Rivers and fluid identities in the Fasti

Abstract The chapter explores several liminal characters in Ovid’s Fasti that display a range of fluid identities. It calls for a reconsideration of the environment as a network of elements with their own agency whereby the human and the non-human interact in a number of ways and cannot be easily separated from each other. The Tiber is the main focus of this ecocritical reflection, since, as a god and as a force of nature, he is ascribed active agency in several episodes of Ovid’s calendrical work. After exploring a range of associations between the Tiber and Janus, as well as the river’s own immigrant status, this chapter turns to consider the exilic status of Evander and the role of the natural world in welcoming him to Italy in Fasti 1. Thereafter, Book 3’s fugitive Anna Perenna, transformed into a river nymph, is discussed, along with the festival of the Argei in Fasti 5. The gender aspect of the river is the focus of the analysis of the episode of Venus and Cupid hiding on the Euphrates in Book 2. Finally, the chapter turns to consider the inherently mutable Vertumnus of Book 6, who is closely associated with the Tiber, before turning to the arrival of Magna Mater in Fasti 4, and Ovid’s challenge to the expectations of gender norms in the person of Claudia Quinta.