Fasti | Page 8

are meant.
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_Of Ovid's Poem on the Fasti_.
Among the choir of poets who shed glory on the reign of Augustus, the first place for originality may be claimed by P. Ovidius Naso. His Heroic Epistles had no model in Grecian literature; his Art of Love, the most perfect of his works, was equally his own, though didactic poetry had been cultivated in Greece; his Metamorphoses bore perhaps a resemblance to a lost poem of Nicander or Callimachus; but unless a work of this last poet, presently to be noticed, was of the same kind with it, Grecian literature contained nothing resembling his Fasti.
To a poet like Ovid, of various powers and great command of language, few subjects could have appeared to possess more 'capabilities,' to use a hackneyed but expressive term. He had here an opportunity of displaying his power in the light, easy, and graceful style, when narrating the adventures of the god of Grecian theology; while the real and legendary history of his country afforded subjects which might have called forth the highest powers of genius, and have awakened the sympathies of every Roman reader. Here, however, I think he has failed; Ovid in fact very much resembled a distinguished poet of our own days, who, like him, excels in the light and amatory, and sportive style, but whose efforts in the grave and dignified are not equally successful. In reading the poem, I have sometimes asked myself if it would not have been better had the Fasti of Rome been the theme of the Mantuan instead of the Pelignian bard. Where Ovid fails Virgil would certainly have succeeded, and the Regifugium and fall of the Fabii would have come down to us in strains equal to those which celebrate the wars of ancient Italy. Whether the reverse would have been the case, and that, in those lighter and more familiar parts, where Ovid succeeds Virgil would have failed, I take not on me to decide; but I should reckon much on the taste and judgement of the author of the Georgics. Still, even in the higher parts, we know not to what disadvantage even Virgil's verses might have competed with the venerable Annals of Ennius, with whom he rather seemed to shun than to seek collision. This is a question, however, which can never be decided, and, much as I delight in the poetry of Virgil, I regard him as inferior in genius to Ovid. Virgil depends on others, he always imitates; Ovid borrows rarely, in composition he is always best when most independent.
I do not think that Ovid had any model for his Fasti; the idea might have been suggested to him, as it is thought, by this verse of Propertius (iv. 1. 69):
Sacra, diesque canam et cognomina prisca locorum,
with which he concludes a poem, in which he feigns himself to be shewing to a stranger the principal monuments of Rome. Callimachus, too, had written a poem which, like all the poetry of the Alexandrian period, was well known at Rome and was quoted by Varro, Martial, Servius and others. Its title was [Greek: Aitia], and, from its name and the few fragments and scanty accounts of it which remain, it appears that it treated of the causes of matters relating to the gods and ancient heroes of Greece. From an epigram in the Anthology, we learn that he feigned that he was transported in a dream to Mt. Helicon, and there received his information from the Muses. The epigram ends thus:
[Greek: Ai de hoi eiromeno, amph' Ogugion Haeroon Aitia kai makaron eiron ameibomenai].
It is uncertain whether the poem was in heroic or elegiac measure. Ovid appears to have been acquainted with it, for (Trist. v. 5. 33.) when speaking of the dividing of the flame on the pyre of the Theban brothers he adds--
Hoc, memini, quondam fieri non posse loquebar, Et me Battiades judice falsus erat.
The difference, however, between this poem and the Fasti, must have been considerable. A Greek poet, named Butas, according to Plutarch (Rom. 21.), wrote [Greek: aitias muthodeis en elegeiois ton Romaikon], from which he quotes these two verses relating to the Luperci, and in explanation of their custom of striking those whom they met--
[Greek: Empodious tuptontas hopos tote phasgan' echontes 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