Abstract
Alison Keith
Victoria College
University of Toronto
Palace architecture in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Statius' Thebaid
In this paper I consider the layout and decoration of the palace complexes of the royal houses of Thebes (1.46-52, 7.243-52, 8.607-54) and Argos (1.386-536) in Statius' Thebaid, and explore Statius' debt to Ovid's Metamorphoses in their description. Ovid's Theban narrative furnishes Statius with literary models for the royal house of Cadmus, but the Flavian poet also draws on the sumptuous architectural decor of the palace of the Ovidian river-god Achelous (Met. 8.560-610) in his description of Adrastus' palace in Argos. Crucial to these poets' literary description of architectural forms are the imperial building programs of the emperors Augustus and Domitian. Ovid, unlike Vergil, lived long enough to see the transformation of the city of Rome under Augustus from brick to marble of which the princeps boasted. Indeed the Augustan poet frequently celebrates the remarkable architectural achievements of the princeps in elegiac verse (Galinsky 1996.141-224), and scholars have also identified the influence of contemporary Roman building practices in Ovid's descriptions of the opulent villas, grottoes, and temples in the Metamorphoses (see, e.g., Hollis 1970.100 and Due 1974.80 on Achelous' villa). In Statius' period, the Flavian emperors Vespasian and Domitian undertook ambitious building programs in Rome in explicit emulation of Augustus. My paper will therefore contain some discussion of the complicated web of cultural interconnections embedding the epic poets' architectural discourse in the context of elite building programs of imperial Rome.
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