OVIDI FASTI
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7fsti10.txt
Silvia Vestalis coelestia semina partu
Ediderat,
patruo regna tenente suo.
Is jubet auferri pueros et in amne necari.
385
Quid facis? ex
istis Romulus alter erit.
Jussa recusantes peragunt lacrimosa ministri;
Flent tamen,
et geminos in loca jussa ferunt.
Albula, quem Tibrin mersus Tiberinus in unda
Reddidit,
hibernis forte tumebat aquis.
390
Hic, ubi nunc Fora sunt, lintres errare videres,
Quaque jacent
valles, Maxime Circe, tuae.
Hic ubi venerunt,--neque enim procedere possunt
Longius--ex
illis unus et alter, ait:
At quam sunt similes! at quam formosus uterque! 395
Plus tamen ex
illis iste vigoris habet.
Si genus arguitur vultu, ni fallit imago,
Nescio quem
vobis suspicor esse deum.
At si quis vestrae deus esset originis auctor,
In tam
praecipiti tempore ferret opem.
400
Ferret opem certe, si non ope mater egeret,
Quae facta est
uno mater et orba die.
Nata simul, moritura simul, simul ite sub undas
Corpora.
Desicrat; deposuitque sinu,
Vagierunt clamore pari: sentire putares.
405
Hi redeunt
udis in sua tecta genis.
Sustinet impositos summa cavus alveus unda.
Heu quantum
fati parva tabella tulit!
Alveus in limo silvis appulsus opacis,
Paullatim
fluvio deficiente, sedet.
410
Arbor erat: remanent vestigia, quaeque vocatur
Rumina nunc
ficus, Romula ficus erat.
Venit ad expositos--mirum--lupa feta gemellos.
Quis credat
pueris non nocuisse feram?
Non nocuisse parum est: prodest quoque: quos lupa nutrit,415
Perdere
cognatae sustinuere manus.
Constitit, et cauda teneris blanditur alumnis,
Et fingit
lingua corpora bina sua.
Ovid. Fasti. Translated by Frazer, James George. Loeb Classical
Library Volume. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William
Heinemann Ltd. 1931.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidFasti1.html
[383] Silvia, a Vestal, had given birth to heavenly babes,
what time her uncle sat upon the throne. He ordered the infant boys to be
carried away and drowned in the river. Rash man! one of those babes will yet be
Romulus. Reluctantly his servants carry out the mournful orders (though they
weep) and bear the twins to the place appointed. It chanced that the Albula,
which took the names of Tiber from Tiberinus, drowned in its waves,
was swollen with winter rain: where now the forums50 are, and where the
valley of the Circus Maximus lies, you might see boats floating about. Hither
when they were come, for farther they could not go, one or other of them said:
“But how like they are! how beautiful is each! Yet of the two this one has more
vigour. If lineage may be inferred from features, unless appearances deceive
me, I fancy that some god is in you – but if some god were indeed the author of
your being, he would come to your rescue in so perilous an hour; surely their
mother would bring aid, if only aid she lacked not, she who as borne and lost
her children in a single day. Ye bodies, born together to die together,
together pass beneath the waves!” He ended, and from his bosom he laid down the
twins. Both squalled alike: you would fancy they understood. With wet cheeks
the bearers wended their homeward way. The hollow ark in which the babes were
laid supported them on the surface of the water: ah me! how big a fate the
little plank upbore! The ark drifted towards a shady wood, and, as the water
gradually shoaled, it grounded on the mud. There was a tree (traces of it still
remain), which is now called the Rumina fig-tree, but was once the Romulan
fig-tree. A she-wolf which had cast her whelps came, wondrous to tell, to the
abandoned twins: who could believe that the brute would not harm the boys? Far
from harming, she helped them; and they whom ruthless kinsfolk would have
killed with their own hands were suckled by a wolf! She halted and fawned on the
tender babes with her tail, and licked into shape their two bodies with her
tongue.
http://poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkTwo.htm#_Toc69367685
383 Silvia,
a Vestal,
had given birth to divine children,
At the time when her uncle held the throne.
He ordered the infants taken and drowned in the river:
What was he doing? One of the two was Romulus.
Reluctantly his servants obeyed the sad command
(Though they wept) and took the twins to the appointed
place.
It chanced that the Albula,
called Tiber
from Tiberinus
Drowned in its waves, was swollen with winter rain:
You could see boats drifting where the fora are,
And there in the vale of the Circus Maximus.
When the servants arrived there (since they were
Unable to go further), one of them said:
‘How alike they are, how beautiful each of them is!
Yet of the two this one is the more vigorous.
If nobility is seen in the face, unless I’m wrong,
I suspect that there’s some god within you –
Yet if some god were the author of your being,
He’d bring you aid at such a perilous time:
Your mother would surely bring help if she could,
Who has borne and lost her children in one day:
Born together, to die together, pass together beneath
The waves!’ He finished and set them down.
Both squalled alike: you’d have thought they knew.
The servants returned with tears on their cheeks.
The hollow trough, where the boys were laid, floated
On the water, how great a fate the little ark carried!
It drifted onwards towards a shadowy wood,
And gradually settled where the depth lessened.
There was a tree: traces remain, which is now called
The Rumina
fig, once Romulus’
fig tree.
A she-wolf, newly delivered, (miraculously!) found the
abandoned twins,
Who would have thought the creature would not harm them?
Far from harming them she helped them: and a wolf fed those
Whom their kin would have allowed to perish.
She stayed, caressed the tender infants with her tail,
And licked their bodies with her tongue.
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fasti, by Ovid et al
OVID'S FASTI; NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION,
BY THOMAS KEIGHTLEY,
Author of The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, History
of Greece,
History of Rome, etc.
§ 1.
_Of the Rising and Setting of the Stars_.
The attention of a people who, like the ancient Greeks,
dwelt in a region
where, during a great part of the year, the night might be
passed in the
open air, and no mists or clouds obscured the heaven, must
have been
early drawn to those luminous points which are scattered
over it in such
profusion. They must have early learned to distinguish
various clusters
of them, and thence to give them appropriate names.
Accordingly, in the
most ancient portion of Grecian literature, the Homeric and
Hesiodic
poems, we find various groupes of the stars designated by
peculiar names.
Such are Orion, the Hyades, the Pleiades, the Bear or Wain,
the Dog and
the Ploughman or Bear-ward (Boötes or Arcturus). The case
was the same in
the East; we meet in the book of Job (c. ix. 9.) names for
the Pleiades,
Hyades and Orion, and (xxvi. 14.) the constellation named
the Great
Serpent. The people of ancient Italy appear to have done the
same: the
Latin name of the Pleiades was _Vergiliae_, that of the
Hyades _Suculae_,
the seven stars, which form the constellation of the Great
Bear, were
named by them the _Septem Triones_, or Seven Oxen; for, as they
go round
and round the pole without ever setting, the analogy between
them and the
oxen, which trod out the corn by going round and round the
_area_, or
threshing-floor, was an obvious one. Doubtless, the
brilliant constellation
Orion, had a peculiar Latin name, which has not come down to
us; of the
others, none but Greek appellations occur.
A very short acquaintance with the face of the stellar
heaven sufficed to
shew, that it did not always remain the same. During a part
of the year
Orion flamed in full magnificence on the sky, and, to the
eye of the
Grecian herdsman and hunter, he and his Dog pursued the
Bear, who kept
_watching_ him while the Pleiades (Peleiades, pigeons) were
_flying_
before him; at another season the sky was destitute of this
brilliant
scene. It was soon observed that the stars made 'their exits
and their
entrances' at regular periods, corresponding with the
changes which took
place in the course of nature on earth, and these
coincidences were
marked and employed for agricultural purposes. A people who
have no
regular scientific calendar, always contrives a natural one,
taken from
celestial or terrestrial appearances. Thus the North
American Aborigines
designate times and seasons by the flowering of certain
plants; the
ancient Greeks appear to have done something of the same
kind, for one of
Hesiod's designations of a particular season is, _when the
thistle is in
blossom_; we ourselves call the first season of the year the
Spring, (i.e.
of plants,) and our Transatlantic brethren term the autumn,
the Fall
(of the leaves).
The Greeks, however, seem early to have seen the superior
accuracy and
determinateness of the celestial phenomena. In the didactic
poem of
Hesiod, this mode of marking the times of navigation and of
rural labours
is frequently employed, and its use was retained by the
countryfolk of
both Greece and Italy far into the time of the Roman empire.
Those who
wrote on rural subjects or natural history, employed it; we
meet it in
Aristotle, as well as in Pliny and Columella.
When intercourse with Egypt and Phoenicia had called the
thoughts of the
Greeks to natural science, the rude astronomy of their
rustic forefathers
became the subject of improvement. The name of Thales is, as
was to be
expected, to be found at the head of the cultivators of this
science. He
is said to have been the first who taught to distinguish
between the real
and apparent rising and setting of a constellation; which
implies a
knowledge of spheric astronomy. His example was followed and
observation
extended by others, and as rain, wind, and other aërial
phenomena were
held to be connected with the rising and setting of various
signs, the
times of their risings and settings, both apparent and real,
were
computed by Meton, Eudoxus, and other ancient astronomers.
The tables
thus constructed were cut on brass or marble, and fixed up
(whence they
were called [Greek: parapaegmata],) in the several cities of
Greece, and
the peasant or sailor had only to look on one of these
_parapegmata_, to
know what sign was about to rise or set, and what weather
might be
expected. Without considering the difference of latitude and
longitude,
the Romans borrowed the _parapegmata_, like every thing
else, from the
Greeks. The countrymen, as we learn from Pliny (xviii. 60,
65,), ceased
to mark the stellar heaven, a _Kalendarium rusticum
siderale_, (Colum.
ix. 14) taught him when the signs rose and set, and on what
days he was
to expect sacrifices and festivals. When Virgil (G. I. 257.)
says,
Nec frustra
signorum obitus speculamur et ortus,
Temporibusque parem diversia quattuor annum.
it is, (as Voss observes,) more probable that it is one of
these
calendars, and not the actual heaven that he means.
Before the time of Thales it was, of course only the visible
and apparent
risings and settings of the signs that were the subject of
observation.
But astronomers now learned to distinguish these phenomena
into three
kinds. These they termed the cosmic, acronych, and heliac
risings and
settings. The cosmic rising or setting ([Greek: kosmikos
epitolae], or
[Greek: dusis],) was the true one in the morning; the
acronych ([Greek:
akronychos][1]), _prima nox_, is evening, the beginning (one
end) of the
night, the true one in the evening; the heliac, ([Greek:
haeliakos]) the
apparent rising in the morning or setting in the evening. A
star was said
to rise or set cosmically, when it rose or set at sun-rise;
it rose or
set acronychally, when it rose or set at sun-set; it rose
heliacally,
when in the morning it just emerged from the solar rays, it
set in the
same manner, when in the evening it sank immediately after
him. Two
general observations may be made here. 1. In the morning the
true rising
precedes the apparent one, perhaps several days. 2. In the
evening the
apparent setting precedes the real one. To illustrate this.
Let us
suppose it 'spring time when the sun with Taurus rides,' the
Hyades which
are in the head of Taurus will rise with the sun, but lost
in his
effulgence they will elude our vision; at length when in his
progress
through the Tauric portion of the ecliptic, he has left them
a sufficient
distance behind him, their rising (as his motion in the
ecliptic is
contrary to his apparent diurnal motion,) will precede his
by a space of
time which will allow them to be seen. The real evening
setting of a
star, is its sinking at the same moment with the sun below
the horizon,
its heliac setting, is its becoming visible as he is setting
and then
disappearing, that is ceasing to be visible after sun-set,
in the western
part of the hemisphere. Thus the sun and the Hyades may
actually set
together several days before they become sufficiently
elongated from him,
to admit of their being seen before they set.
There are thus three risings, and three settings of a star,
namely:--
The true morning
rising, i.
e. the cosmic.
The apparent
morning rising, i. e. the heliac.
The true
evening rising,
i. e. the acronych.
The true
morning setting,
i. e. the cosmic.
The true
evening setting,
i. e. the acronych.
The apparent evening
setting, i. e. the heliac.
Of these, the one which is most apt to engage the attention,
is the
acronych or true evening rising, that is the rising of the
star at the
eastern verge of the horizon, at the moment the sun is
sinking on the
western side. It is of this I think, that Hesiod always
speaks. The
attention of the constructors of parapegmata does not seem
to have been
directed to the risings of the stars at different hours of
the night.
§ 2.
_Of the Roman Year_.
Nothing is better established by competent authority, than
that two kinds
of year were in use among the ancient Romans, the one of
ten, the other
of twelve months. In the usual spirit of referring their
ancient
institutions to those whom they regarded as their first
kings, the
ten-month year was ascribed to Romulus, the improved one of
twelve months
to Numa. This was the current opinion, such as we find it in
the
following poem; some ancient writers, however, such as
Licinius Macer and
Fenestella, to whom we may perhaps add Plutarch, rejected
the ten-month
year as a mere fiction. Their opinion has been adopted by
the great
Joseph Scaliger, who asserts that the Roman year always
consisted of
twelve months. Both opinions may, I think, be maintained,
the Romans may,
from the beginning of their state, have had a year of twelve
months,
which I would call the Roman year, and yet have used along
with it a year
of ten months, which, for reasons which will presently
appear, I call the
Etruscan year. I will commence by showing that a year of ten
months was
in use even in the time of the republic.
Ten months was the term for mourning; the fortunes of
daughters, left by
will, were to be paid in three instalments of ten months
each; on the
sale of olives, grapes on the vine, and wine in the vessels,
ten month's
credit was given; the most ancient rate of interest also
supposes a year
of ten months. It may further be noted, that even Scaliger,
who rejected
this year, could not avoid remarking, how singular it was,
that the
household festivals of the Saturnalia and the Matronalia
should be the
one at the end of December, the other at the beginning of
March. He did
not perceive that this would seem to indicate a time when,
at the end of
a year of ten months, these two festivals were one, and male
and female
slaves together enjoyed the liberty of the season.
These are mere presumptions; a nearer approach can be made
to certainty.
There was nothing the ancient inhabitants of Italy more
carefully
shunned, than drawing down the vengeance of the gods, by
even an
involuntary breach of faith. It was also the custom,
especially of the
Etruscans, to make peaces under the form of truces, for a
certain number
of years. Now we find that, in the year 280, a peace was
made with Veii
for 40 years. In 316 Fidenas revolted and joined Veii, which
must then
have been at war with Rome, but 316-280, is only 36, yet the
Romans,
though highly indignant, did not accuse the Veientines of
breach of
faith. Suppose the truce made for 40 ten-month years, and it
had expired
in the year 314. Again, in 329, a truce was made for twenty
years, and
Livy says that it was expired in 347, but 347-329 is 18 not
20. Let the
year have been, of ten months, and the truce had ended in
the year 346.
These are Etruscan cases, but we find the same mode of
proceeding in
transactions with other nations; a truce for 8 years was
made with the
Volscians in 323, and in 331 they were at war with Rome,
without being
charged with perjury.
This ten-month year was that of the Etruscans who were the
most learned
and cultivated people of the peninsula. As the civil years
of the Latin
and other peoples were formed on various principles, and
differed in
length, the Romans at least, if not the others, deemed it
expedient to
use, in matters of importance, a common fixed measure of
time. On all
points relating to science and religion they looked up to
the Etruscans;
it was, therefore, a matter of course that their year should
be the one
adopted.
This Etruscan year consisted of 304 days, divided into 38
weeks of eight
days each. It is not absolutely certain that it was also
divided into
months, but all analogy is in favour of such a division.
Macrobius and
Solinus say, that it contained six months of 31, and four of
30 days, but
this does not seem to agree with weeks of eight days;
perhaps there were
nine months of four weeks and one of two, or more probably
eight of four
weeks and two of three.[2] This year, which depended on
neither the sun
nor the moon, was a purely scientific one, founded on
astronomical
grounds and the accurate measurement of a long portion of
time. It served
the Etruscans as a correction of their civil lunar year, the
one which
was in common use, and, from the computations which have
been made, it
appears that, by means of it, it may be ascertained that the
Etruscans
had determined the exact length of the tropical or solar
year, with a
greater degree of accuracy than is to be found in the Julian
computation.
Like the Etruscans, the Romans employed for civil purposes a
lunar year,
which they had probably borrowed also from that people. This
year, which,
of course, like every year of the kind, must have consisted
of twelve
months, fell short of the solar year by the space of 11 days
and 6 hours,
and the mode adopted for bringing them into accordance was
to
intercalate, as it was termed, a month in every other year,
during
periods of 22 years, these intercalated months consisting
alternately of
22 and 23 days. This month was named Mercedonius. In the
last biennium of
the period no intercalation took place. As five years made a
lustre, so
five of these periods made a secle, which thus consisted of
110 years or
22 lustres, and was the largest measure of time among the
Romans.[3]
The care of intercalating lay with the pontiffs, and they
lengthened and
shortened the year at their pleasure, in order to serve or
injure the
consuls and farmers of the revenue, according as they were
hostile or
friendly toward them. In consequence of this, Julius Caesar
found the year
67 days in advance of the true time, when he undertook to
correct it by
the aid of foreign science. From his time the civil year of
the Romans
was a solar, not a lunar one,[4] and the Julian year
continued in use
till the Gregorian reformation of the Calendar.
We thus see that the civil year of the Romans always
consisted of twelve
months, and that a year of ten months was in use along with
it in the
early centuries of the state, which served to correct it,
and which was
used in matters of importance.[5]
§ 3.
_Of the Months and Days of the Roman Year_.
When it was believed that the year of 304 days was the
original civil
year of the Romans, and evidence remained to prove that the
commencement
of the year had, in former times, been regulated by the
vernal equinox,
instead of the winter solstice, it seemed to follow, of
course, that the
original year of Romulus had consisted of but ten months.
The
inconvenience of this mode of dividing time must have been
thought to
have appeared very early, since we find the introduction of
the lunar
year of twelve months ascribed to Numa, who is said to have
added two
months to the Romulian year, which, it would thus appear,
was regarded
as having been a year of ten lunar months. This placing of
the lunar
twelve-month year in the mythic age of Rome, I may observe,
tends to
confirm the opinion of its having been in use from the
origin of the
city.
The ancient Israelites had two kinds of year, a religious
and a civil
one, which commenced at different seasons. Their months also
originally,
we are told, proceeded numerically, but afterwards got
proper names. As
the month Abib is mentioned by name in the book of
Deuteronomy, I hazard
a conjecture, that the civil and religious years had
coexisted from the
time of Moses, and that the months of the former had had
proper names,
while those of the latter proceeded numerically. Is there
any great
improbability in supposing the same to have been the case at
Rome? The
religious year of ten months, as being least used, may have
proceeded
with numerical appellations from its first month to
December, while the
months of the civil year had each their peculiar appellation
derived from
the name of a deity, or of a festival. It is remarkable that
the first
six months of the year alone have proper names; but the
remaining ones
may have had them also, though, from causes which we are
unable to
explain, they have gone out of use, and those of the cyclic
year have
been employed in their stead.[6]
The oriental division of time into weeks of seven days,
though resulting
so naturally from the phases of the moon, was not known at
Rome till the
time of the emperors. The Etruscan year, as we have seen,
consisted of
weeks of eight days, and in the Roman custom of holding
markets on the
_nundines_, or every ninth day, we see traces of its former
use, but a
different mode of dividing the month seems to have early
begun to
prevail.
In the Roman month there were three days with peculiar
names, from their
places with relation to which the other days were
denominated. These were
the Kalends (_Kalendae_ or _Calendae_,) the Nones, (_Nonae_)
and the Ides
(_Idus_ or _Eidus_). The Kalends (from _calare_, to
proclaim,) were the
first day of the month; the Nones (from _nonus_, ninth) were
the ninth
day before the Ides reckoning inclusively; the Ides, (from
iduare, to
divide,) fell about, not exactly on, the middle of the
months. In March,
May, July and October, the Ides were the 15th, and,
consequently, the
Nones the 7th day of the month; in the remaining months the
Ides were the
13th, the Nones the 5th. The space, therefore, between the
Nones and Ides
was always the same, those between the Kalends and Nones,
and the Ides
and Kalends, were subject to variation. Originally, however,
it would
appear, the latter space also was fixed, and there were in
every month,
except February, 10 days from the Ides to the Kalends, The
months,
therefore, consisted of 31 and 29 days, February having 28.
In the Julian
Calendar, January, August and December were raised from 29
to 31 days,
while their Nones and Ides remained unchanged. It was only
necessary then
to know how many days there were between the Kalends and
Nones, as the
remaining portions were constant. Accordingly, on the day of
new moon,
the pontiff cried aloud _Calo Jana novella_[7] five times or
seven times,
and thus intimated the day of the Nones, which was quite
sufficient for
the people.
We thus see that the Roman month was, like the Attic,
divided into three
portions, but its division was of a more complex and
embarrassing kind;
for while the Attic month consisted of three decades of
days, and each
day was called the first, second, third, or so, of the
decade, to which
it belonged; the days of the Roman month were counted with
reference to
the one of the three great days which was before them. It is
an error to
suppose that the Romans counted backwards. Thus, taking the
month of
January for an example, the first day was the Kalends, the
second was
then viewed with reference to the approaching Nones, and was
denominated
the _fourth before the Nones_; the day after the Nones was
the _eighth
before the Ides_; the day after the Ides, the _nineteenth
before the
Kalends_ of February.
The technical phraseology of the Roman Calendar ran thus.
The numeral was
usually put in the ablative case, and as the names of the
months were
adjectives, they were made to agree with the Kalends etc. or
followed in
the genitive, _mensis_ being understood. Thus, to say that
an event
occurred on the Ides of March, the term would be _Idibus
Martiis_, or
_Idibus Martii_ (_mensis_). So also of the Kalends and
Nones, for any
other day the phrase would be, for example, _tertio
Kalendas, i. e.
tertio (die ante) Kalendas_ or _tertio (die) Kalendarum_,
The day before
any of the three principal days was _pridie (i. e. priore
die) Kalendas_
or _Kalendarum, Nonas_ or _Nonarum, Idus_ or _Iduum_.
Another mode of expression, was to use a preposition, and an
accusative
case. Thus, for _tertio Nonas_ they would say _ante diem
tertium Nonas_,
which was written _a. d. III. Non_. This form is very much
employed by
Livy and Cicero. It was even used objectively, and governed
of the
prepositions _in_ and _ex_. We thus meet _in ante tertium
Nonas_, and _ex
ante diem Nonas_, in these authors. Another preposition thus
employed is
_ad_, we meet _ad pridie Nonas_.
As the Romans reckoned inclusively, we must be careful in
assigning any
particular day to its place in the month, according to the
modern mode of
reckoning. We must, therefore, always diminish the given
number by one,
or we shall be a day behind. Thus, the 5th of June being the
Nones, the
3d is III. Non. but if we subduct 3 from 5 we get the 2d
instead of the
3d of the month. The rule then is, as we know the days on
which the Nones
and Ides fall in each month, to subduct from that day the
Roman number
_minus_ 1, and we have the day of the month. For days before
the Kalends,
subduct in the same manner from the number of days in the
month.
The days of the Roman year were farther divided into
_fasti_, _nefasti_
and _endotercisi_,[8] or _intercisi_, which were marked in
the Kalends by
the letters F. N. and EN. The _dies fasti_ were those on
which courts
sat, and justice was administered; they were so named from
_fari_ to
speak, because on them the Praetor gave judgement, that is
_spoke_ the
three legal words, Do (_bonorum possessionem_), Dico
(_jus_), Addico (_id
de quo quaeritur_); the _dies nefasti_, were festivals, and
other days on
which the courts did not sit; the _dies intercisi_ were
those days, on
only a part of which justice might be administered. Thus, we
are told
that some holidays were _nefasti_, during the time of the
killing of the
victim, but _fasti, inter caesa et porrecta (exta)_, again
_nefasti_ while
the victim was being consumed on the altar.
Manutius, by merely counting up the number of the _dies
fasti_ in the
Julian Calendar, found that they were exactly 38 in number.
This strongly
confirms what has been said above, respecting the division
of the cyclic
year into 38 weeks, and is one among numerous instances of
the pertinacity
with which the Romans retained old forms and names, even
when become no
longer applicable; for as 38 days were quite insufficient
for the business
of the Forum, a much larger number of other days, under
different
appellations, had been added to them long before. The making
the market
days _fasti_ was, we are told,[9] the act of the consul
Hortensius.
§ 4.
_Of the Roman Fasti_.
The Roman patricians derived from their Tuscan instructors,
the practice,
common to sacerdotal castes, of maintaining power by keeping
the people
in ignorance of matters which, though simple in themselves,
were of
frequent use, and thence of importance. One of the things,
which such
bodies are most desirous of enveloping in mystery and
confining the
knowledge of to themselves, is the Calendar, by which
religious rites and
legal proceedings are regulated. Accordingly, for a long
time, the Roman
people had no means of learning with certainty what days
were _fasti_ and
what not, but by applying to the pontiff, in whose house the
tables of
the _fasti_ were kept, or by the proclamation which he used
to make of
the festivals which were shortly to take place. As we have
seen above,
the knowledge of the length of the ensuing month could only
be obtained
in the same manner. This, and the power of intercalating,
gave a highly
injurious degree of power to the pontiffs.
Accordingly, nothing could exceed the indignation of the
senate when, in
the year 440, Flavius, the clerk or secretary of App.
Claudius, as a most
effectual mode of gaining the popular favour, secretly made
tables of the
Calendar and set them up about the Forum.[10] Henceforth the
_dies fasti_
and _nefasti_, the _stative_ festivals, the anniversaries of
the
dedications of temples, etc. were known to every one. The
days of
remarkable actions, such as the successes and reverses of
the arms of the
republic, were also noted. Copies for the use of the public
and
individuals were multiplied; the _municipia_ and other towns
of Italy, as
the fragments which have been discovered shew, followed the
example of
Rome, and the colonies, in this as in every thing else,
presented the
mother-city in little. The custom was transmitted to modern
Europe, and,
in the Calendar part of our own Almanacks, we may see a copy
of those
Fasti, which once formed a portion of the mysterious treasures
of the
patricians of ancient Rome.
These were the Fasti Sacri or Kalendares, but the word Fasti
was applied
to another kind of register, named the Fasti Historici or
Consulares,
which contained the names of the magistrates of each year,
especially the
consuls, and the chief events of the year were set down in
them, so that
they formed a kind of annals of the state. When we read of
the name of
any consul, as was the case with L. and M. Antonius, being
erased from
the Fasti by a senatusconsult, it is always these Fasti that
are meant.
§ 5.
_Of Ovid's Poem on the Fasti_.
Among the choir of poets who shed glory on the reign of
Augustus, the
first place for originality may be claimed by P. Ovidius
Naso. His Heroic
Epistles had no model in Grecian literature; his Art of
Love, the most
perfect of his works, was equally his own, though didactic
poetry had
been cultivated in Greece; his Metamorphoses bore perhaps a
resemblance
to a lost poem of Nicander or Callimachus; but unless a work
of this last
poet, presently to be noticed, was of the same kind with it,
Grecian
literature contained nothing resembling his Fasti.
To a poet like Ovid, of various powers and great command of
language, few
subjects could have appeared to possess more 'capabilities,'
to use a
hackneyed but expressive term. He had here an opportunity of
displaying
his power in the light, easy, and graceful style, when
narrating the
adventures of the god of Grecian theology; while the real
and legendary
history of his country afforded subjects which might have
called forth
the highest powers of genius, and have awakened the
sympathies of every
Roman reader. Here, however, I think he has failed; Ovid in
fact very
much resembled a distinguished poet of our own days, who,
like him,
excels in the light and amatory, and sportive style, but
whose efforts in
the grave and dignified are not equally successful. In
reading the poem,
I have sometimes asked myself if it would not have been
better had the
Fasti of Rome been the theme of the Mantuan instead of the
Pelignian
bard. Where Ovid fails Virgil would certainly have
succeeded, and the
Regifugium and fall of the Fabii would have come down to us
in strains
equal to those which celebrate the wars of ancient Italy.
Whether the
reverse would have been the case, and that, in those lighter
and more
familiar parts, where Ovid succeeds Virgil would have
failed, I take not
on me to decide; but I should reckon much on the taste and
judgement of
the author of the Georgics. Still, even in the higher parts,
we know not
to what disadvantage even Virgil's verses might have
competed with the
venerable Annals of Ennius, with whom he rather seemed to
shun than to
seek collision. This is a question, however, which can never
be decided,
and, much as I delight in the poetry of Virgil, I regard him
as inferior
in genius to Ovid. Virgil depends on others, he always
imitates; Ovid
borrows rarely, in composition he is always best when most
independent.
I do not think that Ovid had any model for his Fasti; the
idea might have
been suggested to him, as it is thought, by this verse of
Propertius (iv.
1. 69):
Sacra, diesque
canam et cognomina prisca locorum,
with which he concludes a poem, in which he feigns himself
to be shewing
to a stranger the principal monuments of Rome. Callimachus,
too, had
written a poem which, like all the poetry of the Alexandrian
period, was
well known at Rome and was quoted by Varro, Martial, Servius
and others.
Its title was [Greek: Aitia], and, from its name and the few
fragments
and scanty accounts of it which remain, it appears that it
treated of the
_causes_ of matters relating to the gods and ancient heroes
of Greece.
From an epigram in the Anthology, we learn that he feigned
that he was
transported in a dream to Mt. Helicon, and there received his
information
from the Muses. The epigram ends thus:
[Greek:
Ai de hoi
eiromeno, amph' Ogugion Haeroon
Aitia kai makaron eiron ameibomenai].
It is uncertain whether the poem was in heroic or elegiac
measure. Ovid
appears to have been acquainted with it, for (Trist. v. 5.
33.) when
speaking of the dividing of the flame on the pyre of the
Theban brothers
he adds--
Hoc, memini,
quondam fieri non posse loquebar,
Et
me Battiades judice falsus erat.
The difference, however, between this poem and the Fasti,
must have been
considerable. A Greek poet, named Butas, according to
Plutarch (Rom.
21.), wrote [Greek: aitias muthodeis en elegeiois ton
Romaikon], from
which he quotes these two verses relating to the Luperci,
and in
explanation of their custom of striking those whom they
met--
[Greek:
Empodious
tuptontas hopos tote phasgan' echontes
Ex
Albaes etheon Romulos aede Remos].
This might appear to have been the model of Ovid's poem, but
it is
unknown when Butas lived, and he may as well have written
after as before
the Latin poet.
On the whole, I think Ovid's claim to originality in this
poem cannot
justly be contested. Even though he may have taken the idea
of it from
others his mode of treating the subject is his own.
When Ovid first conceived the idea of writing a poem on the
Roman Fasti,
it is not likely that he was very well furnished with the
requisite
knowledge. Any one, who is familiar with the internal
history of
literature, knows how common it is for a writer, especially
a poet, to
select a subject of which he is sufficiently ignorant, and
then to go in
search of materials. Such appears to me to have been the
case with Ovid,
and the errors into which he falls prove that though a
diligent enquirer,
as I think he was, he never arrived at accuracy in history
or science;
with Grecian mythology he was intimately acquainted, and
here he is
superior to Virgil, whose knowledge of the history and
institutions of
ancient Italy much exceeded his.
The Annals of Ennius, the historical works of Fabius Pictor
and his
successors down to Livy, contained the history of Rome, and
these works,
it is evident, Ovid had studied; for the institutions and
their origins
his chief source must have been the writings of L. Cincius
Alimentus, the
contemporary of Fabius Pictor, the most judicious
investigator of
antiquities that Rome ever produced. The various Fasti, such
as those of
his contemporary Verrius Flaccus, of which fragments have
been discovered
and published,[11] contributed much information, and various
passages of
the poem intimate that personal inquiry and oral
communication aided in
augmenting his stores of antiquarian lore. His astronomical
knowledge was
probably derived from the ordinary Calendars, and as they
were not
strictly correct, and the poet, in all probability, did not
apply himself
with much relish to what he must have viewed as a dry and
uninviting
study, we are not to look in him for extreme accuracy on
this head, and
must not be surprised to meet even gross blunders.
Two points are to be considered respecting this poem,
namely, the time
when it was written and published, and whether, when
published, it
contained any more than the six books which have come down
to us.
The mysterious relegation of Ovid to Tomi, on the coast of
the Euxine,
took place A.U.C. 762, in the fifty-second year of the
poet's age. In the
long exculpatory epistle to Augustus, which forms the second
book of his
Tristia, he mentions the Fasti as a work actually written,
and dedicated
to that prince, but interrupted by his exile. The poem
itself contains
many passages which were evidently addressed to him. On the
other hand,
it is actually dedicated to Germanicus, the adoptive son of
Tiberius, and
L. I. v. 285, he mentions the triumph of that prince over
the Catti,
Cherusci and Angevarii, which, according to Tacitus (Ann.
II. 41.), took
place in the year 770, which was the year of the poet's
death. It would,
therefore, seem to follow at once that this is the true date
of the
publication of the poem, were it not that Tacitus (II. 26.)
tells us that
the triumph had been decreed by the senate in the year 768,
so that the
poet's words may be proleptical. The other, however, is by
far the most
natural and probable interpretation of his words. It is
confirmed by a
passage (L. II. 55. _et seq_.) in which he praises Tiberius
as the
builder and restorer of the temples of the gods, and in this
very year
770, as we learn from Tacitus, the emperor repaired and
dedicated the
temple of Liber, Libera and Ceres, that of Flora and that of
Janus. We
may, therefore, venture to assert that the year 770 was that
of the
publication of this poem. We are now to enquire whether any
more appeared
then than what has come down to us.
In the epistle to Augustus, above alluded to, Ovid says,
Sex ego
Fastorum scripsi totidemque libellos;
Cumque suo finem mense volumen habet.
Idque tuo
nuper scriptum sub nomine, Caesar,
Et
tibi sacratum sors mea rupit opus.
Hence it has become the prevalent opinion that he wrote
twelve books, of
which the half has perished. This appears certainly to
follow plainly
enough from the words of the poet, but the silence of the
ancients
respecting the last six books is strong on the negative
side, for of all
the quotations which we meet of this work, particularly in
Lactantius,
there is not a single one that is not to be found in the
books which we
possess. I, therefore, agree with Masson, in his life of the
poet, that
the meaning of those verses is, that he had collected his
materials for
the whole work, and digested them under the different
months, and in part
versified them. This is applying no force to the verb
_scribo_; we should
recollect that Racine, when he had his materials collected
and his plot
arranged, used to say _Voilà ma tragédie faite!_ We cannot
say whether
Ovid had versified the last six books, for he may have done
so, and they
may have been lost at the time of his death. There is a
curious
coincidence between the fate of Ovid's Fasti and Spenser's
Faerie Queene;
of each we have but the one half, and it is a matter of
controversy
respecting the remaining books of each, whether they were
never written,
or, having been written, unhappily chanced to perish.