The Speech of Pythagoras in Ovid Metamorphoses 15: Empedoclean Epos

Author(s): Philip Hardie

Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 45, No. 1 (1995), pp. 204-214
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/639728 .
Accessed: 19/06/2014 20:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to The Classical Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Classical Quarterly 45 (i) 204-214 (1995) Printed in Great Britain 204

THE SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS IN OVID

METAMORPHOSES 15: EMPEDOCLEAN EPOS

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.3

I. EMPEDOCLES IN OVID
In 1924 A. Rostagni attempted to reconstruct an esoteric Pythagorean Hieros Logos.4
One of the chief witnesses in his case was Ovid's Pythagoras; Rostagni, arguing
against the theory that the Speech was derived mainly from Varro,5 pointed to the

1 G. Hermann, Die Pythagorasrede im XV Buch als

Schliissel zum Gesamtwerk der
Metamorphosen (Staatsarbeit Saarbriicken, 1955); S. Viarre, L'Image et la pensee dans les
d'Ovide(Paris,1964),pp. 223-88; D. A. Little,'The Speechof Pythagorasin
'MWtamorphoses'
Metamorphoses 15 and the Structure of the Metamorphoses', Hermes 98 (1970), pp. 340-60 (with
a survey of earlier attempts to find unity).
2 The case for parodic or satiricalintentionhas been arguedby C. P. Segal, 'Myth and
Philosophyin the Metamorphoses: Ovid'sAugustanismand the AugustanConclusionof Book
XV', AJPh90 (1969),257-92; A. W. J. Holleman,'OvidiiMetamorphoseon LiberXV 622-870
(Carmenet Error?)',Latomus28 (1969),42-60; W. R. Johnson,CSCA3 (1970),137-48;G. K.
Galinsky,Ovid'sMetamorphoses(Oxford,1975),pp. 104-7; id., 'The CipusEpisodein Ovid's
Metamorphoses(15.565-621)', TAPhA 98 (1967), 181-91. Arguments against this, seemingly the
now prevailing,view of Met. 15 are broughtby D. A. Little,'Non-Parodyin Metamorphoses
15', Prudentia6 (1974), 17-21; id., 'Ovid's Eulogyof Augustus:Metamorphoses15.851-70',
Prudentia 8 (1976), 19-35. 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.
3 P. E. Knox, Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Traditions of Augustan Poetry (PCPhS
Supplement 11, Cambridge, 1986); S. Hinds, The Metamorphosis of Persephone (Cambridge,
1986). 4 II Verbo di Pitagora (Turin, 1924).
A position maintained by A. Schmekel, De Ovidiana Pythagorae doctrinae adumbratione
(diss. Greifswald, 1885); G. Lafaye, Le MWtamorphosesd'Ovide et leurs moddles grecs (Paris,
1904), pp. 191-216.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS 205
large number of parallels between the Speech of Pythagoras and the fragments of
Empedocles, a feature which he explained on the hypothesis that Ovid drew on the
esoteric Hieros Logos, a work some of whose secrets had already been divulged by the
indiscreet Empedocles.6 Rostagni's exercise in Pythagorean Quellenforschunghas not
won many followers, and the reasons for Ovid's extensive use of Empedocles still
await explanation.
The Speech of Pythagoras is a highly eclectic exercise in writing philosophical
poetry, but the broad outline, as well as much of the detail, is paralleled in the
philosophical hexameter poetry of Empedocles.7 The Speech contains two main
subjects, firstly, a passionate attack on meat-eating and sacrifice which frames,
secondly, a revelation and lengthy exemplification of the principle of cosmic
metamorphosis; the two are linked (explicitly at 15.456-62) by the doctrine of
metempsychosis, the migration of souls from one body into another (one reason that
it is wrong to eat meat is because you might be eating your relatives). Otis and B6mer
see the passages on vegetarianism as a ploy whereby lip-service is paid at beginning
and end to the persona of Pythagoras, while the central and longer section is in effect
a semi-philosophical discourse on change in the mouth of Ovid.8 But the juxtaposition
of a sermon on vegetarianism with a lecture de rerum natura reproduces the duality
of Empedocles' work: traditionally the fragments of the Sicilian preSocratic are
distributed between two works, the Katharmoi, containing a religious doctrine on
metempsychosis and the consequent need to abstain from meat-eating and sacrifice;
and the Peri Phuseos, containing a physical doctrine on the four elements and the
cosmic cycle of Strife and Love. The relationship between the religious and the
scientific doctrines is one of the central problems of Empedoclean scholarship;
modern scholars, moving away from the positivist urge to set hard barriers between
logos and muthos, tend to see Empedocles' physics and his religious philosophy as
being closely interdependent; and Ovid will reproduce the Empedoclean model even
more faithfully if the surviving fragments of Empedocles in fact come from one, not
two, poems, a case that has recently been argued by Catherine Osborne.'
Why should Ovid put in the mouth of Pythagoras a speech which is in essence
Empedoclean? The reasons are many, and this plurality itself serves Ovid's

6 Cf. W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (E. L. Miner, transl.,
Cambridge,MA, 1972),pp. 218-20. The parallelsbetweenEmpedoclesand the cosmogonyof
Met. 1, as well as the Speechof Pythagoras,werelistedby C. Pascal,GraeciaCapta(Florence,
1905), pp. 129-51; F. E. Robbins, CPh 8 (1913), 403-4 dismissed Pascal's Empedoclean
parallelson the groundsthat they were all mediatedthroughLucretius;this was excessively
sceptical,but the Lucretiancolouringis also important(seebelow).The Empedocleanparallels
in the Speechof Pythagorasare also discussedby E. Bignone,Empedocle(Turin,1916),p. 272;
R. Segl, Die Pythagorasrede im 15. Buch von Ovids Metamorphosen (diss. Salzburg, 1970); F.
della Corte, 'Gli Empedocleae Ovidio', Maia 37 (1985), 3-12 (who airs the possibilitythat
Sallustius'Empedocleawas an intermediarymodel for Ovid, but is otherwisesilent on the
relationof the Speechof Pythagorasto the Latinhexametertradition).
7 I list the Empedocleanparallels(varyingin 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. B 47; 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 by F. B6mer, P.
Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen Buch XIV-XV (Heidelberg, 1986): p. 323 for a list. The
Empedocleancolour is virtuallyabsent in the long section of admirandaand paradoxaat
259-452.
8 B6mer (n. 7), p. 271; B. Otis, Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge, 19702), pp. 296-9.
9 CQ n.s. 37 (1987),24-50.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
206 P. HARDIE

kaleidoscopic principle of imitation; but behind the plurality a unifying ground may
be found in the use of Empedocles to redefine the history of Latin epos, and to
establish Ovid's place at the culmination of that tradition.
In terms of the structure of the Metamorphoses the Speech of Pythagoras does two
things: firstly, it introduces a philosophical section at a climactic point of the
Metamorphoses, and secondly it associates that philosophical doctrine with material
on the history of Rome, preluding the Roman stories in the last part of 15. The
literary-historical reasons for this conjunction of philosophy and national history I
shall return to; here I make the point that the conjunction is very tidily catered for
by using the old, if apocryphal, story about the meeting between the south Italian
philosopher Pythagoras and Numa, the second king of Rome.1o That meeting is
emblematic of the encounter between Rome and Greece which forms one of the major
themes of the last book of the Metamorphoses, and of which we shall find another,
metapoetic, example in the adoption in Latin by Ennius of the Greek (Empedoclean)
hexameter tradition of didactic poetry.
We may assume that there will have been no central text ascribed to Pythagoras
that Ovid would automatically have turned to (and according to some ancient
testimonia Pythagoras like Socrates left no writings at all);" Empedocles' poem (or
poems) would be a most acceptable substitute given the belief, widespread in
antiquity, that Empedocles was a Pythagorean, or even a pupil of Pythagoras."'
As well as providing Pythagorean-type doctrines on metempsychosis and
vegetarianism, Empedocles also teaches that the universe is in a state of constant
change; here is another reason for his attraction as a model for Ovid. Ovid's central
statement of this idea at 15.252-8 is close to Empedoclean formulations, above all
fragment 8 (cf. also B12, 17.6-13, 26.8-12):"1
nec speciessua cuiquemanet,rerumquenouatrix
ex aliis alias reparatnaturafiguras,
nec peritin toto quicquam,mihi credite,mundo,
sed uariatfaciemquenouat, nasciqueuocatur
incipereesse aliud,quamquod fuit ante, morique
desinereillud idem.cum sint huc forsitanilla,
haec translatailluc, summatamenomnia constant.
'AAo8 rTOL 0qVCLOVSEVO6
?pEW" 'T&7VTWV
EUTrLV
Ov'qrrCV, otAoj/IoVOavr7oLo
otE rTS" TEAEUVr?,
d&AA&AdL
VLVOV TE LLyEVTWV
/LLS tE LdQAAaLt
q
EUL,0u 8'8T&L
'TOZC6VE1QL
oVO dvOpc*ToLuw.14
Empedocles taught that cosmic history was governed by the alternating sway of the
principles of Love and Strife, Love joining things together and Strife drawing them
apart; at one point in the cosmic cycle Empedocles claims that the earth brings forth
monsters with limbs joined at random, a bizarre picture that has an affinity with the
unpredictability of the Ovidian world of metamorphosis (B 61):
IToAAAcL
/LEVa4L'7TrpoUwcrcL KQl Qp41LUCTEpva 1%EULL,
3ovyEv?7&v8pd6rrpqJpa, r&8' •E'prraaLvavaTr-aELV
dvI3poOkn 17'aT-LV
/ovKpava,tEtLELY~ytVa aVIPC?JV
q
V?, yvlvLKOO/'1 UKLEPOL9 7 UK1~/.EVa (T7.
yvL'o.

10 See B6mer(n. 7), pp. 252-3; L. Ferrero,Storiadelpitagorismo nelmondoromano(Turin,

11 Burkert(n. 6), pp. 218-20.
1955). 12 Diog. Laert.8.54-7.

1a Cf. Lucr. 1.792-3 'nam quodcumquesuis mutatumfinibusexit, Icontinuohoc mors est

illius quod fuit ante'.
14 In detail note the shared pattern of two negatives followed by adversative('nec...
nec...sed'; o618EVOS...o068E... and the closeness of 'nasci...uocatur' to OaUS...
&AA&),
6VO/LdLETacL.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS 207
Ovid will have noted that the Hellenistic epic poet Apollonius of Rhodes had drawn
on Empedoclean monsters when describing the victims of Circe, that most famous
mythological agent of transformation (Argonautica 4.672-80):
O'iPEg8', o0)
O'pE•ULVoLKdO'TEg d)L7UT7ULV
o6& on V se ptv ' m4otan, talo8' d&r7'oAAowv
08v dclvp'Ecscl
•
aUVLLYEES~•LEEV,
KLEW V dpdoL, '7IUT E Aa
EK ELUtvW7Tq8EVoVTca VO/LtL.
UT-aOp•dV J,•t~
-oLov9Kalt7Trpo-rTEpov E
?faGTaEv
,LAv•og
Xc'Ova'?)7 i•LLKTo•aLV pqPE/l1EV0V9
/,EAEaECTLV,
omirrwStaA jpd'A'
i 67T'~ iTL7p
q0•r•Ula.
Apollonius draws on Empedocles elsewhere most notably in Orpheus' song on the
origin of the universe at 1.497-511,15just as Ovid includes Empedoclean colouring in
his cosmogony at the beginning of the Metamorphoses.16 Peter Knox argues that the
Speech of Pythagoras may be taken as a symptom of Ovid's Alexandrianism, pointing
to Callimachus' use of Pythagoras in his poetry;" the Apollonian imitations of
Empedocles show that in using this model as well Ovid continues an Alexandrian
interest in earlier scientific poetry. Apollonius' Orpheus also yields a precedent for the
displacement of Empedoclean material into the mouth of another archaic figure of
wisdom.

II. EMPEDOCLES, LUCRETIUS, OVID

Aristotle in the Poetics (1447b 17-20) denies that Empedocles is a poet in anything
but metre, but it may well be that the example is chosen polemically, because many
did hold that he was outstanding as a poet as well as a philosopher; Diogenes Laertius
(8.57) reports that in Aristotle's On Poets it was said that Empedocles was 'OkpqPtKdS
and ;18 Ovid may preserve an Empedoclean metaphor in the description
of the-LETa9opKOS
sun as (15.192) 'ipse dei clipeus' (the surviving fragments of Empedocles bear
out Aristotle's statement that he liked to use striking metaphors).19 Empedoclean
influence has been traced in Aeschylus, as well as Apollonius of Rhodes;20 the Latin
poet most indebted to Empedocles is of course Lucretius. Jean Bollack has gone so
far as to claim that 'die philosophische Affinitdit zu Empedokles stirker als die
doktrindireTreue zum Heilbringer Epikur erscheint'."' Certainly as poet Lucretius is

15 See W. Spoerri, SpiithellenistischeBerichte iiber Welt, Kulturund G5tter (Basel, 1959), p. 50.
For other Empedoclean echoes in Apollonius see Livrea on 4.672-81; R. L. Hunter, Apollonius
of Rhodes. Argonautica Book III (Cambridge, 1989), index s.v. 'Empedocles'.
16 Pascal (n. 6), pp. 129ff.; L. Alfonsi, 'L'inquadramento filosofico delle Metamorfosi
ovidiane', in N. I. Herescu (ed.), Ovidiana(Paris, 1958), p. 266; 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 G. F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument(Cambridge, MA, 1957), pp. 50-52 reconciles
the two Aristotelian statements through the assertion that in the Poetics the main issue is
mimesis.
19 J. Longrigg, '"Ice of Bronze" (Lucretius 1.493)', CR 20 (1970), 8-9; I. Cazzaniga, 'Le
metafore enniane relative a cielo e stelle ed alcuni placita di tradizione Anassimeno-Empedoclea',
PP 26 (1971), 102-19, at 104 on caeli clipeus (see also Rostagni (n. 4), p. 289 n. 1).
20 Empedocles and Aeschylus: S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative (Cambridge,
1984), p. 121 n. 32; W. R6sler, Reflexe vorsokratischen Denkens bei Aischylos (Meisenheim,
1970); M. Griffith, The Authenticity of the Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 222-3;
Cazzaniga (n. 19), 111-17.
21 'Lukrez und Empedokles', Die Neue Rundschau
(1959), 656-86, at 685. Other discussions
of Lucretius' debt to Empedocles: F. Jobst, Ober das Verhiiltnis zwischen Lucretius und
Empedocles(diss. Munich, 1907); W. Kranz,' Lukrez und Empedokles', Philologus 96 (1943/4),
68-107; D. Furley, 'Variations on Themes from Empedocles in Lucretius' Proem', BICS 17

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
208 P. HARDIE

profoundly Empedoclean. Ovid frequently imitates Lucretius in the Metamorphoses

and Lucretian influence is overwhelming at a number of points in the Speech of
Pythagoras (the sampler of hexameter didactic within the Metamorphoses);22 the
result is a good example of 'double allusion', as Ovid simultaneously imitates both
Empedocles and his imitator Lucretius."2This double allusion is signalled right at the
beginning of the episode, in the description of Pythagoras at 15.60-72, where the
language echoes the praise of Epicurus at Lucretius 1.62-79, but the object of praise,
Pythagoras, is the same as that in Lucretius' own model in Empedocles (B 129).24
The Ovidian Pythagoras prefaces his revelation of the nature of the world and of
the soul with a diatribe on the evil of animal sacrifice; Lucretius, at the beginning of
his poem on the nature of things, fulminates against the impiety of a religion which
exacts the human sacrifice of an Iphianassa. In Empedoclean and Pythagorean
thought animal sacrifice is tantamount to human sacrifice; Empedocles describes a
father unwittingly sacrificing his metensomatized son in language that is close to the
later Aeschylean account of the sacrifice of Iphigenia (B137).25 The Empedoclean

(1970), 55-64 (= Cosmic Problems, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 172-82); C. J. Castner 'De Rerum
Natura 5.101-3: Lucretius' Application of Empedoclean Language to Epicurean Doctrine',
Phoenix 41 (1987), 40-49; M. J. Edwards 'Lucretius, Empedocles and Epicurean Polemics',
Antike und Abendland35 (1989), 104-15; G. B. Conte, Generi e lettori (Milan, 1991), pp. 17-26;
D. N. Sedley, 'The Proems of Empedocles and Lucretius', GRBS 30 (1989), 269-96 (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 by
Dalzell in CW 67 (1973/4), 98-9, and W. J. Tatum, TAPhA 114 (1984), 178 n. 5.
22 For a list of Lucretian allusions see B6mer on Met. 15.6. In general on Ovid's imitation of
Lucretius see 0. S. Due, Changing Forms. Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Copenhagen,
1974), pp. 29-33.
23 On 'double allusion' see J. C. Mckeown, OvidAmores i. Text and Prolegomena (Liverpool,
1987), pp. 37-45. The phenomenon has come to the centre of recent criticism of Latin poetry;
cf. e.g. R. F. Thomas, HSCPh 90 (1986), 188-9, using the label 'window reference'.
24 Met. 15.60-68 'uir fuit hic, ortu Samius; sed fugerat una I et Samon et dominos odioque
tyrannidis exul I sponte erat; isque, licet caeli regione remotus, I mente deos adiit et, quae natura
negabat I uisibus humanis, oculis ea pectoris hausit. I cumque animo et uigili perspexerat omnia
cura, I in medium discenda dabat coetusque silentum I dictaque mirantum magni primordia
mundi I et rerum causas et, quid natura, docebat.' Emped. DK B 129 ?Iv8d TL 4 KELVOLULVLV7p
TTEptoULCa I 87)
El8W6,;O /L7KLTov7TpaLT'8ov 7TAofTov,
EIKT7)caTo I7TavToL'Ov 7EpaALUTQ co6C)v
7' &tur pavo I
Epy•,V dr7T7TTE I
yap TCamlUcv dpEaLTO r7TpaLrrl8EaaLV, pEL
0' I
yE 7TOv dvTWv
Lucr. 1.66-75
ITCVrwTv AEaGUEGKEV EKaGUTOV KaL 7E 8EK dLvOp07Wlrv Kal 7' ELKOULvalWVEEuv.
'primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra I est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra, I
quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti I murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis
acrem I irritat animi uirtutem, effringere ut arta I naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret. I
ergo uiuida uis animi peruicit, et extra I processit longe flammantia moenia mundi I atque omne
immensum peragrauit mente animoque, I 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
hic', and in the notion of the mental 'seeing' of the master.
25 Emped. B 137/iopcfiv8' &AAad6av-ra TaTr'ipL'Aovvtiv dElpagIcodaE,Et EvXOdEVOg ya
p
Vr7TLOSo. 8' 9PEVTa I Ae 03V7TEs 6 8' aeEmvovTdOKAEC *oW andI a iv
O tIhactBEvov
pT,
tLEyatpoLat KaK.qV dAEyvaT-o ai-a. I e' a'st vtn
Ta-rip' •jAu v Kati I
rTaiseOvuixv
TrroppaLcaav)TE qt'Aa KaTa% aadpKagc•E8ovaLtv.Aesch. Ag. 228-37 t•rTEpa
8% KaltKiA7)8dva
iraTpo0tov
I rcrap' o68Esv ai) TIE EOEVTO ktLAdkaXOL ALTrd•
qOpcdauEv 8' dcolt
PLETEXdlavI 8KLavXqi-Xapag 7TQpOVEtovELOoI I7TE7TAoLTL f3paf3•g'I
7TraTQ7p vTEpOE flWpoLOV 7TcaVT%OV/j I
Aa3Edv aCdTLxaTdOS I TE KahAAL7Trpqpov 7rEpTrrE-IE v 1TrPOVW71T7
I Odyyov apatov OLKoto.LS... See
cvkaKal KaTcaaXE6V
Ep8TlvEmpedocles: The Extant
M. R. Wright, Fragments (New Haven and London, 1981), pp. 286-7.
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 meat-
eating at Met. 15.88-90 'heu quantum scelus est in uiscera uiscera condi I congestoque auidum

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS 209
passage also suggests a feast such as that offered to Thyestes, in an earlier episode
from the history of the Pelopids; when the Ovidian Pythagoras returns to his diatribe
against meat-eating at the end of his speech, he makes the connection between his
injunction and the doctrine of metempsychosis and inveighs against 'Thyestean
tables' (15.462 'neue Thyesteis cumulemus uiscera mensis'). As in the case of the
opening description of the power of Pythagoras' mind, Ovid here reaches back
beyond Lucretius to the original context of the Lucretian model in Empedocles, here
the attack on animal-sacrificeand the associated doctrine of metempsychosis, and so
inverts the Lucretian rejection of Pythagorean-Empedoclean teaching on the soul
(Lucr. 1.102-35).
This emphatic double imitation of the Greek and Latin philosophical poets at the
beginning of the last book of Ovid's poem marks a return literally to first things, for
the description of Chaos at the beginning of book one of the Metamorphoses(1.7-14)
imitates a Lucretian passage (5.432-5) that is in turn a close imitation of an
Empedoclean passage (B27).26

III. EMPEDOCLES, ENNIUS, LUCRETIUS

At Metamorphoses 15.153-9 Pythagoras exposes the vanity of the fear of death, a fear
which is nurtured by the Underworld fables of the uates, and which may be dispelled
by the truth about the transmigration of souls, a truth which also reinforces the
prohibition of meat-eating:
o genusattonitumgelidaeformidinemortis!
quid Styga,quidmaneset nominauana timetis,
materiemuatum,falsiquepericulamundi?
At 174 Pythagoras describes his admonition to abstain from flesh as uaticinari, that
is he claims himself to be a uates. The word uates is a key term for the Augustan poets;
used as a self-description it appropriates to the poet a lofty position as social and
religious spokesman. It is sometimes supposed that by Ovid's time the word had been
rubbed rather bare, and that Ovid used it indifferently as a word for 'poet', without
making particular claims for his own poetic role ;27 but the apparent contradiction in
the present passage between Pythagoras' disparagement of uates and his claim a little
later to be a uates himself reveals rather Ovid's understanding of the Lucretian tactic
of snatching the high ground from the enemy. At the beginning of his poem
(1.102-35) Lucretius attacks the uates who frighten mankind with talk of the afterlife,
including in their number the epic poet Ennius; Lucretius refers to the episode at the
beginning of the Annals, in which Ennius relates how the simulacrum of Homer
appeared to him in a dream, and explained to him the nature of the universe and the
transmigration of souls, by way of a prelude to the revelation that the true soul of
Homer now lodged in the breast of Ennius. Lucretius rejects such accounts of the
survival of the soul after death, and arrogates to himself the alternative uates-like
stance of that most vatic of philosophers Empedocles;28 at the same time he
pinguescere corpore corpus Ialteriusque animantem animantis uiuere leto', there is strong
Lucretian colouring (see B6mer 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, 14 Amphitrite)is also in the Empedoclean manner (B6, the four elements; B38.4
TLrTv...aOl'p ...).
27 J. K. Newman, Augustus and the New Poetry (Brussels, 1967), pp. 182-95; Newman sees in
the apparent contradiction merely an example of Pythagoras 'forgetting himself' (pp. 190-91);
see also B6meron 15.155. " Cf. Cic. Lael. 24 'Agrigentinum... uaticinatum'.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
210 P. HARDIE
substitutes for the account of nature contained in the Dream of Homer at the opening
of Ennius' Annals his own Epicurean de rerum natura.29Lucretius' usurpation of
Ennian territory extends to the Empedoclean role itself, for Ennius in the Annals had
borrowed from Empedocles, to an extent that we can no longer exactly define: most
obvious is the modelling on Empedoclean Neikos of Discordia, the demon who hurls
Rome into the chaos of war with Carthage in book seven of the Annals; and Bignone
has argued that the Dream of Homer itself is specifically indebted to Empedocles'
version of the cycle of souls.30 For my argument that is indeed a tempting hypothesis,
for the Ovidian imitation of Ennius to be discussed in the next section would then
offer another example of 'double allusion' to a Latin text, and to the Greek model
for that text.

IV. OVID, VIRGIL, AND THE LATIN HEXAMETER TRADITION

Via Empedocles and Lucretius we have thus arrived at the founding father of Latin
hexameter poetry, Ennius, and this is the point at which to raise the question of the
place of the Metamorphoses within the tradition of Latin hexameter epic.31As Ovid
moves through universal history towards the present day, he catches up on the
temporal span of the Annals, which related the history of Rome from the time that
Aeneas fled from Troy; at the end of book 14, in the account of the apotheosis of
Romulus, Mars in the council of gods reminds Jupiter of the promise he had made
that Romulus would be raised to the sky (14.814) 'unus erit, quem tu tolles in caerula
caeli'; the reason that Mars can remember these pious words is that he has read them
in the epic of Ennius (Ann. 54). With book 15 we move on through the Ennian time-
span and beyond in the continuation of Roman history to the time of Augustus;
Numa himself of course figured prominently in the Annals."2Ovid also imitates the
structure of the Annals; the Dream of Homer at the beginning of Ennius' epic, as well
as reworking the Hesiodic and Callimachean topos of the initiation of the poet,
functions as a natural-philosophical prelude to the historical account of Roman
history. Quite how emphatic this philosophical prelude was it is difficult to say, since
we do not know how long it was; but if it did develop at some length, the reader will
have been given the impression that this disquisition de rerum natura had an
importance for Roman history that went beyond its function in validating the poetic
credentials of the narrator of that history.33Ovid repeats the Ennian combination of
philosophy and history, distorting and stretching the structure of the Annals; the
Metamorphoses begins with a lengthy philosophical account of the creation of the
world as prelude to human history, and like Ennius he will bring that history down
ad mea tempora; the stretching of course is responsible for the bulk of Ovid's material,
the mythological and legendary stories that fill the first 11 books before we come to
the story of Troy and Aeneas in 12. The Speech of Pythagoras in book 15 is to be
taken together with the philosophical cosmogony in book 1 as the two parts of a

29
P. R. Hardie, Virgil'sAeneid: CosmosandImperium(Oxford,1986),pp. 17-22.
3o Ennius and Empedocles:E. Norden, Enniusund Vergilius(Leipzig, 1915), pp. 10-18;
E. Bignone,'Ennioed Empedocle',RFIC57 (1929), 10-30;0. Skutsch,TheAnnalsof Quintus
Ennius(Oxford,1985),pp. 160, 164n. 18 (expressingsome scepticismabout Bignone'sclaim),
260, 394-7, 758.
31
On Ennian elements in the Met. see H. Hofmann, 'Ovids Metamorphoses.- Carmen
Perpetuum, Carmen Deductum', PLLS 5 (1986), 223-41, at 223-6.
32 But probablynot the story of the meetingof Numa and Pythagoras: cf. Skutsch(n. 30),
pp. 263-4.
33 See O. Skutsch,Studia Enniana (London,1968),pp. 24-7; id., Annals (n. 30), pp. 147-53.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS 211
philosophical frame to the whole poem;34 and here again we see Ovid's oppositio in
imitatione, for if it is the Speech of Pythagoras, rather than the creation account of
book 1, that is the more exact counterpart to the Dream of Homer in Ennius, it has
been removed from the beginning to almost the end of the poem; nevertheless, since
Ovid has also postponed the Ennian matter of Roman history until the end of his
hexameter poem, the Speech of Pythagoras, at the beginning of Ovid's last book, still
performs the function of preface to Roman history that Ennius' Dream of Homer
performs coming at the beginning of his first book: for the bulk of Ovid's Roman
stories come in the second part of book 15.
The Ennian Homer restricts his utterances to cosmology and psychology, with the
particular reference to the case of the poet Ennius; the history is to follow in the
narrative of Ennius himself. The Ovidian Pythagoras includes within his speech both
natural philosophy and history, telling of the rise and fall of empires and prophesying
the future greatness of Rome, arising from the ashes of Troy, at a climactic point in
his speech (15.420-52).35 Ovid's imitation of Ennius is in this rearrangementmediated
through Virgil; again we are dealing with the phenomenon of 'double allusion'. As
is well known, the Ennian Dream of Homer is one of the central models for the
Speech of Anchises in book six of the Aeneid;36from the point of view of structure,
Ovid's placing of his imitation of the Dream of Homer at the end of his poem thus
emerges as the end-product of a kind of continental drift, during which the Ennian
model, loosed from its moorings at the beginning of a poem, had reached a
provisional halting-place at the centre of Virgil's epic. In the first part of his speech
Anchises, like Ennius' Homer, expounds to Aeneas the nature of the universe and the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls; in the second, and longer, part of his speech
he shows Aeneas a pageant of future Roman heroes, the main part of which concludes
with an Ennian quotation, 6.846, 'unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem' (cf. Ann.
363). Virgil thus combines in the single Speech of Anchises both the natural-
philosophical prelude to the Annals, namely the Dream of Homer, and a resume of
the rest of the Annals, for in taking us through the parade of heroes Anchises in fact
is running over the historical subject matter of the whole of Ennius' poem, and there
are other detailed Ennian echoes in these lines. Furthermore Anchises also functions
as a figure of the poet Ennius, appearing, as it were, to Virgil as well as to Aeneas,
just as the poet Homer appears to Ennius to pass on the mantle of epic poetry; as
Ennius, taking the story from the flight of Aeneas, is the continuator of the poet of
the Iliad, so Virgil continues and completes the epic of Roman history begun by pater
Ennius.37
Ovid's use of the Speech of Anchises calls forth two further observations: (i) Ovid
again distorts the proportions of his model; while Anchises' philosophy is merely a
preliminary to his history, the story of Rome's greatness which concludes Pythagoras'
lecture on cosmic metamorphosis is reduced in scale to little more than an example
of the Empedoclean theme of universal change. (ii) Ovid's use of Empedoclean
material may itself have the additional function of commenting on the Virgilian
model, for Anchises in his account of the elemental purgation of souls uses language

34 Newman(n. 27), pp. 189-90 points out that the Ennianring that bindsMet. 1 and 15 is
reinforcedby the imitationof the Ennianconciliumdeorumin Met. 1.
3 In this respectthe Speechof Pythagorasmay be seen as a microcosmicrecapitulation
of the wholeof the Annals,as also of thewhole of the Met. in its spanof timefromthememory
of the GoldenAge (cf. 1.89-112)to prophecyof the greatnessof Rome.
36 For a discussionsee Hardie(n. 29), pp. 76-83.
7 See P. R. Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 103-5.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
212 P. HARDIE
that reminded Norden of Empedocles' doctrine of the elemental wandering of the
daemons ;" but if this is correct, it may of course be that Virgil has picked up some
Empedoclean material from his reading of the Ennian Dream of Homer.
To trace the Empedoclean in the Speech of Pythagoras is thus to follow the outline
of a genealogy of the Metamorphoses as hexameter epos. The instinct of those critics
who have sought in the Speech some kind of general reflection of, or comment on, the
poem as a whole is sound, but the mistake has been too narrowly to concentrate the
search for a 'key' in the subject-matter itself of transformation. The unifying ground
is rather to be located at the level of poetics, in the construction of a literary history
within the text. With Ovid we should of course not expect such a literary history to
be anything but tendentious and partial. But even so the modern reader of Roman
epic may profit from the insights, however biassed, of an ancient reader as skilled as
Ovid. To see the Roman epic tradition as Empedoclean epos is to highlight the themes
of change and process, a convenient way for Ovid as poet of the Metamorphoses to
proclaim his own centrality in the tradition; but it may also prompt us to a rereading
of earlier epics. For example an Empedoclean reading of the Aeneid will bring to the
surface a pervasive interest in change, not infrequently expressed in individual
episodes of metamorphosis. Mutability is both the precondition of Virgil's story of
the transformation of Trojans into Romans, and the source of an anxiety that
Augustus' perfected Rome may be prey to further change."39 Empedoclean epos also
points to the importance of scientific poetry in the Latin hexameter tradition, and to
the continuing influence of Ennius' foundational gesture of beginning the Annals with
a Pythagorean de rerum natura. Ennius' decision had its consequences: in so far as
Ovid uses a philosophico-didactic form within which to reflect on the Latin hexameter
tradition, he passes comment on the continuing tendency within that tradition for
didactic to slip into the guise of heroic epic (Lucretius), and for heroic epic to dally
with the didactic (the Aeneid, above all).40Empedocles' interest in the transmigration
of souls and in his own personal experience of that process further directs us to what
becomes an obsession, peculiarly insistent in the Roman epicists, with their own
literary genealogies, and one associated with a doctrine of metempsychosis in Ennius,
Lucretius (in the negative mode of alerting the reader to his own Ennian affiliation
through a correction of Ennian eschatology at DRN 1.102-35), and Virgil. At a more
abstract level, the temporal process of Empedoclean physics and anthropology acts
as a figure for the Latin 'Empedoclean' tradition itself, as Ovid traces the
metamorphoses of the tradition down to its last reincarnation in his own hexameter
poem.
V. POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND PRINCES
It has become commonplace to see in the person of the Ovidian Pythagoras a figure
for the poet Ovid himself,41an identification that may be seen in the light of the close
relationship that exists between the poets Ennius and Lucretius and their
philosophical mentors, Homer and Epicurus. Ovid, introducing Pythagoras, describes
38 E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart, 19574), p. 28; M. R. Arundel,
PVS 3 (1963/4), 33-4.
3 See
P. R. Hardie, 'Augustan Poets and the Mutability of Rome', in A. Powell (ed.), Roman
Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (Bristol, 1992), pp. 59-82.
40 On the combinationof scientificand legendary-historical
epos see Hardie(n. 29), passim.
41 See B6mer (n. 7), p. 269; M. Petersmann, Die Apotheosen in den Metamorphosen Ovids
(diss.Graz,1976),p. 199;R. CrahayandJ. HubauxarguethatthemeetingbetweenPythagoras
and Numa concealsan allegoryabout Ovidand Augustus,'Sous le masquede Pythagore',in
Herescu(n. 16), pp. 283-300.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 SPEECH OF PYTHAGORAS 213
him as another Lucretian Graius homo wandering through the universe (15.62-4);
Pythagoras' own words at 143-52 echo more closely Lucretius' account of his own
poetic mission at De rerum natura 1.921-30. Pythagoras' fragmented outline of the
course of human history from the Golden Age (96-103) to the greatness of Rome and
the deification of Augustus (431-49) offers a miniature recapitulation of the whole of
Ovid's Metamorphoses, as we have seen. And Pythagoras' ecstatic fancy that he
wanders through the stars, leaving behind the dull earth, is close to Ovid's prophecy
of his own celestial destination in the epilogue to the poem (871-9),42 as he is
transformed into the immortal fame of his own poetry, escaping from the vicissitudes
of the body. In his own journey heavenwards he traces the same path that Augustus
some day will take in the footsteps of Julius, a bold formulation of the Anspruchdes
Dichters to equivalence with the ruler, but not necessarily disrespectful given the
Virgilian precedent in Georgics 3.43 There is also, however, precedent in Empedocles,
according to whom (B146) the final rung on the ladder of the soul's ascent to divinity
is occupied by [uates]7TEKa'LV"tvord'AotKai 7~p'poLI Kait pdtotL [principes]...
v tLd-VTELS
t OEo't -L-ttut dpt-ro-ot. Empedocles himself seems to have
ivOE VapLAaro/3AC
embodied all these four roles in one person,44thus supplying a model for the poet at
his most pretentious. But the epilogue also marks a contrast with Pythagoras'
doctrine of mutability, for in his personal destiny Ovid at last escapes from the law
of universal change (and so brings the sequence of Metamorphoses to an end).45This
too might be understood as the manipulation of different Empedoclean models. In
fragment 115 Empedocles bleakly describes the 'decree of necessity' that when one of
the daimons does wrong he is condemned to thirty thousand years' wandering
through elemental cycles of reincarnation, and says that 'I too am now one of these,
a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer'. Yet in fragment 112.4-5, possibly from a
'
different work,46 Empedocles claims Eyw 8' @IIv GEOEs a6/lpoT70, 0oVKETLOV77dO,
/IETa
TTWrAEv/iLatL TTCrt TETL/LEvor:
an earthlyversionof the celestialimmortalityand
universal fame to which Ovid looks forward at the end of the Metamorphoses. The
contrast between these two Empedoclean roles, the exile and the god, has added point
for those tempted to believe that Ovid continued to work on the Metamorphosesafter
his relegation.47
42 147-9 'iuuat ire per alta I astra,iuuatterriset inertisede relictaInubeuehi'; 875-6
'parte
tamenmelioremei superalta perennisIastraferar'.By the termsof the last line of the poem,
879 'siquidhabentueriuatumpraesagia,uiuam',Ovidin fact becomeshis own uates;cf. above
on Pythagorasand uates;and note esp. 144-5 'Delphosquemeos ipsumquerecludamIaethera
et augustaereserabooraculamentis'(playingon the etymologyof Pyth-agoras).Relevantalso
is the associationof EmpedocleswithApolloand Delphi(accordingto the Sudahe wentaround
carrying aUTEtLtara JIEAeLKd); cf. F. Solmsen, 'Empedocles' Hymn to Apollo', Phronesis 25
(1980),219-27.
43 V. Buchheit, Der Anspruchdes Dichters in VergilsGeorgika (Darmstadt, 1972), 99-103; see
also my 'Questionsof Authority',forthcomingin the papersof a conference'The Roman
CulturalRevolution'held in Princeton,25-28 March,1993.
44 With regard to the fourth see G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic
(Cambridge,19832), p. 282 'We may... inferthat Empedoclestook a leadingrole
Philosophers
as a democrat in the affairs of his city.'
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 I exspatiemur equis,
caelum et quodcumque sub illo est, I immutat formas tellusque et quidquid in illa est.'
46 See Sedley (n. 21), 274-6.
47 Those tempted include M. Pohlenz, Hermes 48 (1913), 1-13; C. P. Segal, AJPh 90 (1966),
290-92; R. G. M. Nisbet, JRS 72 (1982), 54; D. Kovacs, CQ 37 (1987), 462-5. In addition to
the points raised by these scholars I note the parallelism between the description of Pythagoras'

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
214 P. HARDIE

VI. THE EMPEDOCLEAN PRODIGY

The influence of Empedocles may be traced elsewhere in Ovid and Augustan poetry.48
As final token of the sympathy between the portentous pre-Socratic and the playful
poet of love consider the possibility that one of Ovid's own favourite lines from his
own poems may be an Empedoclean adaptation. Let us return to a passage that we
have already considered:
7ToAAaI iE'v acLf4L7TpUww7cra KQl c(l/L'UTEpva O9EaOaL,

PouyEVYC &V8p6O7p4)pXa, Tr ' ELTLra~Lv eavaTgAAELv

•vpOcpU• ouKpOxvOx, FLEtELytL Va Tf
' tfLV
QT' avSpwv
Tq7 E YVvLKObV?7 UGKLEPOE ?7CUK-Eqtt a y/vLO.
EmpedoclesDK B61
Was the chiastic play in successive half-line on the roots flov- and civ8po- in Ovid's
mind when he came up with the following Empedoclean monster of a line (Ars
Amatoria 2.24): semibouemque uirum semiuirumque bouem?49

New Hall, Cambridge PHILIP HARDIE

Earlierversionsof this articleweredeliveredto audiencesat the Universityof New England,

Armidale,NSW, and at the Instituteof ClassicalStudies,London.For helpfulcommentsI am
gratefulto AlessandroBarchiesiand the anonymousreferee.
'flight of the mind' and his 'oculi pectoris'(Met. 15.62-4)with the common toposof 'oculi
mentis' in the exile poetry;particularlyclose is Tr. 4.2.57-64. Like Empedocles,the Ovidian
Pythagorasis also an exile, but of a more literalkind (Met. 15.61-2 'odioque tyrannidisexul
Isponte erat'); his politics have somethingin commonwith Empedocles,who is said (Diog.
Laert.8.63,afterAristotleandXanthos)to haverefusedthe offerof a throne.Furthertherewas
a traditionthat Empedocleshad gone into exilefromhis hometo Syracuse(Diog. Laert.8.52).
Ovid'sescapefromthe conditionsof mortalitywill ultimatelytranscendthe metamorphosisof
'fortunaeuultusmeae' whichhe bemoansin Tristia1.1.117-22,on whichsee S. Hinds,PCPhS
n.s. 31 (1985),20-21 (I am gratefulto the anonymousrefereefor drawingmy attentionto this
reference).
arguesfor the extensiveuse of Empedoclesby Ovidat the
48 Ovid:see n. 6; G. Pfligersdorffer

beginning of the Fasti: 'Ovidius Empedocleus. Zu Ovids lanus-Deuting', Grazer Beitriige 1

(1973), 177-209;cf. F. B6rtzler,'Janusund seineDeuter',Abh.u. Vortr.BremerWiss.Ges. 4
(1930), 103-96, at 137. Empedoclesin late Republicanand Augustanliteratureother than
Lucretius:Cic. Lael. 24, Rep.3.19; VirgilGeo.2.484(cf. C. O. Brink,Phoenix23 (1969), 138);
Horace Ep. 1.12.20, Ars Poet. 463-6; Sallustius Empedoclea(cf. H. Bardon, La Litterature latine
inconnuei. (Paris,1952),p. 335; della Corte[n. 6]).
49 For the story see Sen. Contr.2.2.12. After completingthis articleI discoveredthat the

Empedocleanparallelhad alreadybeen suggestedby J. S. Rurten'Ovid, Empedoclesand the

Minotour',AJPh 103 (1982),332-3.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:27:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions