5: 6. The Bacchanalia and Roman Culture
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6. The Bacchanalia and Roman Culture
The story of Pentheus and Bacchus comes out of Greek myth and is situated in a Greek milieu. But we have already seen (above, §3a) that Ovid’s treatment of these tales is often refracted through Roman cultural experience. In the case of the set text, one such influence, which does not register explicitly in the narrative but is judged to be of some importance by commentators, is a senatorial intervention against the cult of Bacchus in 186 BCE (i.e. nearly two centuries before Ovid composed the Metamorphoses), as well as its repercussions in literary texts — dramatic plays initially (tragedies and comedies that have unfortunately only survived in fragments) and then also in Livy’s monumental history of Rome, which Ovid would have known. The distinction between the (religious) politics of 2nd century BCE Rome, specifically the measures taken against followers of the Bacchic cult in 186 BCE and the literary account of Livy, written in the Augustan period, is, of course, important to keep in mind.
Mid-Republican Rome experienced something quite similar to Ovid’s Thebes: the arrival of a cult of Bacchus, which merged with Italy’s cult of Liber, most likely sometime towards the end of the 3rd century BCE.95 Not much is known about the so-called Bacchanalia: as with all mystery religions, the doings of the worshippers have remained mysterious. But it is clear that, after an initial period of toleration, which allowed the rites to spread throughout Italy, the Roman senate concluded that certain boundaries of law and order had been breached by cult members and issued a decree against the Bacchic associations responsible for organizing the worship. A copy of this decree has survived, and offers precious insight into the affair.96 To begin with, it is clear that the senatorial intervention was not directed against Bacchus as a foreign divinity. Rather, the senate seems to have been ‘acting in particular against the behaviour of cult members in relation to each other, and not in relation to the god: Rome wished, therefore, to preclude the possibility that cults could serve as vehicles for achieving local solidarity’.97 The prohibitions of the decree suggest that the target was less the religious practice as such than the possibility of political fraternization afforded by a cult community.98 Indeed, ‘the decree makes no effort to ban the worship of Bacchus entirely, only to specify the conditions of worship’.99 What Roman officials seem to have feared was the possibility that, unless brought under senatorial control, the cult might serve as a vehicle for anti-Roman political associations and activities. Arguably, the shift from Euripides’ emphasis on illicit sex to Ovid’s focus on power politics (mirrored in the way their respective figures of Pentheus react to the arrival of Bacchus) reflects this concern.
The account of the historian Livy is also extant (Liv. 39.8–19), offering the modern reader a vivid and salacious chronicle of the affair, in which sex, intrigue, and xenophobia register insistently. It is, in fact, shot through with Augustan anachronisms; whether consciously or not, Livy has inflected his treatment with contemporary concerns (such as Augustus’ moral legislation). The idiom in which he describes the activities of those involved in the worship of Bacchus has interesting parallels with Pentheus’ characterization of Bacchants and their rites in Ovid’s account. The theme of sexual license registers with particular emphasis:
When wine had inflamed their minds, and night and the mingling of males with females and young with old, had destroyed all sense of modesty, every variety of debauchery began to be practiced, since each one had to hand the form of pleasure to which his nature was most inclined. (Liv. 39.8)
Later in the account, Livy has one of the consuls inveigh against the veneration of ‘those gods who would drive our minds, enthralled by vile and alien rites (pravis et externis religionibus), to every crime and every lust’ (39.15). The denigration continues with accusations of trickery and fraud (cf. Pentheus’ imputation of magicae fraudes at Met. 3.534), political conspiracy and even ritual murder (followed by the sacrilegious disposal of the victims’ bodies). Livy’s rhetoric against this ‘evil’ finds an analogy in Pentheus’ outrage against Bacchus and his followers in Ovid; both conceive of the cult’s propagation in terms of territorial encroachment, though Pentheus’ metaphor of choice is military conquest, whereas Livy’s is a spreading pestilence: ‘the destructive force of this wickedness spread from Etruria to Rome like a contagion’ (huius mali labes ex Etruria Romam veluti contagione morbi penetravit, Liv. 39.9).
1 Introductions to Ovid abound. See e.g. Mack (1988), Holzberg (2002), Fantham (2004), Volk (2010), Liveley (2011). There are also three recent ‘companions’ to Ovid, i.e. collections of papers designed to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the poet and his works. See Hardie (2002b) (by far the best and most affordable), Weiden Boyd (2000) and Knox (2009).
2 Maeonides means ‘a native of Maeonia’, a region in Asia Minor, from which Homer was in antiquity believed to have hailed: hence Maeonides = Homer.
3 Mount Helicon in Boeotia is said to be the place where the Muses do dwell; hence toto Helicone relicto = ‘all Helicon abandoned’ = ‘having abandoned the writing of poetry’.
4 A good way to get a sense of his life and career is to read his highly spun autobiography Trist. 4.10, which begins with a charming couplet addressed to you: Ille ego qui fuerim, tenerorum lusor amorum, | quem legis, ut noris, accipe posteritas … (‘That you may know who I was, I that playful poet of tender love whom you read, hear my words, you of times to come …’)
5 Technically speaking, Ovid suffered the punishment of relegatio (‘deportation’) rather than the more severe penalty of exilium (‘exile’) — the poet himself stresses the distinction at Trist. 2.137. This meant that Ovid retained citizenship and many of the rights that went with it, and his property was not confiscated. His (third) wife Fabia did not accompany him to Tomi, but seems to have remained faithful to him.
6 The following is adapted from Gildenhard and Zissos (2000b).
7 You can read the first book of the Amores on-line in another OBP edition. See http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/348
8 Sharrock (1994) vii.
9 Initially, the reader might be inclined to take the first four words (In nova fert animus: ‘my mind carries me on to new things’, with the adjective nova used as a noun) as a self-standing syntactic unit; only after reaching the opening of line 2 do we realise that nova in fact modifies corpora and the phrase goes with the participle mutatas (‘forms changed into new bodies’).
10 By removing one of the feet from the second verse, Cupid in effect changed the genre of the poem Ovid was composing from epic (in which all verses are hexametric — i.e. contain six feet) to elegy (in which every second verse contains five feet).
11 On varietas (‘variety’) in Latin literature more generally see now Fitzgerald (2016).
12 Annals, as the name suggests (from annus = year), are year-by-year chronicles. Ennius (c. 239–c. 169 BCE) wrote his epic history of Rome towards the end of his life.
13 Mack (1988) 27.
14 Galinsky (1975) 41.
15 Hinds (1987) 121.
16 Johnson (1996) 9.
17 Tissol (1996) 151–52.
18 For generic dialogue see Farrell (1992); for ‘generic enrichment’ Harrison (2007).
19 Gildenhard and Zissos (2013) 49–51.
20 Or, by a pun on tempora, to Ovid’s ‘temples’ (i.e. to his cranium).
21 More on this matter below; for detailed discussion see Gildenhard and Zissos (2004).
22 Any mention of Amores 3.12, as John Henderson reminds us, has also to invoke the Liar’s Paradox at work here: the person whose only true claim is that he is lying is — lying. ‘So whatever else Ovid “challenges” us to read, it is all tainted with mendacity. There is no true instruction for the reader coming from this author: I’d be lying, wouldn’t I, if I said that we’re on our own, with “myth”, fictions that (like histories) tell truths by lying (esp. by telling [hi]stories)’.
23 Little (1970) 347.
24 Feeney (1991) 229 with reference to earlier scholarship in n. 152.
25 Lee (1953) on Met. 1.167ff., citing Hom. Il. 8.1ff., 20.1 ff.; Od. 1.26ff., 5.1ff; Enn. Ann. 51–55 Sk; Aen. 10.1ff. One could add Lucilius, who, in his Satires, also featured a concilium deorum (‘Council of the Gods’), at which an individual called Lupus (Latin for ‘wolf’ — a distant intertextual relative of Ovid’s Lycaon, surely) was put on trial. Ovid here follows the example of Homer’s Odyssey and Ennius’ Annales in placing his concilium deorum at the beginning of his narrative.
26 Lee (1953) on Met. 1.167ff.
27 Ginsberg (1989) 228.
28 Feeney (1991) 199, citing Suet. Aug. 29.3 and the discussion of Thompson (1981).
29 The notion of penates makes a suggestive appearance in the set text as well: see Comm. on 538–40.
30 Which is not, of course, to deny the rich ironies inherent in Ovid’s parallelism between Jupiter and Augustus: see e.g. Johnson (1970), 146. John Henderson offers some characteristically trenchant observations here: ‘The ugly indiscriminate speciescide perpetrated by the Almighty is … just the first modelling of the exercise of autocratic power in Ovid’s poem: the set text will picture one young monarch among the horde populating mythland attempting to play the tough guy. In the Julio-Claudian Rome of the Caesars, myths were becoming (a way to get) real, all over again’.
31 Ingelbert (2014) 256.
32 That Ovid chose to write, for the most part, fiction did not prevent him from presenting his fictions as facts: see the previous section on ‘universal history’.
33 Ennius’ Annals features several main characters, and a case could be made for Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica featuring a collective protagonist, i.e. the Argonauts as a group.
34 For this approach to the poem, see Solodow (1988) 37–55, also discussed at Comm. on 568–69.
35 Schmidt (1991).
36 Barchiesi (1999).
37 Brown (1999) 1.
38 For specific examples in the set text, see Comm. on 568–71 (Shakespeare) and 664–65 (Seneca); 670–72 (Marlowe).
39 For the cautionary tale of how some classical students took the Euripidean Bacchus all too close to heart, see Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
40 See Comm. on 513–14 for a fuller account of these preliminaries.
41 Zeitlin (1990) 131.
42 Zeitlin (1990) 144.
43 For details of these developments, see Comm. on 513–14.
44 See again Zeitlin (1990) passim.
45 See Bömer (1976), 183 for the possibility that Ovid constructed the scene with actual Satyr plays in mind.
46 Cadmus’ grandson Bacchus, however, provides the jumping-off point for the next mythic nucleus, centred on Perseus (4.604–10); and neither Bacchus nor ‘Cadmean’ Thebes will ever wholly recede from the background: they are on the map, permanent stock, and Ovid revisits Theban myths elsewhere in the Metamorphoses, notably in Book 6 (with the tale of Niobe and her sons and daughters), Book 9 (the Hercules saga) and in Book 13 with the daughter of Anius and the Theban cup that travels on to Rome. As John Henderson puts it, ‘on the overarching grand scale, the Metamorphoses diagrams the formulaic triangulation of (tragically self-obliterating) Thebes vs. (tragically re-generating) Troy vs. (redemptively renaissant and self-perpetuating) ROME’.
47 See Comm. on 513–14 for a fuller account of these preliminaries.
48 It needs to be borne in mind, though, that, as discussed earlier (§3a), the vicissitudes of textual survival do not allow absolute certainty on this point. Many other ancient tragedians, both Greek and Roman, wrote plays about the confrontation of Pentheus and Bacchus; but only Euripides’ has survived in full.
49 See Otto (1933) on Dionysiac religion in general and Segal (1982) on Euripides’ Bacchae.
50 Cf. Seidensticker (1972) 42.
51 Other versions or references to the tale include Apollod. 3.5.3; Prop. 3.17.25; Sen. Oed. 449.
52 The titular epithet arose from a misattribution by the Greek historian Thucydides (3.104), which has remained immune to correction through the ages.
53 John Henderson offers a valuable observation here: ‘Setting a hymn in a narrative context, which is precisely lacking in the “prayerbook” Homeric Hymn collection, dramatizes the nature of hymns as motivated “in the moment” vehicles for rhetorical intervention. The same goes for all tales, not least mutant myths about mythmaking and mutation’.
54 For discussion of this group, see Comm. on 605–07.
55 Hesiod’s poem has not survived, but Apollod. 3.6.7 offers a summary of the tale (with attributions). Another tradition explains his loss of eyesight as the result of seeing the goddess Athena naked at her bath; infuriated, she struck him blind, but then felt remorse and granted him the gift of prophecy in recompense.
56 Michalopoulos (2012) 236, arguing earlier in the same work (p. 229) for an interrelation between Tiresias’ sexual oscillations and his predictive powers: ‘since prophetic knowledge stands on the verge between “here” and “there”, between the human and the divine, we might argue as well that the seer’s bisexuality becomes an emblem, or better, constitutes a metaphor for Tiresias’ prophetic transcendence’. On the other hand, John Henderson cautions that ‘even referring to Tiresias’ “bisexuality” is already to fall into the trap set by the riddle of gendering sex!’
57 For Narcissus as a substitute for Oedipus see Gildenhard and Zissos (2000a).
58 Met. 3.339–40; 3.511–12, i.e. the opening two lines of the set text. ‘Typically, however, Ovid’s Tiresias is first to tell Narcissus’ tale, and to let our bard make Echo try to “get it together” with Narcissus in one impossible dis-joint tale of love scorned and twisted (see 386–87). New fame, then, for the old seer’. (John Henderson)
59 See Comm. on 513–14.
60 See Eur. Bacch. 367 with Dodds (1960) ad loc. Note also the etymological figure on ‘Pentheus’ (Πενθῆα) and ‘lamentation’ (πένθημα) at [Theoc.] Id. 26.26 (the poem is quoted in full above, §5a): πένθημα καὶ οὐ Πενθῆα φέροισαι.
61 That Pentheus has come to the throne at a very young age is evident in Ovid’s as in Euripides’ account: see Comm. on 540–42.
62 Cf. e.g. Bacch. 233–38, 260–62, 352–54, 453–59, 487, 957–58.
63 The lives of Virgil (70–19 BCE) and Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE) overlap, but only during the latter’s youth. In any event, Virgil’s Aeneid became an instant ‘classic’ and is treated as such in the Metamorphoses — that is to say, it is frequently the focus of Ovid’s intertextual engagement.
64 A point emphasized by Hardie (1990) 229. Ovid similarly characterizes Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, as Martia proles at Fast. 3.59.
65 Cf. Zeitlin (1990) 74–75.
66 At the same time, as John Henderson points out, ‘Ovid’s merging of Thebes and Troy threatens the “triangulation” formula for ROME (see above, n. 46) — while picking up on the way Virgil has merged his “Thebes” (tragic Carthage) with Troy to-be-reborn-as-ROME’.
67 Dodds (1960) xliii and ad 214.
68 Seidensticker (1972) 57.
69 The following is based on Seidensticker (1972) 57–61.
70 See e.g. 3.555–56 with Comm.
71 Pentheus’ lack of self-control is apparent throughout the episode, and in particular at 3.566–67 (with following simile), 578–79, 692–95, 704–07. For Euripides’ treatment, see e.g. Bacch. 214 with Dodds (1960) ad loc.
72 See Comm. on 531–63, 532–37 and 536–67.
73 See Comm. on 520.
74 Der Neue Pauly III (1997) 651–52 (Schlesier).
75 Ovid provides a decidedly salacious version of this birth story earlier in Book 3 at 253–315.
76 There was, in fact, a tradition that presented Dionysus/Bacchus as a vigorous demigod who won a place in heaven through military conquest and the bestowal of benefits upon humankind (e.g. Cic. Leg. 2.19, Virg. Aen. 6.804–05; Hor. Carm. 3.3.13–15, Val. Fl. 1.566–67). A legendary cycle (gradually assimilated to the career of Alexander the Great) featuring eastern expeditions and, above all, conquests in India, rose to prominence in the Hellenistic period and passed into popular art, as well as the iconography of various Hellenistic kings and Roman generals: see further Zissos (2008) 325.
77 Compare ‘Zeus pater’ and ‘Jupiter’, whom the Romans also called ‘Diespiter’ and understood as ‘Dies pater’, i.e. ‘father of the day’ or ‘sky father’.
78 Cf. Pentheus’ sneering reference to τὸν νεωστὶ δαίμονα | Διόνυσον [‘the new god Dionysus’] at Eur. Bacch. 219–20; on the god’s newness and strangeness, see also Comm. on 520.
79 See Comm. on 607 virginea … forma.
80 This utopian appeal works in tandem with various Golden Age motifs, such as life without toil, that were associated with the god.
81 Zeitlin (1993) 158.
82 Acting a part is of course appropriate to the god’s identity as divine patron of the theatre. Cf. Cole (2007) 234: ‘Dionysus is a god who plays many roles, and he can change his appearance at will. As god of the theatre, he is associated with the process of transition actors undergo when taking on a new role, because the actor puts on a new identity with each new mask’.
83 The point is made by Feldherr (1997) 29: ‘the audience of this narrative … faces the same challenge as the characters within it’.
84 Note that in Euripides’ play Bacchus/Dionysus states that he hails from Lydia both in his own form (Bacch. 38–39) and when disguised (Bacch. 464): see further Comm. on 582–83.
85 The issues surrounding this testimonium are complex (some scholars have even suggested that Servius Auctus draws on Ovid for his summary of Pacuvius’ play!); Schierl (2006) 418–22 offers a survey of the secondary literature on Pacuvius’ Pentheus (vel Bacchae).
86 Kenney (1986) 394.
87 Feldherr (2010) 187.
88 Hardie (2002a) 170.
89 Cf. Eur. Bacch. 500 (Dionysus speaking about himself): καὶ νῦν ἃ πάσχω πλησίον παρὼν ὁρᾷ (‘Even now he is near and sees what I am experiencing’).
90 Verdenius (1962) 389, cited by Nagy (1979) 237 in his discussion of the term.
91 Cf. Murnaghan (1987) 68: ‘Both in the Homeric epics and in the Homeric Hymns, failure to recognize a disguised god often brings mortals to disaster, and this disaster is frequently accompanied by a display of divine anger, as in the case of the sailors in the Hymn to Dionysus or of Metaneira in the Hymn to Demeter’.
92 Vernant (1988) 381–82.
93 Hardie (2002a) 166–67.
94 Vernant (1988) 391.
95 For the native Italian deity Liber, see also Comm. on 520.
96 The senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus (‘senatorial decree concerning the Bacchanalia’), CIL 12.581.
97 Ando (2007) 437.
98 The pertinent section of the senatorial decree stipulates: ‘None of them shall seek to have money in common. No one shall seek to appoint either man or woman as master or acting master, or seek henceforth to exchange mutual oaths, vows, pledges or promises, nor shall anyone seek to create mutual guarantees. No one shall seek to perform rites in secret, nor shall anyone seek to perform rites in public or private or outside the city, unless he has approached the urban praetor and is given permission with a senatorial decree … No one shall seek to perform rites when more than five men and women are gathered together, nor shall more than two men or more than three women seek to be present there, except by permission of the urban praetor and the senate …’ (trans. Beard, North and Price).
99 Orlin (2010) 64.