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Ovid's Tomb: The Growth of a Legend from Eusebius to Laurence Sterne, Chateaubriand and George Richmond
Ovid's Tomb: The Growth of a Legend from Eusebius to Laurence Sterne, Chateaubriand and
George Richmond
Author(s): J. B. Trapp
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 36 (1973), pp. 35-76
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL:
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OVID'S TOMB
THE GROWTH OF
A LEGEND FROM EUSESIUS TO LAURENCE STERNE,
CHATEAUBRIAND AND GEORGE RICHMOND
ByJ. B. Trapp
Sed sinefuneribuscaputhoc, sinehonoresepulcri
Indeploratumbarbaraterrateget!
Eristis,III, iii, 45-6
Tf Ovid ever had a biographer or a commentator in antiquity, or if any
lclassical author ever incidentally gave an account of his life, no such text
survives. Apart from occasional remarks, our sole ancient source of informa-
tion on the poet is the poet himself: an invitation still to his interpreters to
display their critical and historical tact, or the power of their imagination,
according to their time, their temperament and their motives.
Ovid's information is plentiful enough, especially on the uncongenial
conditions of his nine-year exile: the fristia and the Ex Pontooverflow with
painful detail. On the place to which he had been banished, at the age of
fifty-in the year 8 of the Christian era-he is quite explicit. The Emperor
Augustus had packed him off to Tomis, on the icy, wind-swept western shores
of the Black Sea-'Pontus-on-the-left' or 'miserable Pontus' he also calls it.
It was both better and worse for him because he was 'relegatus', not 'exsul'.
His property was not confiscated and he retained civil rights, but he had to
stay in that one place of banishment, whereas as an 'exsul' he would have lost
his property but been able to wander at will, provided he did not come within
a certain radius of Rome.
On two important matters, however, Ovid is all but silent. The reasons
for his exile are left carefully, if deplorably, unspecific. All he allows us to
know is summarized in his circumspect, laconic 'duo crimina . . . carmen et
error', words which have provided a rich field for speculation. The tendency
of his lascivious verses, especially the Ars Amatoria,to deprave and corrupt,
his status as praeceptor
and LosAngeles
I964.
of Ovid'sExile,Berkeley editors'prefaces,etc.
35
amoris,have been since the Middle Ages considered the
chief causes, and retain their primacy today.l That would account for
'carmen'. What of 'error'? Was this some less literary infringement of morals,
some specific incident? Adultery or promiscuity, or the witnessing of others
in flagrante,are favoured causes among those who search for such things.
Medieval and Renaissance accounts2 are more precise and enterprising:
Ovid is said to have slept with the EmpressLivia (or refusedto do so, or merely
My accumulatedthanks are due to Otto
2
See, especially, Fausto Ghisalberti,
Kurz and to ChristopherLigota. For help 'Medievalbiographiesof Ovid', this
Journal,
in particular matters I am obliged to IX,
I946, pp. I0-59;
and below,n. 9. There
BenedettoBravo, GiuseppeBillanovich,Ar- are collectionsof Renaissancelives in the
mando and Franca Petrucci, Alan R. variorumedn. of the
Opera,
Frankfurta.M.
Samuels,ProfessorTadeuszUlewicz and to
I60I;
and the variorum
Opera,
ed. Pieter
others, who are named at the appropriate Burmanthe Elder
(I668-I74I),
Amsterdam
places. The mistakesand untidinessesare
I727, iS
even morevaluableforan investiga-
my own: the storyseemsentirelycomposed tion such as the present: the documentary
of looseends. Appendixof its fourthvolumeincludesmost
1A useful reeent
summary is John C. ofthe importantRenaissanceand laterlives,
Thibault,TheMystery
36
J. B. TRAPP
spiedon her in her bath), or to have debauchedAugustus'sdaughterJulia-
all of which thingswere bad and also to have writtenpoemsto and about
theseladiesunderthe name of Corinna,which was worse. He is supposedto
have practisedmagic. Or he is said to have surprisedthe Emperorin some
rite or action that should not be divulged 'quoddamsecretum':whether
unorthodoxreligiousobservance,paederasty,or incestwithJulia. This idea
is based on such hints as fristia II, Io3ff. and III, vi, 27ff., on confused
recollectionof a hint in Suetonius'sLifeof Caligula,and on the undoubted
fact thatJulia was exiled, for adultery,in the same year as Ovid.
The second point on which informationfrom Ovid himselfis lacking-
thistimeinvoluntarily-is whereandwhenhe died. Nor is thereepigraphical
orothercontemporaryexternalevidenceto dateandlocalizehisdeath. Never-
thelessit seemscertain,e silentio,that the imperialdecreeof relegationwas
never rescindedby Augustusor by his successorTiberius. The poet's pleas
to the emperorand his longing to return home were never answeredor
realizedin his lifetime:he died, still technicallyin disgraceand presumably
stillin Tomis,about
A.D. I
7. Nor, asfarasis known,werehisremainsbrought
back,as he had wished,and laid in Romansoil. Nor finally,and forpresent
purposesmost importantly,has Ovid's true tomb ever been found.
Modernscholarshiphaslearnedto reconcileitselfto suchsituations.There
is now generalagreementthat, if Ovid'stombwerereallyat last to be found,
it would be found somewherewithin the boundariesof Constanta,in the
regionknownas the Dobrudja,on the westerncoastof the BlackSea, southof
the mouths of the Danube, some twenty-fivemiles north of the present
Romanian-Bulgarianborder. The moderncity coversthe site of the ancient
Milesiancolonyof Tomis,latera chieftownof the Romanprovinceof Moesia
Inferior. Until the laternineteenthcentury and even duringit therewas
considerableconfusionas to the geographicalposition of and the modern
name for Tomis: it was placed as far to the north as Polesie,in Poland, as
far to the north-eastas Kiev or as the mouth of the Dnestr, as far to the
east as modern Georgia, and as far to the south as Varna, in modern
Bulgaria.
4N.I. Herescu,ed., Ovidiana.Recherches
sur 5Ex Ponto,IV,
Xiii,
Faenza
I972,
p. I4.
I 7ff.;
cf. N. Herescu,
Ovide,publieesa l'occasion
du bimillenaire
de la 'Ovide, le Getique',in AttidelConvegno
inter-
dupoete,Paris
I
958,frontispiece,and nazionale
ovidiano,
Sulmona
s95f, i, Rome
I
959,
facingp. 353. For the use of the epitaph,see pp. 55-80.
R. Chevallier,Epigraphie
et litterature
a Rome,
6
E.g. Ex Ponto,IV, xiv, 47ff.
3
In ConstantaOvidnowstandsin EttoreFerrari's
lastingbronze,on lasting
marble,inscribedwith the epitaphhe had himselfproposed.(Its formulawas
imitatedby othersin the area,in antiquity,afterhim.)4The monumentwas
erectedin
I887,
when Romanianpatrioticpride in the firstgreat poet who
had everlived on her soil, had even as he says-written poems5in the local
language,and been held in honourby the inhabitants,6could still be all the
greaterbecausethe poet had been a Roman. Therewas the additionalsatis-
faction,as we shallsee, that Ovid had been wrestedfromPolishpossession-
or at leastthat the Romanianshad a bettertitle than the Polesto regardhim
as theirpoetic foundingfather.
3
See Appendix.
naissance
OVID'S TOMB 37
Constantahad the last word, appropriately,since that is where Ovid
seems to have died. Sulmonabhis birthplace,again appropriately,had the
first:therewerecommemorativestatuesto him therein the fifteenthcentury.
One of them, of
I474,
with its simpleidentifyinginscription,'OvidiusNaso',
is preservedin the Museo
civico.7
Italian, though rural, Sulmona,and far
provincialConstanta,the poles of Ovid's existence,his birth and his death,
the warmthand joy of his early life and the despondency
of his last years,
stand at opposite ends of the Roman Empire. The monumentsthat they
erectedto the poet who
belongedto both of them, manifestationsof the same
monumentalimpulse,8stand at two chronologicalpoles of the Renaissance:
in themlocalpatriotismis reinforcedby the notion,resuscitatedfromclassical
antiquity, that such honoursare due to a great poet who also belongs to
civilizationat large. It is easy to see how this monumentalimpulsemightbe
translated,especiallyduringthe Renaissance,into a
desireto find the sepul-
chralmonumentthat antiquity
had itselferectedin Ovid'smemory,and how
the remotenessof his presumedplace of death allowed
this sort of romantic
archaeologyfree rein.
Medievaland Renaissanceaccountsof Ovid'slife
arefull of confusionand
inconsequence,not to say worse,concerningwherehe died and what monu-
ment,if any, markedthe placeof his burial. One sympathizesa littlewith the
biographers:it is hard to have to say, when one comesto the culminationof
one's subject'slife, that one does not know where it occurred,and hard to
resist the temptation to provide suitable honours in the way of a tomb,
especiallywhenthatsubjecthad beggedhisfamily,as Ovidhad, xlotto neglect
this duty.
The firstextraneousmentionof Ovid'stomb comesin the fourthcentury:
it is a bald statementthat Ovid died at Tomisand wasburiedthere. At some
latertime,perhapsin the seventh,perhapsin the tenthor eleventh,perhaps-
for authoritiesare dispersed,rather than merely divided---
of Ovid has producedlegendsof a tomb in
someunspecifiedspotout thereby the BlackSea. The fourteenthcenturycon-
tributesa storythat Ovid cameback to Rotne to die but mentionsno tomb.
The QuattrocentoandCinquecento
christiana
in Italygiverenewedcurrencyto the tomb
erected by public subscriptionat Tomis. The Germansixteenthcentury-
popolare,Sulmona
I924,
esp. cap. Paduahiefly an aSairof the MiddleAges
xii, 'Le statue e le immaginid'Ovidio',pp. and Renaissance see B. L. Ullman, 'The
I
33-50. Pansa also oSers useful summary post-mortemadventures of Livy', in his
chapterson the place of Ovid'sexile and his Studies
Rome
I955,
'tomb' (pp. 77-96). Far the best treatment pp. 55-80; and cf. pp. 44 and 46 below. For
of the early Sulmona statues is Augusto the cult of Vergil'stomb, cf. below, n.
II2;
Campana, 'Le statue quattrocenteschedi and the referencescited there. For the com-
Ovidioe il Capitanatosulmonesedi Polidoro memorationsof Vergilat Mantuaand Pietole
Tiberti', in Atti del Convegno
in theItalianRenaissance,
vol. i, a curadi E. Faccioli,Mantua
8
The Roman writers Livy and Vergil
I959, pp.
9-335: La tradizionevirgilianaa
provide the most interesting
manifestations Mantova.
. . ., i, fromtheI3thtothe Igthcentury,seeMantova,
LeLettere,
I959, pp. 269-88.
in the fifteenth
century,thiswas dilatedupon: the tombat Tomisbecornesa splendidmonu-
ment,erectedby publicsubscriptionamongthe inhabitants.By the thirteenth
century,the interpretatio
7
G. Pansa, Ovidionel Medioevoe nella in the presentcontext. For 'Livy'stomb'at
tradizione
ovidiano
38
dressingthe thirteenth-century
legendsof the
far-offtomb in an acceptable
Renaissanceguiseof nationalismand archaeology--
adds a descriptionof the
findingof Ovid's tomb at Stein-am-Anger,the ancient Savaria
and modern
Szombathely,near the Austro-Hungarianborder. This tomb
was still being
describedby and to nineteenth-century
travellers;and its
recent discovery
was even announcedby two Italian and one Austrian
newspaperin the late
nineteenthcentury. Laterin the sixteenthcenturyan apocryphalaccount
of
the discovery
of Ovid'stombadfinesGraeciae,
nearthe BlackSea, wasput into
circulationby Germansources,perhapsrelyingon Polish. This version
has
a fake
epitaph,whichwas soonattachedto the tomb at Szombathelyby
later
writers. Finally, in
I674,
'Ovid's Tomb' is found
just outside Rome itself,
complete with an inscription and elaborate painted
decoration which,
although genuinely Roman, are two centurieslater than Ovid
and have
nothingto do with him.
The story of Ovid's Tomb is a good example of the impulse
that the
uncertain and the far-off gives to the learned imagination,
especiallyin
default of sound archaeological,epigraphicalor other collateral
evidence.
The same lines from the poet are interpretedand reinterpreted
or, if need
be,
ignored--to give the desiredresult. Extrapolationfrom Ovid and
wild
invention
play their part and survive from the Middle Ages into the
Renaissanceand beyond. Irreconcilablestatementsare thrown
together,
account combined and confused with account. In all this,
biographers,
encyclopaedists,geographers,collectors,fantasists,
forgers,and scholarsplay
their part.
In general, more attentionhas been paid by
Ovid's interpretersto the
Metamorphoses
and the Heroides,as well as the Arsamatoria.
For the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance,the firsttwo were his chief title to be a
vehicle of
the truth, spiritualand scientific:the amatory
poems made him the lover's
manual. For the biographers,and especiallyfor the poet's later
years, the
important works have always been the fristia
at large, particularlythe
autobiographicaltenth elegy of the fourthbook, and the Ex Ponto.
The third
elegy of the third book of the fristia takes up yet again the
theme of Ovid'smisfortunes
in exile. Anotherhand must
write this letter to
his wifeforhim, to tell overhis troublesas he lies
desperatelyill amongGetes
and Sarmatians,withoutlodgingor food suitablefor a sick
man and with no
physicianto ease him. In his deliriumhe speaksher
name. Partingfrom
her and from Rome was a foretasteof the end:
Et prior et
gravior mors fuit illa mihi.
Now, at
the chill extremeof the world,he is near the chill extremeof death,
friendless,alone,
with no one to mourn his passing, no one to see to the
funeralrites, no one to raise a
tomb over him. If only souls perishedwith
bodies,so that his own immortalpart, consumedwith his
mortalremainson
the pyre,
would not be condemnedto perpetualwanderingsin far-of lands.
Let his bonesat least be broughtback
to Rome and his long exile thus cease
as they are laid, preservedin nard, near the
city:
Inque suburbanocondita pone solo.
J. B. TRAPP
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