Fasti. Ovid
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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.
§ 6.
Of the Editions of Ovid's Fasti.
The earliest edition of this poem with notes was in the works of Ovid, edited by A. Navagero, a Venetian nobleman, and printed by Aldus, in the year 1502. An edition appeared at Basle, in 1550, edited by J. Micyllus, with the commentaries of several men of learning. Hercules Ciofani, a native of Sulmo, edited in 1578-1580, the works of his compatriote poet. In the Fasti he used twelve of the best MSS. and he added a body of notes on the whole of Ovid's works, which were afterwards printed separately, by Plantin, at Antwerp. The next who devoted his labours to the Fasti was a young Sicilian nobleman, named Carlo Neapolis, who wrote, at the age of twenty one, a commentary on this poem, which was published at Antwerp, in 1639, under the title of Anaptyxis ad Fastos Ovidianos. The celebrated N. Heinsius also undertook the task of elucidating this pleasing poet, whose entire works, castigated by the aid of upwards of sixty MSS. and of great learning and critical sagacity, he gave to the light, in 1658-1661, at Amsterdam, in 3 Tom. 12. with brief notes. Finally, appeared at the same place, in 1727, in 4 vols. 4. the works of Ovid, edited by Peter Burmann; this editor gave a revision of the text of Heinsius, which he occasionally altered, and he added, in whole or in part, the notes of the preceding commentators.
These were the principal editions of this poem previous to the present century. I should add that G. C. Taubner published an edition of it at Leipzig, in 1747, with a selection of notes from preceding commentators, to which he added his own observations; and that C. W. Mitscherlich published at Göttingen, in 1796-98, in 2 vols. 8vo. the works of Ovid with an amended text. But in the year 1812, G. E. Gierig, who had already published an edition of the Metamorphoses with a commentary, gave out the Fasti in a similar manner. He has revised the text, and his notes are generally extremely good, though liable to the charge of needless prolixity in some parts, and too great brevity in others. It is however, a valuable edition on the whole, and the best for general use. In the Oxford edition of the works of Ovid, published in the year 1825, the entire notes of this critic have been given.
J. P. Krebs, who had thirty years before translated this poem into German, gave an edition of it for the use of schools in 1826. His attention was chiefly directed to the text, and he has most carefully given all the various readings, to which he adds parallel and explanatory passages from other writers, and the dates of the several events which are mentioned in the poem. Beyond this his notes do not extend. His text has been adopted for the present edition, but I have noticed only the various readings of greatest importance.
FASTI
1. A. KAL. F. Novi consulatus initia, 75, Jani festum, 89. Aesculapii et Jovis templa in insula Tiberina consecrata, 290. 2. B. IV. NON. F. 3. C. III. NON. C. Cancer occidit, 311. 4. D. PR. NON. C. 5. E. NON. F. Lyra oritur, 315. 6. F. VIII.ID. F. 7. G. VII. ID. C. 8. H. VI. ID. C. 9. A. V. ID. Agonalia celebrata, 317. Delphini ortus, 457. 10. B. IV. ID. EN. Hiems media, 459. 11. C. III. ID. NP. Carmentalia, 461. Juturnae sedes in campo Martio ad aquam Virginem dicata, 463. 12. D. PR. ID. C. 13. E. ID. NP. Jovi Statori ovis semimas immolabatur, 587. Populo provinciae redditae. 589. Octaviano
At Rome, in 1772, by Fogginius.