1. Ovid’s Art of Love (Ars amatoria)
Marine Venus – Pompeii, 1st cent. CE
Ovid’s Art of Love (Ars amatoria)
according to the Roman historian Tacitus, “the worst class of enemies are those who praise” (Barton, Agr. 41)
in his Art of Love, Ovid lavishly praises Augustus, the reigning emperor and ostentatiously announces his intention not to offer any advice that would contradict Augustus’ legislation designed to reform Roman morals and to restore the aristocracy to its ancient glories by regulating marriage, punishing adultery, and encouraging reproduction
one supposes that Ovid, the preceptor amoris lascivi, the instructor in “wanton love,” nowhere violates the letter of Caesar’s legislation, but does his poem respect the spirit of Augustus’ program? does his poem perhaps, through manifold hints and allusions, offer a kind of scurrilous dissent?
Ovid
Ideology, Poetry, Empire

2. Agenda Recap & Update Ovid’s Ars Discussion
Virtus romana, matrimonium, lex
Ovid’s Ars
Background, Structure, Theme
Discussion
What Would Ovid Say?

3. Recap & Update
Virtus romana, matrimonium, lex

4. Virtus romana, matrimonium, lex
mos maiorum (“way of the ancestors”) and virtus romana
matrimonial ideology
The Augustan legislation
lex iulia et papia
lex iulia de adulteriis coercendis
mos maiorum “way of the ancestors” and virtus romana. pietas “filial devotion” gravitas “seriousness” severitas “uncompromising moral austerity” pudicitia “sexual continence”
mos maiorum: main features
promotion of traditional virtues, patriarchy
distrust of self-indulgence, excessive independence, foreign (including Greek) influence
discouragement of improper public behavior, theatrical performance, other infamia excessive indulgence in pleasures
stories of Marcus Porcius Cato Censor - floralia, brothel
significance to the n v. f dialectic
in relation to the n v. f dialectic, it could be argued that sources like Catullus, Sulpicia, Ovid, Petronius, and Juvenal, in varying ways, offer ambivalent explorations of the mos maiorum
not as a moral foundation but as a social-political-ethnic demarcation. there is, then, quite possibly a sociology in the later and the roman sources that f&n may or may not adequately confront
matrimonial ideology. mens matrimonii, maritalis affectio, adfectio conjugalis, univira reverentia, obsequium, concordia
augustan legislation
p. 19. mcginn’s chs 2, 3 seek to establish that the augustan marriage legislation "aimed to keep pimps and prostitutes out of the upper classes and to prevent members of those classes from behaving, in effect, like pimps and prostitutes." did so by "manipulation of social status: the adulerous wife as prostitute, the complaisant husband as pimp.
Augustus

5. The Augustan Legislation
Lex iulia et papia
lex iulia de adulteriis coercendis
18 BCE, 9 CE
Sanctions on marriage between members of the ordo senatorius and
Freedpersons
Infames
Criminals
Adulterers
18 BCE
to Repress adultery
p. 19. mcginn’s chs 2, 3 seek to establish that the augustan marriage legislation "aimed to keep pimps and prostitutes out of the upper classes and to prevent members of those classes from behaving, in effect, like pimps and prostitutes." did so by "manipulation of social status: the adulerous wife as prostitute, the complaisant husband as pimp.
lex iulia de maritandis ordinibus (plebiscite, aug w/ trib pot18 BCE), lex papia poppaea (comitial lex 9 CE) = lex iulia et papia (with a number of additional enactments in later years)
imposed sanctions on (technically, did not prevent – lex minus quam perfecta) marriage between members of the ordo senatorius and
freedpersons, infames, criminals, adulterers
between ingenui and infames
between persons within 6/7 degrees of blood relationship
“the prohibtions are an illustration of the roman tendency to merge categories of the social and the and moral” (mcginn 72)
the unmarried, married in contrvention of law forfeit inheritance. childless spouses receive reduced inheritance from each other, etc. etc.
the ius liberorum
children entitled parents to greater inheritance rights, wives to freedom from tutela. each children represented a year removed from minum ages for political office; generally favored fathers in awarding of offices.
“what is striking is the law’s attempt to create a meritocracy of virtue” (mcginn 80 – “the creation of a new, moral elite” not just reviving the aristocracy)
lex iulia de adulteriis coercendis (plebiscite again, 18 BCE)
to repress adultery. creates for the first time a standing court for adultery, the quaestio perpetua de adulteriis. previously, private matter: injured husband could kill both in flagrante delicto.
under the li, punishment by fines, legal disability, loss of civic privileges – infamia. relegatio in insulam. women: forbidden to remarry. if did, husband liable to lenocinium marriage of adulterous lovers voided. women compelled to wear the dark-colored toga of the prostitute to contrast with the matrona’s stola. (contrast too the light-colored toga of the respectable citizen in public.) the ius occidendi in flagrante delicto to husbands, fathers (a right with hedges and limitations). the adulterous woman’s status lowered to that of prostitute. the husband must divorce, else liable to punishment for lenocinium, pimping, of wife. no one could prosecute the adulterous wife unless husband divorces.
defines the range of women a roman man might have extramarial sex with: prostitutes, lenae, slaves, convictyed adulteresses, foreigners unmarried to romans. forbidden to men: nonexempt married women (adulterium), illicit sex with non-exempt unmarried women (technically, stuprum). the non-exempt married woman allowed sex only with legit husband.
through the lex, aug sought to “give new life” to the traditional morality embodied by paragons like Lucretia. creates the (desirable) status of mater familias.
9/21/2018

6. Ovid’s Ars
Background, Structure, Theme

7. Bio-Historical Background
reign of Augustus
Death of Caesar
marriage legislation
Cato censor
Catullus
accession
death
43 BCE–17/18 CE
8 CE banished
“I was found guilty on two counts: for my poem and for a certain — mistake” (Tristia 2.207)
“mistake” ??
poem Art of Love (2 BCE–2CE)
bks 1-2 for men
bk 3 for women
184 BCE
ca. 60 BCE
41 BCE
27 BCE
18 BCE
9 CE
14 CE
Sulpicia
Ovid (43 BCE–17/18 CE, banished 8 CE) Art of Love, ca. 2 BCE-2CE

8. Structure
BOOK 1-A “First … comes the task of finding an object for your love” (p. 167)
BOOK 1-B “Next, you must labor to woo and win your lady” (p. 167)
BOOK 2 “Thirdly, ensure that the affair will last” (p. 167)
BOOK 3 “Now I must fashion weapons for Penthesilea and her girls” (p. 214)

9. Selected Themes, Issues
Lascivi amores
“wanton passions”
“Safe love, legitimate liaisons” (p. 167)
venerem tutam concessaque furta …, / nullum … crimen
Masculinity
“Cybele’s Votaries”
Guilty Menelaus (p. 203)
Mos maiorum
On Cosmetics: “Young girls didn’t cultivate their persons in the old days. … Let others worship the past; I much prefer the present” (bk3, p. 217)
Feminine treachery
Pasiphae et al.
Erotic asymmetry, violence
Rape of the Sabine Women
“It’s all right to use force…”
Adultery (?)
“to please your lady’s escort” (viro placuisse puellae) (p. 184)
“Husbands allow this latitude to lawful wives…” (p. 207)
we see some of that in ovid’s art of love.
Feminine treachery
Pasiphae et al.
Erotic asymmetry, violence
Rape of the Sabine Women
“It’s all right to use force…”
Deidamia & Achilles
“To be forced was what she desired”
Adultery (?)
“to please your lady’s escort” (viro placuisse puellae)
“Husbands allow this lattitude to lawful wives…” – hence you have to forgive girlfriend’s furta
COMPARE: FF.:
Hoc unum moneo, siquid modo creditur arti,      Nec mea dicta rapax per mare ventus agit: Aut non rem temptes aut perfice; tollitur index,      Cum semel in partem criminis ipsa venit.               390
“Safe love, legitimate liaisons | Will be my theme. This poem breaks no taboos” (p. 167)
“These Caesars come to courage young” (p. 171)
“The harvest’s always richer / In another man’s fields, the herd / Of our neighbors has fuller udders” (p. 176)
“Husbands allow this latitude to lawful / Wives - they nod off, let sleep assist the fun” (p. 207)
“I hate it unless both lovers reach a climax: / That’s why I don’t much go for boys” (p. 211)
“Let others worship the past, I much prefer the present” (p. 217)
“Let brides be guarded securely: that's proper: / Modesty, law, and our Leader so prescribe. / But watch you? A woman still barely used to her freedom (vicdicta)? Intolerable!” (p. 232)
Parties: “Delay enhances charm, delay’s a great bawd” (p. 237 = 752 grata mora venies; maxima lena mora est)

10. Discussion
What Would Ovid Say?

11. What Would Ovid Say?