DISCOVERY 



207 



New Light on Ovid's 



Story of Philemon and 



Baucis 



By W. M. Calder, M.A. 



Hulme Pro/essor of Greek in the Unioersity of Manchester 



One of the best -known stories in classical literature is 

 Ovid's charming tale of Philemon and Baucis. It is 

 the story of an aged couple who dwelt among the 

 hUls of Phr^'gia — as the Roman poets were wont to 

 call the interior of Asia Minor. One day two strangers 

 appeared in the district, and begged for food and 

 shelter. After " a thousand doors " had been closed 

 against them, they were taken in by Philemon and 

 Baucis, who set before them a plain but abundant 

 rustic meal, with a treasured chine of pork to crown the 

 fare. Fearful lest this should not be enough, the aged 

 couple decided to offer the guests their gander, the 

 only living creature they possessed. The bird fled, 

 and took refuge with the strangers, whereupon the 

 latter declared themselves to be Jupiter and Mercury. 

 The neighbourhood, said they, must suffer for its 

 sin of inhospitaUty, and Philemon and Baucis were 

 directed to accompany the gods up the long slope which 

 led to the mountains, ^\'hen near the top they turned 

 round, and saw the whole valle}? flooded, except their 

 own dwelling. \\'hile they gazed in wonder, their 

 dwelling changed before their eyes into a temple with 

 marble foundations and gilded roof. They were given 

 a wish, and chose to be priest and priestess in the gods' 

 temple, and, even as they had lived in oneness of heart, 

 to die in one and the same hour. In extreme old age 

 they suffered change into an oak and a lime, which 

 are still shown to the visitor, hoh' trees, surrounded b}' 

 a low wall and covered with garlands. The teller of 

 the story vouched for its truth ; he had himself been 

 to the spot, and had hung fresh garlands on the trees, 

 with a prayer. 



This story is told in the eighth book of Ovid's Meta- 

 morpJwses. The work is a collection of stories, loosely 

 strung together, the feature common to them being 

 that they aU describe transformations of mythical 

 personages into animals, trees, flowers, rocks, and so 

 forth. In common with the Fasti, it illustrates Ovid's 

 interest, and the interest of his readers, in what modem 

 writers call the aetiologv' of ritual — the search for an 

 explanation of the reUgious practices which they saw 

 around them, or in which they took part. This interest 

 was one effect of the reUgious revival fostered by 

 Augustus, which has left such a deep impress on the 

 hterature and monuments of the period. Just as 

 every city had its sacred foundation-legend, so the 



explanation of every ritual practice was sought in a 

 story which served as a sort of running commentary 

 on the religious act. The cult was usually traced back 

 to the experiences of some mj'thical personage ; for 

 example the association of Apollo with the laurel was 

 traced back to his love for a maiden called Daphne 

 (Laurel), who fled from his embrace, and was changed 

 into the tree which bore her name. 



Ovid was born in the year of Cicero's death, 43 B.C. 

 Between the age of 40 in 3 B.C., and his exile to Tomi 

 in A.D. 9, he was at work on the Metamorphoses and the 

 Fasti. WTien he left Rome, the Metamorphoses was 

 apparently complete — at least in a first edition ; the 

 Fasti was certainly not. It would be straining the 

 evidence to argue from this that the Metamorphoses, 

 in its totality, was the earlier work of the two, but 

 the balance of probability is that the story with which 

 alone we are concerned was composed about the turn 

 of the centuries. It is not necessary for our purpose 

 to fix an exact date ; about 3 B.C. to A.D. 3 is near 

 enough. Ovid must, of course, have been collecting 

 material for the book for some time before he set about 

 its formal composition. 



The etiological myth, or foundation-legend, is a 

 universal feature in ancient Mediterranean reUgion, 

 and the establishment of a citj-, temple, or cult had 

 always a religious sanction. The foundation of Rome 

 is told, after their respective manners, by Livy and by 

 Vergil ; by the historian as well as by the poet it is 

 given a religious setting. Greek hterature is full of 

 such legends ; the scene which is impressed on the 

 audience before they leave the theatre at the end of 

 .Eschylus' Oresteia is the foundation of the cult of the 

 Eumenides under the Athenian acropolis ; the (Edipus 

 Coloneus of Sophocles is a dramatised version of the 

 weird story which was told to explain the cult of 

 CEdipus at Colonus ; the Bacchcz of Euripides turns on 

 the establishment of the worship of Dionysus at Thebes. 

 Let us look at Ovid's story of Philemon and Baucis 

 from this point of \dew. It is professedly a foundation- 

 story, and relates how a particular shrine beside a lake 

 in Asia Minor, in which Jupiter and Merciuy were 

 worshipped together, came to be established. Such is 

 the essence of the story, as he who runs reads it. But 

 the stor}' is one of a series which was addressed not only 

 to those who were interested in reUgious origins, but 

 to a fashionable and flippant public. Add that Ovid 

 was the prince of Roman story-tellers, and that aU 

 good story-tellers have a habit of touching up and 

 amplifjdng their material. The student of ancient 

 reUgion must accordingly use Ovid's stories with 

 caution ; such caution is necessary even in the case 

 of the Fasti, which is a more severely technical book 

 than the Metamorphoses. 



I hope to be able to prove that the storj' of Philemon 



