The Augustan Revolution
acquired:theMausoleumontheCampusMartius,thetempleofApolloPala-
tinus,andtheCuriaJulia.^3 Equally,theimpulsetorepairtheancienttemple
of IuppiterFeretriusontheCapitolhadcomefromAtticus,whohaddied
in..^4
Butifwedecidedtoidentifythiscrucialandcreativeperiodinthehis-
toryof Romancultureas‘‘Triumviral,’’^5 whichwriterscanwedesignateas
trulyandunambiguously‘‘Augustan’’?Thegreat‘‘Augustans’’Virgil,Horace,
Propertius,andLivy^6 emergeasTriumviral,andintheirlaterworkscouldbe
thoughtofas‘‘post-Triumviral.’’IfanyoneistoqualifyasAugustanthrough
and through, it is Ovid, born in , whose writing starts in the s and
extends into the early years of Tiberius. He is ‘‘Augustan’’ not merely in a
chronological sense, but in a far more profound one, of the expression in
some (not all) of his works of an overt literary commitment to the new
regime(oftruepersonalcommitmentwecanneverknow,andshouldnotat-
tempttospeak).Thepoetryofexile,thischaptersuggests,expressesnotthe
voiceofthesubversivedissident,butthatoftheoutragedloyalistwhomthe
regimehasrejectedandwasnevertoacceptback.
TheearlierHeroidesandthefirstversionoftheAmoresapart,Ovid’smajor
surviving works belong, in the form in which we have them, to thevery
mysteriousandratherneglectedlasttwodecadesofAugustus’life:theArs
Amatoria,theFasti,theMetamorphoses,theTristia,andEpistulae ex Ponto–,
withEpistulaestretchingfromayearbeforeAugustus’deathtotwoyears
after it. All of them manifest an intense concern to incorporate appropri-
ate reflections of the major monuments and successes of the regime, in a
laboriousandexplicitwaywhichhadnotbeencharacteristicofthepoetsof
halfagenerationearlier.AsJasperGriffinhasbrilliantlydemonstrated,these
writersfoundwaysofhonouringthenewregime,whiledelicatelydistanc-
ingthemselvesfromit.^7 Bycontrast,Ovid’sworkshavetonegotiatethein-
superabletaskofincorporatingappropriateallusionstoAugustus,whilealso
givingduerecognitiontohisassociatesandsuccessors,potentialoractual.
These considerations might allow us, as a way of relocating Ovid, and
. Forthisphase,seeP.Zanker,Augustus und die Macht der Bilder(),chaps.–.
. Millar(no.),and.
. Forthesuggestionthattheperiodfromto..mightbesotermed,seeR.Syme,
History in Ovid(),.
. FordifficultiesinseeingLivyas‘‘Augustan,’’seeT.J.Luce,‘‘Livy,Augustusandthe
ForumAugustum,’’inK.A.RaaflaubandM.Toher,eds.,Between Republic and Empire: In-
terpretations of Augustus and His Principate(),.
. J. Griffin, ‘‘Augustus and the Poets: ‘Caesar qui cogere posset,’’’ in F. Millar and
E.Segal,eds.,Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects(),.