, in Herescu, N. I. (ed.), Ovidiona (Paris, 1958), p. 266Google Scholar; see also n. 26 below. Spoerri (n. 15), pp. 37–8 is sceptical about the direct use of Empedocles in Met. 1.

17 op. cit., pp. 70ff.

18 Else, G. F., Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA, 1957), pp. 50–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar reconciles the two Aristotelian statements through the assertion that in the Poetics the main issue is mimesis.

19 Longrigg, J., ‘“Ice of Bronze” (Lucretius 1.493)’Google Scholar, CR 20 (1970), 8–9Google Scholar; Cazzaniga, I., ‘Le metafore enniane relative a cielo e stelle ed alcuni placita di tradizione Anassimeno-Empedoclea’, PP 26 (1971), 102–19Google Scholar, at 104 on caeli clipeus (see also Rostagni (n. 4), p. 289 n. 1).

20 Empedocles and Aeschylus: Goldhill, S., Language, Sexuality, Narrative (Cambridge, 1984), p. 121 n. 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosier, W., Reflexe vorsokratischen Denkens bei Aischylos (Meisenheim, 1970)Google Scholar; Griffith, M., The Authenticity of the Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 222–3Google Scholar; Cazzaniga (n. 19), 111–17.

21 ‘Lukrez und Empedokles’, Die Neue Rundschau (1959), 656–86, at 685. Other discussions of Lucretius' debt to Empedocles: Jobst, F., Über das Verhdltnis zwischen Lucretius und Empedocles (diss. Munich, 1907)Google Scholar; Kranz, W., ‘Lukrez und Empedokles’, Philologus 96 (1943/1944), 68–107Google Scholar; Furley, D., ‘Variations on Themes from Empedocles in Lucretius' Proem’, BICS 17 (1970), 55–64Google Scholar(= Cosmic Problems, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 172–82)Google Scholar; Castner, C. J. ‘De Rerum Natura 5.101–3: Lucretius' Application of Empedoclean Language to Epicurean Doctrine’, Phoenix 41 (1987), 40–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Edwards, M. J. ‘Lucretius, Empedocles and Epicurean Polemics’, Antike und Abendland 35 (1989), 104–15Google Scholar; Conte, G. B., Generie lettori (Milan, 1991), pp. 17–26Google Scholar; Sedley, D. N., ‘The Proems of Empedocles and Lucretius’, GRBS 30 (1989), 269–96Google Scholar(this important, if speculative, article argues that the whole of Lucr. 1.1–145 closely reproduces the structure of an Empedoclean proem; if this is true, the whole Empedoclean complex is also one that lies close to the surface of the Ovidian Speech of Pythagoras); and cf. other works cited byDalzell, in CW 67 (1973/1974), 98–9Google Scholar, and Tatum, W. J., TAPhA 114 (1984), 178 n. 5Google Scholar.

22 For a list of Lucretian allusions see Bomer, on Met. 15.6Google Scholar. In general on Ovid's imitation of Lucretius see Due, O. S., Changing Forms. Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Copenhagen, 1974), pp. 29–33Google Scholar.

23 On ‘double allusion’ see Mckeown, J. C., Ovid Amoresi. Text and Prolegomena (Liverpool, 1987), pp. 37–45Google Scholar. The phenomenon has come to the centre of recent criticism of Latin poetry; cf. e.g.Thomas, R. F., HSCPh 90 (1986), 188–9Google Scholar, using the label ‘window reference’.

24 Met. 15.60–68 ‘uir fuit hie, ortu Samius; sed fugerat una | et Samon et dominos odioque tyrannidis exul sponte erat; isque, licet caeli regione remotus, mente deos adiit et, quae natura negabat uisibus humanis, oculis ea pectoris hausit. cumque animo et uigili perspexerat omnia cura, in medium discenda dabat coetusque silentum dictaque mirantum magni primordia mundi et rerum causas et, quid natura, docebat.’ Emped. DK B 129 ἦν δέ тις ν κείνοισιν νρ περιώσια εἰδώς, ὃς δ μήκισтον πραπίδων κтήσαтο. πλοтον, πανтοίων тε μάλισтα σοϕν т' πιήρανος ἒργων ππόтε γŰρ πάσῃσιν ρέξαιтο πραπíδεσσιν, ῥεῖ' ὂ γε тν νтων πάνтων λεύσσεσκεν ἒκασтον καί тε δέκ' νθρώπων καί т' εἲκοσιν αἰώνεσσιν. Lucr. 1.66–75 ‘primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra, quem neque fama deum nee fulmina nee minitanti murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem irritat animi uirtutem, effringere ut arta naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret. ergo uiuida uis animi peruicit, et extra processit longe flammantia moenia mundi atque omne immensum peragrauit mente animoque, unde refert nobis uictor quid possit oriri.’ Empedocles' wise man is most likely to be Pythagoras, as Porphyry claimed (cf. Burkert [n. 6], pp. 137–8). Ovid's passage is closer to Empedocles than to Lucretius in the details of the opening ‘uir fuit hie’, and in the notion of the mental ‘seeing’ of the master.

25 Emped. B 137 μορϕν δ' λλάξανтα παтρ ϕίλον υἱν είρας σϕάζει πευχόμενος μέγα νήπιος οἱ δ' πορενтαι λισσόμενον θύονтες ό δ' αὖ νήκουσтος μοκλέων σϕάξας ν μεγάροισι κακν λεγύναтο δαîтα. ὡς δ᾽ αὓтως παтέρ᾽ υίς λὼν κα μνтέρα παîδες θυμν πορραίσανт ϕίλας καтŰ σάρκας ἒδουσιν. Aesch. Ag. 228–37 λιтŰ δ κα κληδόνας παтρώιους παρ᾽ οὐδν αἰ тε παρθένιον | Ӗθενтο ϕιλόμαχοι βραβς‧ | ϕράσεν δ᾽ όζοις παтρ μεт᾽ εὐχŰν | δίκαν χιμαίρας ὕπερθε βωμο | πέπλοισι περιπεт πανт θυμῷ | προνωπ λαβεῑν έρδην σтόμαтός | тε καλλιπῴρου ϕυλακαῑ καтασχεῑν | ϕθόγγονραῑον οἲκοις… See Wright, M. R., Empedocles: The Extant Fragments (New Haven and London, 1981), pp. 286–7Google Scholar. Sedley (n. 21), 293, 295 argues that B 137 comes from the Empedoclean proem, and is the structural model for the Lucretian sacrifice of Iphianassa. In Ovid's outburst against meateating at Met. 15.88–90 ‘heu quantum scelus est in uiscera uiscera condi | congestoque auidum pinguescere corpore corpus | alteriusque animantem animantis uiuere leto’, there is strong Lucretian colouring (see Bomer ad loc); the scelus of 88 may remind of Lucr. 1.82–3 ‘sceleris…scelerosa’ (the sacrifice of Iphianassa).

26 See n. 16. Ovid's use of divine metonyms for parts of the universe (Met. 1.10 Titan (the sun), 11 Phoebe, 14Amphitrite) is also in the Empedoclean manner (B6, the four elements; B38.4 ТιтŰν…αἰθρ…).

27 Newman, J. K., Augustus and the New Poetry (Brussels, 1967), pp. 182–95Google Scholar; Newman sees in the apparent contradiction merely an example of Pythagoras ‘forgetting himself’ (pp. 190–91); see also Bomer on 15.155.

28 Cf. , Cic.Lael. 24 ‘Agrigentinum…uaticinatum’.Google Scholar.

29 Hardie, P. R., Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), pp. 17–22Google Scholar.

30 Ennius an d Empedocles: Norden, E., Ennius und Vergilius (Leipzig, 1915), pp. 10–18Google Scholar; Bignone, E., ‘;Ennio ed Empedocle’, RFIC 57 (1929), 10–30Google Scholar; Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford, 1985), pp. 160, 164 n. 18 (expressing some scepticism about Bignone's claim), 260, 394–7, 758.Google Scholar.

31 On Ennian elements in the Met. seeHofmann, H., ‘Ovids Metamorphoses: Carmen Perpetuum, Carmen Deductum’, PLLS 5 (1986), 223–41, at 223–6Google Scholar.

32 But probably not the story of the meeting of Numa and Pythagoras: cf. Skutsch (n. 30), pp. 263–4.

33 See Skutsch, O., Studia Enniana (London, 1968), pp. 24–7; id., Annals (n. 30), pp. 147–53Google Scholar.

34 Newman (n. 27), pp. 189–90 points out that the Ennian ring that binds Met. 1 and 15 is reinforced by the imitation of the Ennian concilium deorum in Met. 1.

35 In this respect the Speech of Pythagoras may be seen as a microcosmic recapitulation of the whole of the Annals, as also of the whole of the Met. in its span of time from the memory of the Golden Age (cf. 1.89–112) to prophecy of the greatness of Rome.

36 For a discussion see Hardie (n. 29), pp. 76–83.

37 See Hardie, P. R., The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 103–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart, 1957 4), p. 28Google Scholar; Arundel, M. R., PVS 3 (1963/1964), 33–4Google Scholar.

39 See Hardie, P. R., ‘Augustan Poets and the Mutability of Rome’, in Powell, A. (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (Bristol, 1992), pp. 59–82Google Scholar.

40 On the combination of scientific and legendary-historical epos see Hardie (n. 29), passim.

41 See Bomer (n. 7), p. 269; Petersmann, M., Die Apotheosen in den Metamorphosen Ovids (diss. Graz, 1976), p. 199Google Scholar; Crahay, R. and Hubaux, J. argue that the meeting between Pythagoras and Numa conceals an allegory about Ovid and Augustus, ‘Sous le masque de Pythagore’, in Herescu (n. 16), pp. 283–300Google Scholar.

42 147–9 ‘iuuat ire per alta | astra, iuuat terris et inerti sede relicta | nube uehi’; 875–6 ‘parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis | astra ferar’. By the terms of the last line of the poem, 879 ‘siquid habent ueri uatum praesagia, uiuam’, Ovid in fact becomes his own uates; cf. above on Pythagoras and uates; and note esp. 144–5 ‘Delphosque meos ipsumque recludam | aethera et augustae reserabo oracula mentis’ (playing o n the etymology of Pyth-agoras). Relevant also is the association of Empedocles with Apollo and Delphi (according to the Suda he went around carrying σтέμμαтα Δελϕικά); cf. Solmsen, F., ‘Empedocles' Hymn to Apollo’, Phronesis 25 (1980), 219–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Buchheit, V., Der Anspruch des Dichters in Vergils Georgika (Darmstadt, 1972), 99–103; see also my ‘Questions of Authority’, forthcoming in the papers of a conference ‘Th e Roman Cultural Revolution’ held in Princeton, 25–28 March, 1993.Google Scholar.

44 With regard to the fourth seeKirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983 2), p. 282 ‘We may…infer that Empedocles took a leading role as a democrat in the affairs of his city.’Google Scholar.

45 Even Augustus' apotheosis as foretold by Pythagoras is not immune to the suspicion of mutability, for in the sequel we learn that the sky, the dead princeps' destination, is itself subject to change: 15.449 (the last words of Helenus' reported prophecy about Augustus) ‘caelumque erit exitus illi…’; but 453–5 ‘ne tamen oblitis ad metam tendere longe | exspatiemur equis, caelum et quodcumque sub illo est, | immutat formas tellusque et quidquid in ilia est.’

46 See Sedley (n. 21). 274–6.

47 Those tempted includePohlenz, M., Hermes 48 (1913), 1–13Google Scholar; Segal, C. P., AJPh 90 (1966), 290–92Google Scholar; Nisbet, R. G. M., JRS 72 (1982), 54Google Scholar; Kovacs, D., CQ 37 (1987), 462–5. In addition to the points raised by these scholars I note the parallelism between the description of Pythagoras' ‘flight of the mind’ and his ‘oculi pectoris’ (Met. 15.62–4) with the common topos of ‘oculi mentis’ in the exile poetry; particularly close is Tr. 4.2.57–64. Like Empedocles, the Ovidian Pythagoras is also an exile, but of a more literal kind (Met. 15.61–2 ‘odioque tyrannidis exul | sponte erat’); his politics have something in common with Empedocles, who is saidCrossRefGoogle Scholar(, Diog. Laert. 8.63, after Aristotle and Xanthos) to have refused the offer of a throne. Further there was a tradition that Empedocles had gone into exile from his home to SyracuseGoogle Scholar(, Diog. Laert. 8.52). Ovid's escape from the conditions of mortality will ultimately transcend the metamorphosis of ‘fortunae uultus meae’ which he bemoans in Tristia 1.1.117–22, on which seeGoogle ScholarHinds, S., PCPhS n.s. 31 (1985), 20–21 (I am grateful to the anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this reference)Google Scholar.

48 Ovid: see n. 6; G. Pfligersdorffer argues for the extensive use of Empedocles by Ovid at the beginning of the Fasti: ‘Ovidius Empedocleus. Zu Ovids Ianus-Deuting’, Grazer Beitrdge 1 (1973), 177–209Google Scholar; cf. Bortzler, F., ‘Janus und seine Deuter’, Abh. u. Vortr. Bremer Wiss. Ges. 4 (1930), 103–96, at 137. Empedocles in late Republican and Augustan literature other than LucretiusGoogle Scholar: , Cic.Lael. 24, Rep. 3.19Google Scholar; Virgil, Geo. 2.484Google Scholar(cf. Brink, C. O., Phoenix 23 (1969), 138)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horace, Ep. 1.12.20Google Scholar, Ars Poet. 463–6; SallustiusEmpedoclea (cf. Bardon, H., La Litterature latine inconnue i. (Paris, 1952), p. 335; della Corte [n. 6])Google Scholar.

49 For the story see Sen. Contr. 2.2.12. After completing this article I discovered that the Empedoclean parallel had already been suggested byRurten, J. S. ‘Ovid, Empedocles and the Minotour’, AJPh 103 (1982), 332–3Google Scholar.