Ovid and the language of succession.

Later historians, such as Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, have dominated interpretations of events at end of Augustus' principate and, in turn, evaluations of Ovid's poetry from exile, condemning his characterizations of such characters as Tiberius and Livia. In addition, Ovid's exile works have been examined from an Augustan perspective; my dissertation examines Ovid's characterization of members of the imperial household within the exile literature from a Tiberian perspective, using various literary and non-literary sources to situate Ovid's characterizations within the discourse of their own period. My methodology combines both literary and historical approaches. In contextualizing Ovid's approach to characterization, I reveal his consistency and similarity to presentations of the imperial family in other forms of public discourse. I examine Ovid's exile works in the literary traditions of elegiac and panegyric poetry, both in the Roman poetic tradition, but also in the broader Hellenistic tradition. I analyze the imperial domus as a concept (detailing its constitution and evolution over the course of the exile literature) and each appearance of Tiberius, Livia and Germanicus within the Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto and revised Fasti. Ovid initially presents Tiberius as Rome's military commander beside Augustus; over the course of his epistles he applies diction, terminology and imagery once reserved for Augustus to Tiberius. I read Ovid's texts against a series of other primary sources, such as the senatorial decrees passed upon the death of Germanicus, to consider how Ovid's language relates to the historical developments in the period in question. These texts provide alternative sources to compare whether the language and imagery contained in Ovid's poetry are consistent with those seen early in Tiberius' reign. Ovid's characterizations of Tiberius, Livia and Germanicus were carefully crafted to mirror their roles in official ideology. Ovid presents the characters in such a way that his poems can be read as praise, but also pressure on these individuals to demonstrate the qualities Ovid bestows upon them in his poems by granting his recall to Rome.PhDClassical literatureLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127068/2/3328973.pd