By J. Malachi Corrao
We are creatures driven by self- awareness. Therefore, it is difficult for us not to imagine the origins of the world into which we were born. Coaxed by the silent days of infancy, do we not, as toddlers, conjure up theories that take the place of the waters of the womb? A similar practice has been replicated by scientists and poets throughout history—including Publius Ovidius Naso (known as Ovid) of Imperial Rome. His ideas about the beginnings of the universe echo the primordial motifs of creation; however, he combines them with both scientific and social understanding.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses is all about change. This theme pervades his stories, portraying the concept that change is subtle, often gradually shifting behind our noses. We are unaware of what lays ahead in civilization. Imperial Rome is a great example of this idea. Rome gradually transitioned from a republic to an oligarchy to a dictatorship. Ovid’s references to imperial power (amidst an entertaining iteration of cosmology) speak volumes about culture and change—in Rome and beyond.
Per Ovid, in the beginning, there was no heaven, no Earth, and no underworld. The Universe was nothing but Chaos, “A shapeless, unwrought mass of inert bulk and nothing more, with the discordant seeds of disconnected elements all heaped together in anarchic disarray” (Ovid, 10-13). From the toil of a creator god, the bulk was separated, and Earth was created via various stages. In Metamorphoses, the various stages of Earth’s creation are very similar to Genesis. In Genesis, God created Earth in this way: light was separated from dark, sky was separated from water, dry ground was formed, the sun, moon, and stars were placed in the sky; animals were created, and then man was created. Likewise, the creator god in Metamorphoses first separated heaven from Earth, which can be said to symbolize heavenly light separated from an opaque world. After this, the creator god “sent the waters streaming in all directions” and then “ordered open plains to spread themselves, valleys to sink, the stony peaks to rise, and forests to put on their coats of green” (Ovid, 46-60). Next, he set up the atmospheres and winds, and then placed the stars in the sky. Animals came next, and then mankind, taking “the shape of the gods” (Ovid, 117). The similarities with this Roman paganism and Judaism are uncanny, from the order of divine creation, to the fact that man was made in the image of the gods. It is interesting to note how the Jews and Romans were often at odds with each other when it came to religion despite this fact. This might lead one to assert that the strife between the Jews and Romans was not necessarily based on cultural differences, but on the imperialist politics set forth by the Roman emperors.
The primordial story of the flood presents itself once again in both Metamorphoses and the Old Testament. Both involved an outraged god in response to human indignity (in Metamorphoses, Jove acts after witnessing the cannibalistic feast of Lycaon). At first, Jove was going to strike the Earth with thunderbolts, but then “another punishment now pleases him: to sink the mortal race beneath the waves and send down sheets of rain from above” (Ovid, 360-363).
This is in almost exactly the same manner as the Judaic God who sends a flood. Mesopotamia had a similar story known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which involved a flood sent by incensed gods to punish mortals for their transgressions. It is more than likely that this tale carried over to the Judaic tradition because the
Hebrews used to be a tribe within Mesopotamia and then traveled over Greece via trade routes (Mesopotamia to Anatolia via the Persians; the Persians to the Southern part of the Peloponnesus among other Hellenic islands). This tells us that similar stories can surface within two different cultures with different sets of values.
Ovid’s cosmology has a great deal of intercultural significance. We are told that, “Some god (or kinder nature) settled this dispute by separating earth from heaven” (Ovid, 26-28). Notice how Ovid says “kinder nature,” mirroring his uncertainty about what really initiated the creation of the universe. Ovid’s questioning nature is even more prominent with this line about the creation of man: “Now man was born, either because the framer of all things [the creator god]… created man out of his own divine substance – or else because Prometheus took up a clod… and… molded it into the shape of gods” (Ovid, 108-109, 111-113, 116-117). One could say that Ovid had a mildly agnostic nature concerning these Pagan myths, presenting two dogmas and not abiding to a particular one. When discussing the war between gods and titans (in this translation, giants), lines in parentheses such as “we hear” and “or so the story goes” clearly models a skepticism easily likened to Aristotle’s wisdom of searching within the physical world. Ovid was a storyteller. His own beliefs are ambiguous at least when it came to religion.
Ovid also examines the origins of human society. An arguably important analysis–especially in dealing with Roman Civilization– is the four ages. The four ages that the Metamorphoses describes are the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Each age is more degrading and less virtuous than the last (at least according to Ovid). The Golden Age represents the Paleolithic Age, where people lived in harmony despite being unbound by laws. No tools touched the Earth, for there was no season other than an eternal spring.
After Jove overtook Saturn (the titan Cronus in Greek mythology) and ruled the world, the Silver Age appeared: “Jupiter made the ancient springtime shorter by adding onto it three seasons more: now winter, summer, an erratic fall, and a brief spring filled out the fourfold year” (Ovid, 158-160). It is very important to note how Ovid would often times compare Emperor Augustus Caesar with Jove, and thus these lines serve as a criticism of how Caesar stripped away freedoms and replaced them with his rule, for the sake of growing civilization. The actions of Jove forced man to produce agriculture; the Silver Age mirrors early Neolithic civilizations. The Bronze Age is not without warfare, but that warfare is waged with some honor, such as within Homer’s Iliad. The Iron Age brings “all forms of evil [which] burst upon this time of baser mettle; modesty, fidelity, and truth departed; and in their absence came fraud, guile, deceit and the use of violence, and shameful lusting after acquisitions” (Ovid, 173-177). In other words, it represents Ovid’s time—the time of the Roman Empire, in pursuit of conquest and marked by corrupt politics.
The fact that the story of the great flood comes after all this gives a sense of warning against greed similar to Virgil’s. The desire for wealth and conquest leads to savagery, which can only lead to punishment. Thus, the greatest transformation in Metamorphoses is not some grand transcendence one should strive for, but a cycle of human nature meant to be broken.
By and large Ovid’s Metamorphoses does more than divulge creation as simple transformation from point A to uncertainty. Gods are likened to complacent Roman Emperors, making this work distinctively timely. Metamorphoses is a collection of writings that not only illustrates the evolution of religious belief through culture, but also a satire that uses the mythos to challenge the authority of the time period.
Works Cited
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Charles Martin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. Print.
Matthews, Roy T., and F. Dewitt Platt. Experiencing Humanities Volume I: Beginnings through the Renaissance. New York: McGraw Hill Companies Inc., 2014. Print
Image: Sombrero Galaxy in infrared light (Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope) via Wikimedia Commons