L'Italia di Ovidio

Abstract

The essay deals with Italy in Augustan culture and, in particular, Ovid’s poetry. Italy emerges as an especially crucial issue in the development of the „Augustan discourse“, in that it involves the discussion of Rome’s origins and foundation myths. We start from a survey of the presence of Italy in Augustus’ own Res Gestae, turning then to the two major (and contradictory) mythical constructions set forth by Virgil and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Trojan origin and Greek origin for Rome and Italy are both present in Ovid’s Fasti, a poem that challenges Virgil’s official version while proposing a more com- prehensive, truly imperial Roman identity, which cannot stand the „narrowness“ of Italic traditional virtues. This idea notably fades in Ovid’s late exilic collections.