Fasti
Also known as: Book of Days, On the Roman Calendar, Fasti — The Book of Days
Ovid’s elegiac calendar-poem surveys Roman months January through June, explaining festivals, rites, and celestial notes through dialogues with gods and antiquarian aetiologies. It preserves myths, cult origins, and civic memory while subtly engaging Augustan politics.
Description
Structured month-by-month, the poem blends astronomical notices with aetiologies for Roman festivals. Ovid often stages interviews with deities—Janus, Mars, Venus, Flora, Vesta—who supply multiple origins for rites and names. Antiquarian lore intertwines with mythic narratives (e.g., Ceres and Proserpina, Romulus’ apotheosis, Ino as Mater Matuta), and with Roman history (Lucretia, the Tarquins, Brutus). The tone shifts from playful etiological invention to pointed civic piety, with praise of imperial cult sites and dedications, yet the poem’s ironies and omissions mark a complex relation to Augustan ideology. Only the first six months survive; Ovid says he wrote twelve.
Historiography
Transmitted in medieval manuscripts, the poem survives only for January–June. Ovid elsewhere claims a full twelve-book work, but no ancient quotation corroborates lost books; a Renaissance claim of discovery proved baseless. The poem was dedicated to Germanicus and likely revised in exile. Modern scholarship reassesses it as a major engagement with Roman religion, calendar antiquarianism, and Augustan politics, with key editions and translations (e.g., Loeb) shaping reception.
Date Notes
Six books (January–June) extant; Ovid claimed twelve. Published in AD 8 and reworked during exile; dedicated to Germanicus.
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Ovid
- Janus
- Mars
- Venus
- Jupiter
- Juno
- Flora
Myths
- Janus and the Gates of the Year
- Romulus and the Parilia
- Anna Perenna’s Festival
- Flora and the Floralia
- The Rape of the Sabines Etiology
Facts
- Written in elegiac couplets and organized by the Roman calendar months January–June.
- Ovid frames aetiologies via direct dialogues with deities and antiquarian notices.
- Only six books survive; Ovid elsewhere claims twelve, but no ancient citations of the lost half exist.
- Dedicated to Germanicus; composition and revision continued during Ovid’s exile.
- Key episodes include Cerealia with Ceres–Proserpina and the Parilia linked to Rome’s founding.
- The poem preserves ritual lore for festivals such as Lupercalia, Floralia, Vestalia, and Lemuria.
- Historical exempla (Lucretia, the Tarquins, Brutus) intertwine with mythic narratives.
- Medieval transmission leaves an incomplete corpus; a Renaissance claim of Books 7–12 was rejected.
- Modern scholarship reads the poem as a politically engaged work under Augustus.
- A major English translation and commentary tradition includes the Loeb edition.