The Fasti (Verse) by Ovid

Author:Ovid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry, Ancient & Classical
Publisher: Neeland Media
Published: 2013-07-15T05:26:10+00:00

Fasti 3: MARCH

3.1–10. The poet invokes Mars, father of Romulus and patron-god of Rome, whose name gave rise to March and whose temple dominated the newly built Forum of Augustus. The proem to Fasti 4 will invoke the other main deity directly associated with Rome – Venus, mother of Aeneas and divine ancestress of the Julian family.

3.5–8. On the martial and non-martial aspects of the goddess Minerva (equated with the Greek Pallas Athena), see 3.675–96n.

3.9–10. The Roman priestess who ‘captured’ Mars was Rhea Silvia, mother of the twins Romulus and Remus by Mars. To no avail, her uncle Amulius had caused her to become a Vestal Virgin to prevent her from bearing children (see 2.383–4n.). Ovid relates the story of her encounter with Mars in lines 11–40. For a discussion of this ‘foundation rape’, see Introduction 4.VII.

3.11–12. One of the daily responsibilities of the virgin priestesses of the goddess Vesta was to collect whatever water would be required for that day’s use. The sacred fire of Rome burned in Vesta’s temple, and as water is the natural enemy of fire, no water could be kept in the temple overnight. Indeed, the Vestals were required to monitor with utmost care the presence of water in the temple. Servius (Aen. 11.339) writes that the Vestals kept water in a container called a futile. With a large mouth but a small base, the unstable vessel was clearly designed to require that it be held at all times while it contained liquid. Water used in Vesta’s Roman temple was to be collected outside the Porta Capena (as the crow flies, well over half a mile [about 1000 metres] from the temple) at a spring in the Grove of Egeria. Ovid refers here, however, not to this spring but to that used by the Vestals of Alba Longa, where Silvia was in the goddess’s service.

3.21. With this representation of rape, compare 1.417, 2.307, 4.445, 5.201f., 6.119; see Introduction 4.VII.

3.27–38. As Silvia had slept, she dreamed of the conception by Mars and of the twin sons to whom she would give birth. ‘Troy’s fire’ is the sacred flame in Vesta’s temple, said to have been brought from Troy by Aeneas. The ‘woollen band’ is that worn by the Vestals in their hair as a symbol of their virginity. The two palm trees are Romulus (the taller, presaging Rome’s imperial expansion) and Remus, whom Amulius, her uncle, would attempt to kill (see 2.383–4 and lines 49–54 below). The exposed infants would be nourished by a she-wolf (see 2.411–22) and a woodpecker (see line 54). Sylvia’s dream here is a rewriting of the dream of Ilia (= Sylvia) in the first book of Ennius’ Annales.

3.45. On an image of Vesta standing in her temple, see 6.295–8.

3.49–54. Ovid has already written of Amulius and his unsuccessful attempt to destroy Rhea Silvia’s sons; see 2.383–4 and 2.411–22.

3.55–8. Faustulus the shepherd found the twin infants Romulus and Remus, and he and his wife Acca Larentia raised them as their own sons.

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