On Ovid's Ibis: a poem in context

Abstract

In Propertius' reconstruction of the battle of Actium in 4.6 Apollo is pictured taking his place over Augustus' ship, braced for war: non ille attulerat crinis in colla solutos aut testudineae carmen inerme lyrae. (31–2) In the opening couplet of the Ibis Ovid repeats the words carmen inerme at the same point in the pentameter: tempus ad hoc lustris bis iam mihi quinque peractis omne fuit Musae carmen inerme meae. In Propertius Apollo lays aside the peaceful lyre and takes up his bow to begin the onslaught (55) which will bring Augustus easy victory (57). By echoing Propertius' words Ovid signals his own move into bellicose poetics. But whereas Apollo is equally adept with the lyre and the bow, Ovid is a stranger to war and no more equipped to take up figurative arms in his unaccustomed hands (cf. 10) than he is to take up real arms in self-defence against the marauding hordes of Pontic barbarians (cf. Tr. 4.1.71–4). So why does Ovid have no option but to make war when, on his own admission, he is so ill-equipped for the task? Why is he at such pains to stress his strangeness to arms?