1. On this point and for more bibliography on the iudicium at 6.1 – 100 see Harries, B., ‘Causation and the Authority of the Poet in Ovid’s Fasti’, CQ n.s. 39 (1989), 172fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. and n.42.

2. A contrast is intended here with (e.g.) 213–16 and 227–34 where praeceptores are in evidence. Bomer ii.354 on 256 interprets correctly (‘der Gott selbst Auskunft gibt’).

3. For the popular identification of Vesta with the earth and for the conception of her temple as a symbolic representation of the globe, see Dion. Hal. Ant.Rom. 2.66.3, Festus s.v. Rutundam aedem (p.320 Lindsay), and Servius auct. on Aen. 2.296; further references are given by Frazer iv.202 and Bömer ii.357. Cf. Plutarch Numa 11, where Vesta is identified not with the earth but with the whole universe. Dismissing the notion that Vesta’s round temple represents the earth, Frazer iv. 184 explains the shape ‘as a survival of the ancient form of house which the Italians are known to have inhabited in prehistoric ages’.

4. Hesiod makes Hestia the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and the sister of Hera and Demeter. Ovid’s designation of Vesta as tenia (286) simply indicates that she is one of three daughters, not that she is the third born; Hestia is reported as the first born at Hymn to Aphrodite 22 and Apollod. 1.1.5.

5. Cf. Frazer iv.220: ‘The derivation… is of course absurd.’ Varro connects Vesta with the earth and derives her name from vestio (tellurem putant esse Vestam quod vestiatur herbis, ‘they think that Vesta is the earth because it is invested with plants’, GRF fr. 140 Funaioli), while Cicero derives it from the Greek hestia (N.D. 2.67); for further references see Maltby, R., A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds 1991), 640Google Scholar (s.v. Vesta), with Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, histoire des mots (Paris 1968–80), 379Google Scholar (s.v. hestia 3).

6. So Varro as reported by Servius auct. on Aen. 11.211; for further references see Maltby (n.5 above), 237 (s.v. focus).

7. So A. Gellius 16.5.10, Macr. 6.8.20, Non. p.53.3 Lindsay. But Nonius also cites the belief that the vestibulum was so called because Vesta’s image stood there, while Servius on Aen. 2.469 reports (as one conjecture and without full explanation) that the vestibulum was consecrated to Vesta; see further Maltby (n.5 above), 641 (s.v. vestibulum).

8. Ovid himself does not begin with Vesta in his prayer to the gods for Augustus’ longevity at M. 15.861ff. Cicero explicitly states that Janus is the first god, Vesta the last to be invoked in prayer and sacrifice (N.D. 2.67). On the difference between Greek and Roman practice see Frazer iv.221–3.

9. Harries (n. 1 above), 165.

10. Jupiter’s message to the sleeping Romans (385f.), his instruction to bake bread (382), the breaking of the siege, the dashed hopes of the Gauls (39If.)—all these Ovidian features recur in Lactantius, whose intimate knowledge of the Fasti is evident elsewhere in the Divine Institutions: see Ogilvie, R.M., The Library of Lactantius (Oxford 1978), 17Google Scholar.

11. Livy 5.48.4–9, Florus 1.7.15–17, Valerius Maximus 7.4.3.

12. So Ogilvie, R.M., A Commentary on Livy: Books 1–5 (Oxford 1965Google Scholar), 736f.

13. So Merkel, R. (ed.), P.Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum Libri Sex (Berlin 1841Google Scholar), ccxxix, citing Servius auct. on Aen. 8.652 to suggest that Jupiter Pistor may have been connected with Jupiter Conservator/Soter, to whom an altar was dedicated on the Capitol after the Gallic siege was eventually broken. The connection has no ancient verification.

14. So Porte, D., L’Àtiologie religieuse dans les Fastes d’Ovide (Paris 1985), 368sGoogle Scholar, suggesting that Ovid derives the epithet pistor from the Greek Pistios and thereby associates Jupiter Fidius with Jupiter Pistor. But Porte’s etymology is unknown to the ancient grammarians.

15. So Varro, GRF fr.204 Funaioli (nec pistoris nomen erat, nisi eius qui ruri far pinsebat. nominati ita eo quod pinsunt, ‘and the baker took his name from none other than the rustic who used to crush corn. They are so named because they crush’), cited with later testimony by Maltby (n.5 above), 477 (s.v. pistor). Cf. also Chantraine (n.5 above), 949 (s.v. pistos).

16. Preller, L., Römische Mythologie ³ (Berlin 1881Google Scholar), i.194; Wissowa, G., Religion und Kultus der Römer ² (Munich 1912), 122Google Scholar.

17. Frazer i.136.

18. See, e.g., Harries (n.l above), 175–7, onF.3.167–258 and Mars’ quoting of Livy in line 197.

19. Frazer iv.174, Bömer ii.365f. and Wilkinson, L.P., Ovid Recalled (Cambridge 1955), 249Google Scholar, take Ovid at his word. Porte (n.l4 above), 18, is more sceptical, and cf. Harries (n.1 above), 183 n.94: ‘Ovid’s encounters need not be autobiographical in any historical sense, and would hardly be worth recording in the Fasti if they were; it is naive to believe that Ovid actually went about researching Fasti in the way they [Wilkinson and Bömer] suggest.’

20. Cf. Frazer’s unproven and unprovable hypothesis (iv.174): ‘Perhaps we may infer that the lady was going to visit the store-house of Vesta then open to women; if the inference is correct, it seems to follow that permission to enter the temple of Vesta at this season was confined to married women, and that they were expected to show their respect for the holy place by putting off their shoes before they entered it.’

21. So Porte (n.14 above), 333f., declaring the episode to be merely ‘un developpement concurrent d’un passage analogue, lu chez Tibulle [2.5]’.

22. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant.Rom. 2.50.1–2), the forum was first drained in the time of the Sabine king Tatius; his system of sewers was brought to completion by Tarquin the Elder and Tarquin the Proud. For further detail on the drainage of early Rome see Frazer iv.239–43.

23. LL. 5.148–50. The variants are (i) Marcus Curtius, a Roman knight whose devotio closed the chasm which opened up in the forum in 362 (cf. Livy 7.6.1–6, Val.Max. 5.6.2, Prop. 3.11.61, Ovid, Ibis 441 etc.); (ii) the Sabine Mettius Curtius, who made a heroic stand against Romulus’ forces on the future site of the Roman forum (cf. Livy 1.12, Plutarch, Rom. 18 etc.); (iii) C. Curtius Chilo, cos. 445, who consecrated the site of the lacus Curtius by senatorial decree after it was struck by lightning in his year of office.

24. See OLD s.v. ille 14a ‘(… referring to persons or things assumed to be known)’.

25. For a description of these processions see Dion. Hal., AntRom. 7.72 with Frazer iv.248–51.

26. Cf. Tibullus 2.5.33, where a boat (linter) is said to ply the area of the Velabrum; with vecta puella (‘the girl was conveyed’, 36) he seems to follow Varro in connecting Velabrum with veho, on which see Cairns, F., Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge 1979), 81Google Scholar.

27. Does Ovid have the old woman play on Velabrum with pede velato (‘with booted foot’) in line 412? The play is possible but not to be pressed too hard, because seven lines separate Velabra (405) from velato (412).

28. In the Propertian elegy the ‘turning’ god appropriately covers, in turn, various etymological associations of his name. But on Vertumnus as an Etruscan deity whose name is Etruscan in origin see Porte (n.l4 above), 203–5. For sources recording the play on Vertumnus/vertere see Maltby (n.5 above), 639 (s.v. Vertumnus).

29. The old woman’s response to Ovid’s implied question in 392 is redolent of the inquisitive mechanism which so often provokes explanatory response in Callimachus’ Aetia. A suggestive parallel is also to be found in the Aetia for the notion of compatibility between an informant’s age and the kind of information he imparts; Xenomedes, described as arkhaios and presbus (fr.75.54, 76 [Pf.]), is a suitably aged chronicler of the mythological history of Ceos. Ovid need not, of course, be directly indebted to Callimachus for this device at 6.401–14; but could it at least be another of the many recognisably Callimachean traits in the Fasti!

30. Cf. P. 2.10.21f., where Ovid claims to have journeyed to ‘the cities of Asia’ (Asiae… urbes) in the company of the epic poet Macer.

31. On the cult of Apollo Smintheus in the Troad see Frazer iv.266 with Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Commentary. VoLI: Books 1–4 (Cambridge 1985), 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar (on 1.39), who reports a festival (termed Sminthea) which was held in Rhodes in honour of Apollo and Dionysus, killers of the vine-destroying mice.

32. On the Palladium and its accompanying symbolism see Frazer iv.258–63, citing Livy 26.27.14 and Cicero, Pro Scauro 48 (Palladium illud quod quasi pignus nostrae salutis atque imperii custodiis Vestae continetur ‘that famous Palladium which is held in Vesta’s charge as the pledge of our wellbeing and power’).

33. On Metellus’ capitis damnum as an act of devotio see Bomer ii.370 on 452 with Wagenvoort, H., Roman Dynamism (Oxford 1947), 32Google Scholar, who further defines this devotio as a capitis deminutio maxima, or a ‘loss of individuality’ in the sense that Metellus puts himself at the mercy of the gods by trespassing on forbidden territory.

34. On the Palladium’s removal from Troy as recorded by different sources see Frazer iv.259–63 with Austin, R.G. (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Secundus (Oxford 1964), 83–5Google Scholar (on 2.163), and the further bibliography cited there.

35. Pius appears in most MSS, but its possible infiltration of the text is easily explained through proximity to Aeneas. Courtney prefers fuit and plausibly so, supplying the verb desiderated by the consecutive seu… seu… seu construction.

36. According to one tradition Metellus was indeed punished for his actions—with blindness; so Juvenal 6.265, Seneca Contr. 4.2, 7.2.7, Ps.-Plut. Par.min. 17. Leuze, O., ‘Metellus Caecatus’, Philologus 64 (1905), 95–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar, dismisses the myth of Metellus’ blindness as an invention of the rhetorical schools, where the problem was debated of how Metellus could have remained as pontifex maximus and become dictator in 224 if he were legally barred from both positions because of his blindness. For further discussion see Courtney, E., A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London 1980), 292Google Scholar (on 6.265), and Brelich, A., ‘II mito nella storia di Cecilio Metello’, SA/S/15 (1939Google Scholar), 29ff.

37. E.g. Cicero Pro Scauro 48, Livy Per.19, Val.Max. 1.4.5, Dion. Hal. AntRom. 2.66.4. For further references see Frazer iv.267 n.3 with Brelich (n.36 above), 29f.

38. For an example of such ambivalence see Harries (n.l above), 166–8 (on 2.119–44). The poem has been viewed as both anti- and pro-Augustan in previous scholarship, some of which is conveniently summarized by Harries at 165. ‘Ambivalence’ need not, of course, mean that Ovid is anti-Augustan; cf. Galinsky, G.K., ‘The Cipus episode in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15.565–621)’, TAPA 98 (1967), 182Google Scholar, warning against labelling Ovid as ideologically anti-Augustan.

39. Lepidus was deposed as triumvir by Octavian in 36 B.C., but remained pontifex maximus until his death. At R.G. 10.2 Augustus is at pains to stress his observance of religious legality by stating that he was reluctant to impose himself as pontifex maximus while Lepidus still lived, despite the popular demand for him to do so.

40. Vesta is related to Augustus(-Jupiter) as Jupiter’s half-sister. For Ovid’s derivation of Vesta from Saturn on the lines drawn by Hesiod see n.4 above.

41. For broader comments on the Augustan associations of Ovid’s treatment of Vesta in the Fasti see Wagenvoort, H., ‘Auguste et Vesta’, in Melanges a J. Carcopino (Paris 1966), 965–78Google Scholar.

42. For a description of and ancient references to the punishment see Frazer iv.268–71.

43. On Metellus’ victory see Polybius 1.39.8ff., Florus 1.18.27f.;‘on his triumph, famous for the parading of captured elephants, see Livy Per.19, Dion. Hal. AntRom. 2.66.4, Pliny N.H. 7.139, 8.16, 18.17 with Brelich (n.36 above), 30.

44. On Brutus’ campaigns against the Lusitanians and Callaeci see Richardson, J.S., Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218–82 B.C. (Cambridge 1986), 147–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the exact year in which Brutus won his cognomen in the decisive battle against the Callaeci is uncertain.

45. On Ovid’s deliberate misdating of Cremera see Harries, B., ‘Ovid and the Fabii: Fasti 2.193–474’, CQ n.s. 41 (1991), 150–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and for further bibliography 150 n.1.

46. For the idea cf. (e.g.) C. 4.15.21–4, where the Germans, Getae, Seres, and Persians represent Roman conquests to the north and east; Virgil G. 3.26–33, esp. 32f., where parallel conquests to the east and west are signalled by bis… triumphatas utroque ab litoregentes, ‘nations on either shore [of the Mediterranean] that yielded twofold triumphs’ (33); Propertius 2.10.13–16 (Parthia and India as the extremes), 3.4.6 (Parthia), 3.9.53–56 (Parthia and Egypt).

47. In fact, Spain remained turbulent long after Brutus’ campaigns. A campaign was launched under Augustus in 27–19 B.C., and at R.G. 26.2 Augustus claims finally to have brought peace to the province (cf. Veil. Pat. 2.90, who states that Spain was thoroughly pacified by Augustus).

48. E.g. Horace, C. 4.15.6–8, Propertius 4.6.79–84, Virgil G. 3.31 (a line added by Virgil soon before his death in 19? Or a line written before 20 in anticipation of the recovery of the standards? See Thomas, R.F. [ed], Virgil Georgics [Cambridge 1988]Google Scholar, ii.45 ad loc), Ovid Tr. 2.228, A. A. 1.179ff.

49. On the significance of the eternal flame in early Rome and other cultures see Frazer, J.G., ‘The Prytaneum, the Temple of Vesta, the Vestals, Perpetual Fires’, JPh 14 (1885Google Scholar), 159ff. Cf. Livy 28.11 (terruit animos hominum ignis in aede Vestae extinctus, ‘the prospect of the fire in Vesta’s temple going out was envisaged with horror’) and Dion. Hal. AntRom. 2.67.5 on the worst offence a Vestal could commit against her office, allowing the flame to go out.

50. Lines 271 -6 are absent in most MSS. and omitted or bracketed by most editors including Frazer i.318, whose apparatus on 271–6 summarises previous editorial practice; the lines are left intact by Alton/Wormell/Courtney. For a summary of the cases for and against Ovidian authorship see Bömer ii.358, with Lenz, F., ‘Parerga Ovidiana. Appendix I: de Fastorum versibus VI, 271–76’, RAL 6 (1937), 365–70Google Scholar. On Lactantius’ possible allusion to F. 6.271–6 see Ogilvie (n. 10 above), 17n.l4.

51. The episode forms a comic lusus before the ‘serious’ business in hand, possibly in adaptation of the regular poetic contrast between the serious and trivial, seria and lususliocilludicra, on which see Wagenvoort, H., ‘Ludus poeticus’, in Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion (Leiden 1956), 30–42Google Scholar. But this is not to suggest that a combination of moods—seria and ioci— cannot coexist in the same Fasti passage; in 349–94, for example, Ovid’s seemingly serious endeavour to explain Jupiter Pistor’s name was shown ultimately to be a witty exercise in raising and deflating Livian expectations. For this reason the mixing of moods announced in miscentur tristia laetis (‘sorrow will be blended with joy’, 463) could, at a push, be taken as symptomatic of Ovid’s narrative strategy throughout the Vestalia, where seria are blended with ioci and witty emphases (as in 349–94) gently undercut his affectation of serious and straight-forward chronicling of the festival.

52. For the ass as Priapus’ sacrificial victim see Lactantius Inst. 1.21.25f. and Myth. Vat. 3.6.26, both cited by Herter, H., De Priapo (Giessen 1932), 265Google Scholar. At 1.21.30 Lactantius explains the ass’s suitability as Priapus’ victim thus: quia magnitudo membri virilis enormis est, non potuit ei monstro [Priapo] aptior victima reperiri quam quae posset ipsum cui mactatur imitari (‘because the size of its male member is enormous, no more suitable victim for that monster [Priapus] was to be found than one which could imitate the very figure to .whom it is sacrificed’). On Priapus’ cult at Lampsacus and throughout the Hellespontic region see Herter, op. cit., Iff. and Parker, W.H., Priapeia: Poems for a Phallic God (London and Sydney 1988), 12Google Scholar.

53. Cf. Propertius 4.1.21, Joannes Lydus De Mensibus 4.94 p. 138 Wunsch. Frazer iv. 176 mentions a Pompeian wall-painting which pictures garlanded asses and a mill standing idle.

54. So Peter, H., P.Ovidi Nasonis Fastorum Libri Sex (Leipzig 1874), 254Google Scholar, Herter (n.52 above), 81, Bömer ii.46 (on 1.391). For further bibliography see Fantham, E., ‘Sexual Comedy in Ovid’s Fasti: Sources and Motivation’, HSCP 87 (1983), 204Google Scholar n.71.

55. So in essentials Leftvre, E., ‘Die Lehre von der Entstehung der Tieropfer in Ovids Fasten 1,335–456’, RhM 119 (1976), 40–55Google Scholar.

56. Fantham (n.54 above), 205f., proposes the latest solution to the problem, arguing that the Priapus story in Fasti 6 was composed before Ovid’s exile and Augustus’ death; on revising the work in exile, Ovid returned to the Hellenistic original—the Lotis version—and worked it into the existing section on animal sacrifice in Fasti 1. As Fantham herself concedes, her theory cannot be proved.

57. So Frazer iv.231, Wilkinson (n.19 above), 253, and Fantham (n.54 above), 203: ‘Ovid could not have published both versions in one work.’

58. Fantham (n.54 above), 204.

59. All quotations are taken from Fantham (n.54 above), 204 and 210. For an extreme argument on the artistic failure of the Fasti as a whole see Johnson, W.R., ‘The Desolation of Ovid’s Fasti, CJ 74 (1979–80), 7–18Google Scholar.

60. Fantham (n.54 above), 209.

61. Ibid., 209.

62. See n.57 above.

63. I owe to B. Harries the suggestion that obscenam is double-edged in connotation, characterising Priapus’ lusty ambition not simply as ‘disgusting’ but ‘ill-omened’ as well: it is destined not to succeed. For examples of obscenus in this latter sense see OLD s.v. 1.

64. Fantham (n.54 above), 204.