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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: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751157

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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.

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.

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

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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