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LOVE ELEGY
The tone is debonair and occasionally borders on the frivolous, but the work as
a whole can hardly be called immoral or corrupting. There are passages that
must have annoyed Augustus; for example, Ovid's comment on religion
(1.637—8): expedit esse deos et, ut expedit, esse putemus: \ demur in antiques tura
merumque focos 'it is useful that gods should exist, and since it is useful, let us
believe that they exist, and let incense and wine be offered on ancient altars.'
At least Ovid fully believed in equal opportunities for women, for Book 3
(perhaps added in a later edition) is addressed to them.
As a sequel to the Ars Ovid wrote a few years later the Remedia amoris, a
guide for those who wish to fall out of love. The idea itself is amusing, but it
has a serious background, and it almost looks as though Ovid had found a new
role: that of helper and adviser to those who are troubled and unhappy. Stoics
and Epicureans agreed that love was a form of madness, a mental disease; they
only disagreed about the therapy. In this work, Ovid seems to have borrowed
from both Stoic and Epicurean sources, and in a sense the Remedia represent
a playful version of the vj/uxaywyia theme which was so popular in Hellenistic
philosophy; it is a spiritual guidebook for the soul towards a better, saner,
more rational life. Though many themes are taken from the elegiac tradition,
Ovid's concern, his desire to help, are real, and his psychological insight and
understanding are admirable.
7. OTHER ELEGISTS
There were other elegiac poets in Rome during this period but very little is
known about them. Ovid (Tristia 2.423-66) gives a list of poets of the late
Republic who dealt with the theme of love, some of them in elegies: Catullus,
Calvus, Cinna, Valerius Cato, Anser, Cornificius, Ticida, etc. Another list
(Pont. 5.16) contains mainly names of younger contemporaries; the only elegists
identified as such are Montanus and Sabinus; the only love poets described as
such are Tuscus and Proculus; of the latter Ovid says (11. 31-2) cum. . .
Callimachi Proculus molle teneret her ' while Proculus kept to the soft path of
Callimachus'; which must refer to homoerotic epigrams or elegies in Callimachus*
style. Horace seems to have written elegies, too; but Suetonius ( Vita
Horatit) who claims to have seen them finds them 'trivial' (uulgares); perhaps
they were never published.
In the Appendix Vergiliana several elegiac poems are preserved, but since
this collection is dealt with elsewhere we shall only mention here the charming
piece De rosis nascentibus •which seems to show the influence of Ovid's exile
poetry. Though this would exclude Virgil's authorship the poem cannot be
dated with certainty; some scholars have placed it in the fourth or fifth century;
others have attributed it to Ausonius.
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