Starting from Homer

Chapter 1 surveys the place of Homer in Roman literary culture before Ovid, including the prominent place of the Iliad and Odyssey in early education and the role played by Livius Andronicus and Ennius in bringing the Greek past to Rome. It offers an overview of the character of Homeric allusiveness in Latin poetry before Ovid, especially in Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius and the elegists. The chapter concludes with the suggestion that Ovid’s familiarity with the Homeric poems is based not only on the poems themselves but also on the tradition of scholarly exegesis that develops in Alexandria and moves to other centers of learning in the ancient world. The scholia of Aristarchus are chief among these paratexts. In particular, Ovid’s fondness for Homeric episodes deemed of suspect authenticity by the critics reflects his playfully contrarian attitude.