Lycaon and Catiline in Ovid’s <i>Metamorphoses</i>
Ovid’s narrative about Lycaon (Ou. Met. 1.163-243) has been traditionally analised with Roman politics in mind. However, if we reduce the episode to a panegyric to the Jupiter-like Augustus, we have to face numerous problems, for Jupiter’s speech about Lycaon contains many contradictions and even raises suspicion of manipulations of fact. It has in fact been mentioned that the political agenda of another first book council of gods, that of Lucilius’ Satires, is also alluded to in Ovid’s story. I want to draw attention to one more first book council of gods that seems to be particularly important for Ovid, that of Cicero’s De cosulatu. The political situation of Catilianian conspiracy in 63 BC appears to be another model behind the episode in general: like Cicero in his speeches against Catiline, Ovidian Jupiter off-hand accuses Lycaon of attempted murder of himself; besides, Cicero does indeed compare himself to Jupiter in these speeches, and the first of the Catilinarians was pronounced in the temple of Jupiter Stator on the slope of the Palatine, so Ovid’s equation of the neighbourhood of Jupiter’s house where the divine council takes place to the Palatine in Ou. Met. 1.168-176 might allude to that case as well. Verbal parallels with Ciceronian contexts treating Catiline are also not lacking in Ovid’s text (Ou. Met. 1.200-201 ~ Cic. Cat. 4.7, Cic. Mur. 80; Ou. Met. 1.190-191 ~ Cic. Phil. 8.15). The strange features of the episode are all connected with the way Jupiter presents facts and arguments; perhaps Ovid intended to reproduce the biased demagogic nature of Ciceronian rhetoric that has actually condemned Cicero’s opponent to silence, albeit leaving, due to its contradictions and obvious overstatements, suspicions that there might in fact be some truth on the opposite side.