The Interest of Roman People in Philosophy Matters

Roman writing was quite diverse in subject matter. Some stories and poems centered on the lives of ordinary citizens and farmers, while others wrote of epic heroes and battles. Philosophers have often phrased questions about Pythagoras’ revelations and how they provide some kind of unifying ground. It can be difficult to interpret the speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic because of it being displayed as intentionally laughable. Throughout Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there are continuous implications to the works of Virgil and other Roman celebrated poets of the time. Τhere is a break in writing style in book 15 that is completely different than the rest of Metamorphoses. The question so many have asked in regard to Ovid’s piece is simple: Why the resemblance to Virgilian writing ? This paper seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid and his interpretation of Virgil's writings. Ovid’s mirroring of the Virgilian stylings within Anchises’ speech in The Aeneid is an insight into Ovid’s interpretation and understanding of Virgil’s work as a whole.

Through Pythagoras’s speech in Metamorphoses, it becomes clear that Ovid is trying to parody Virgil’s writings, but is a far grasp from attempting to imitate. As can be expected, the speech of Pythagoras is relevant to another major aspect of the Metamorphoses. A large example of that is the constant comparison Ovid asks the reader to make between his poem and Virgil’s Aeneid. One dimension, as we have seen, is that the Metamorphoses is an even more comprehensive heir to Homer than is the Aeneid because Ovid was able to incorporate into it genres such as comedy, pantomime, and burlesque that were not suitable for the Roman national epic. Another dimension is the usual inversion. In Aeneid book 6, Virgil had to make up for the incredibility of myth by infusing it with a heavy dose of serious philosophy. We know from Cicero, Propertius, and others that credence in the actual mythology of the underworld, such as the ferryman, the frogs, and swamps, was at a low ebb among the Roman intelligence. Because of this, Virgil drew heavily on various philosophical traditions to make Hades meaningful while providing another hint at the very end, through the conundrum of the Gate of False Dreams, that not all of his account, and especially the less spiritual yaumast, was to be taken literally. (58) Ovid, by contrast, completely humanizes the underworld in Book 4, has Pythagoras engage in a lengthy recitation of yaumast, and absolutely minimizes any heaviness and significance of philosophy in the discourse of Pythagoras.

Pythagoras' pointed dismissal (Ovid, 15.154-5) of the underworld as an 'empty name' (nomina vana) and 'stuff for poets' (materiem vatum), all the while he is addressing coetus silentum, which was bound to recall the underworld, applies equally to Virgil’s brave remythologizing of Hades and to Ovid's repeated choice of it as a subject; besides Book 4, it appears in Books 5, 10, and 14. Further, as we have seen, Ovid blithely concedes Pythagoras' point by stating that the myths he tells 'are not to be believed,' (60-61) but of course he tells them anyway and announces that he will be immortal for it. By raising issues that are central to his work, Ovid appeals to the reader to reflect on the nature of mythological poetry and to compare him, in this important respect, with his major Roman predecessors, Virgil.

Aeneas’s journey to the underworld in Book VI is another of the Aeneid’s most famous passages. In fact, this passage helped raise Virgil to the status of a Christian prophet in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century, the Italian poet Dante used it as the foundation for his journey through hell in the Inferno, even though Virgil’s version of the afterlife was obviously not a Christian one. Like Virgil, for example, Dante designed a hell with many sections and in which more severe punishments are handed down to those with greater sins. Also like Virgil, Dante exercised his formidable imagination in inventing penalties for sinners.

Rhadamanthus’s practice of listening to sinners and then sentencing them is remarkably similar to the Christian conception of judgment after death: souls who fail to repent for their sins on Earth pay more dearly for them in hell. Of course, one major difference is that Virgil does not have a separate equivalent of Christian heaven. Aeneas’s trip to the underworld is also Virgil’s opportunity to indulge in an extensive account of Rome’s future glory, particularly in his glorification of the Caesars. Virgil renders Augustus—his own ruler and benefactor—the epitome of the Roman Empire, the promised ruler who presides over the Golden Age. There are many people who debate the similarities between Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Bible’s genesis story. As both recount the tale of creation, it begs the question whether the similarities between these two works are based off of each other. The elements of Christianity with Ovid’s writing could be partially due to influences of Virgil’s beliefs and writings as well. It seems in a way that Ovid was very impressionable when it came to high respected poets like Virgil— in agreeance with so many ideas on principle.

The Romans' main interest in philosophy was in ethics and there was plenty of relevant Pythagorean material around. Ovid systematically ignores all of that, relegating it, at best, to the unarticulated aliis dictis. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in Ovid, but there’s also a very powerful sense of deep feeling. He betrays something else, too. He’s immensely learned, but it is perhaps his feelings that are clearest. He reduces Pythagorean ethics to vegetarianism-this is the subject of the peroratio in lines 459-78 to which talibus dictis refers-and, yet more important, 'presents it in a position more extreme than that usually ascribed to Pythagoras.' (27) This does not make Pythagoras' speech a parody-such labels are too facile because the speech is more than one-dimensional-but it reduces Pythagoras' credibility qua philosopher. Nor is their credibility, and this produces another commonality of poetry and philosophy. Just before the philosopher starts speaking, Ovid comments that his teachings may be learned, but not altogether believed (15.73-4). In their position, the lines refer to the entire speech, and not just Pythagoras' injunctions about vegetarianism or metempsychosis. (46) Ovid, in turn, in his apologia to Augustus explicitly characterizes the titular subject of the Metamorphoses as not to be believed (63-4): inspice maius opus, quod adhuc sine fine tenetur, in non credendos corpora versa modos. Some conclusions can be drawn at this point.

Ovid's treatment of the discourse of Pythagoras is viewed best not as a unifying philosophical pivot of the Metamorphoses, but as a contribution to an ongoing discussion about the roles of myth and philosophy in the grand poetic tradition. One of Ovid's use of this extended passage is to call attention to his poetic aims and to his place in the poetic tradition. He does not limit himself to writing Empedoclean epic; if anything, he places his poem in the tradition originating with Homer, a tradition that he Metamorphoses throughout his poem by numerous innovations. The speech of Pythagoras and related passages in the Metamorphoses highlight the nature of Ovid's contribution and his differences both from Lucretius' insistence on vera ratio and Virgil’s reinvestment of myth with great spiritual, moral, and historical meaning. Ovid downplays the historical component, i.e. the connection of Pythagoras and Numa, and banalizes philosophy.

Simultaneously, Ovid uses Pythagoras' discourse as a reminder of the challenge he himself faced in stringing together a mass of often heterogeneous material. Ovid's solution was to create imaginative and, sometimes, deliberately outrageous transitions, whereas those of Pythagoras lack such brio and can be artless and mechanical, an aspect that has been repeatedly commented upon; the connective et quoniam, for instance, is used twice here (Ovid,15.143,176) and does not occur elsewhere in the Metamorphoses. Along the same lines, it is still convincing that Pythagoras, or Ovid through Pythagoras, articulates the realization that the listener's attention may be flagging due to Pythagoras' narrative mode. At least this is the strong implication of lines 418-20: 'The day will wane, the Sun beneath the waves will plunge his panting steeds before my tale recounts the sum of things that take new forms