The Senate of Imperial Rome. Indeed, Jupiter’s use of legal terminology gives Tiresias’ sententia more weight than the situation merits, and Juno, in turn, responds to this decision with anger that befits the legal environment Jupiter has created.

15One aspect of this professionalization is the level of objective analysis that is brought to the law. Most importantly, Ovid demonstrates in this passage the flexibility of much of Roman legal language. Tiresias, in Greek mythology, a blind Theban seer, the son of one of Athena’s favourites, the nymph Chariclo. 1997.

25 For examples of materia, see Quint. It is a similar situation for the term doctus, which means in its poetic contexts nothing more than a learned man, in its legal contexts a Roman jurist, and in its historical contexts the employment of such jurists by the emperor Augustus. 1990. Tiresias appears in the Oedipus legends and dramas, including Euripides' Bacchae, and in Odysseus' underworld adventure, but in Ovid's Metamorphoses, he shares his gift in two additional, transformational stories, those of Narcissus and Echo, and Bacchus and Pentheus.

28In conclusion we can look at the language used to describe Tiresias’ final metamorphosis into a vates, a prophet, to see how this approach to legal terminology can yield satisfactory results. Much like the Tiresias myth, legal language and allusions to contemporary Roman government fill Lycaon’s story and the description of the concilium deorum. Indeed, this opening narrative reads in many ways like a maiestas trial in the Roman Senate and we can find allusions within the story to contemporary developments in the Roman judicial process.15 But what is striking about the story of Tiresias, and what is also striking about the concilium deorum at the beginning of the Metamorphoses, is that this elaborate allusion to Roman law falls apart when put into practice. 1980. Collection Latomus, v. 89. 18 The story of Actaeon in the Metamorphoses (3.138-252) has, of course, the strongest narrative connections with Callimachus’ version of the Tiresias myth. N.S. In both cases iudex has a negative connotation for the person being judged. In using a Roman system of justice, Jupiter destroys it. Among the ancient authors who mention him are Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, and Ovid. As noted before, Tiresias is an outsider, a person whose power comes from expertise and not status, and we can see how Juno’s anger is not so much about the decision itself but the person who is able to make the decision. The frame of Ovid's Metamorphoses is a history of events from the days of creation to Ovid's present, but with a twist: All stories told must involve physical transformations (metamorphoses). the use of sui iudicis here to the description of the Golden Age in Book One: nec supplex turba timebant/ iudicis ora sui (1.92-3). Private (and oftentimes unregulated) justice becomes public justice, subject to legal analysis and formulae.

22With this background in mind, the debate over Jupiter’s casual comment about women enjoying sex more than men and his decision to bring in an ‘expert’ to settle the debate has a different significance for Ovid’s Roman audience than the Hesiodic or Sostratean versions of the myth would have had for their contemporary audiences. 9 Indeed, when combined with placuit, the use of sententia here could allude to the language used in senatus consulta: placere senatui; see Talbert (1984) 304; Cic. Actaeon, for example, becomes a deer after seeing Diana bathe, a state in which Ovid explicitly states he can no longer speak (138-252);29 Semele is destroyed for having sex with Jupiter and the proof of this affair, Dionysus, is also almost destroyed (3.253-315); Echo loses her ability to speak, which she would use to keep Jupiter’s affairs with the nymphs hidden from Juno (3.359-69); and Pentheus is torn apart and killed after witnessing women engage in Bacchic rites (3.511-733). Oxford. “Ovid and Ancient Literary History.” In P. Hardie, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. The Story of Tiresias One of the important peripheral figures in the House of Thebes' legends is the blind seer Tiresias, whose story, "Ovid" is introduced in Metamorphoses Book Three. Talbert, R. J. This objectivity turns law into what Frier describes as “an abstract body of norms” that results in a transition from rhetorically savvy orators and their case-oriented arguments to trained specialists who are unconcerned with the personage of the claimants (287). She is, essentially, a failed patrician woman. Ovid uses it with the most frequency and, in Newman’s opinion, completely debases the original tension which existed when authors like Virgil and Horace first used the term selectively to refer to poets. Ovid is using a popular term in both its precise and popular sense: precise for the subject matter at hand and popular for the poetic medium in which it is written. It is, in other words, a shift in justice systems. 11The use of legal terminology in Ovid’s version of the myth, while suggested perhaps in the Hesiodic version (and the poem of Sostratus), seems to come most strongly from Callimachus.18 We have in Ovid the clear narrative framework of Hesiod and Sostratus (Tiresias punished after serving the role of judge), but Callimachus’ careful observation of an over-arching justice system drives Ovid’s version. The judgment of Tiresias can, in this respect, be read as an examination of the sources of auctoritas for Roman law. This article was most recently revised and updated by. In her anger, she made the man blind, but Jupiter, gratified, rewarded Tiresias with the power of seeing the future. In this scene, for example, Jupiter relinquishes his epic role as judge and attempts to deny Juno her Virgilian role as the wrathful deity, but Jupiter must then take on the role of Tiresias’ advocate and judge.

4.2.4. Fantham, E. 1983.

Hollis, A. S. 1994. In Ovid we have mention of such an over-arching framework with the opening phrase ea geruntur fatali lege (3.316), but the matters which lex fatalis governs are ambiguous and potentially problematic.19 Moreover, lex fatalis refers to the story that came before, and the use of a dum clause suggests that something other than fate will be driving the story of Tiresias. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Berkeley. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 2005. Responsum is the official term for the legal decision of a jurist, but responsum can also mean a prophetic utterance. Tiresias wasn't too happy with their new transgendered metamorphoses but lived as a woman for seven years before figuring out a technique that would either kill her or reverse the operation. Horsfall, N. 1979. 18This tension also arises from the terminology Ovid uses to describe Tiresias and the roles he plays. While I mentioned at the outset of this paper that the legal language marks the story of Tiresias as unique from the other narratives in the third book, I think we can now refine that point: Ovid’s narration of the Tiresias myth permits us to see the allusions to legal reality behind the legal language, and this legal reality in turn is behind most of the other narratives in the third book. Tiresias, of course, does not meet the legal requirements of these precise definitions: Tiresias is a doctus because he has been both a man and a woman not because he has undergone formal training; Tiresias is chosen by Jupiter to make a decision and not by Jupiter and Juno both; finally, Tiresias is in a mock trial, mimicking but not literally employing Roman legal procedure. While we can simply say that Ovid’s use of responsum here would have ‘legal undertones’ for his audience, such an analysis ignores why Ovid would want to suggest a legal framework. 28 Consider the following parallel: si sum regina Iovisque et soror et coniunx, certe soror (Met. Ovid’s use of all three terms to describe one person rendering one sententia is almost cavalier from a legal standpoint.

The Concept of Vates in Augustan poetry. Ovid: Metamorphoses Book XIII. Princeton. VerSteeg, R. and N. Barclay. Tiresias is rare among the characters of the Metamorphoses. Shakespeare's comedy Midsummer Night's Dream, Boccaccio's Decameron, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and Ovid's Metamorphoses are among the most famous collections of stories in which one story surrounds another. The legal valence is secondary and achieved only through allusion to the previous passage.

Ovid’s story of Actaeon notably has the rare authorial comment on the nature of Actaeon’s crime (3.141-2): at bene si quaeras, Fortunae crimen in illo, / non scelus invenies; quod enim scelus error habebat?

Frier still offers in my opinion the best summation of the legal scene at the end of the Republic (Frier, 272): The jurists began to study and manipulate the materials of private law in a disciplined, rational fashion...Through their efforts, the intellectual content and social capacity of private law were markedly increased; and soon the discipline of law also became all but inaccessible to those not specially trained in it. Tarrant, R. 2002. 1985. This development would be the moral legislation of Augustus, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus and the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (18-17 BCE), which set up a new quaestio perpetua for the crimes of adultery and stuprum.26 The creation of these new laws regulating the personal lives of Romans required a fairly systematic discussion of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ sexual relations. While Habinek writes that in the Amores “Ovid seeks to reduce to absurdity the new legal specifications for proving illicit sexual behavior” (1998, 30), I think what we see here in Book Three of the Metamorphoses is more than a reductioad absurdum.

J. Kenney (1969) argues for a similar reinterpretation of a Callimachean version of a myth by Ovid in the story of Acontius and Cydippe in Heroides 20 and 21. That is to say, Ovid uses the formal terminology associated with a civil trial, and Jupiter does everything according to judicial procedure, but it is clear that this is not a real trial nor that these terms have any legal valence. We saw, for example, how the term sententia, which has not so much different meanings as different registers depending on the contexts in which it used, can mean one thing for Jupiter in his mock trial and something quite different for Juno, viewing the mock trial as a real judgment; the interpretation of the context by each god affects the valence of the term and their reaction to it. In this story, the goddess makes her identity conditional upon the punishment of the young girl Semele, first labeling herself Iuno (si maxima Iuno/rite vocor, perdam, 3.264-5) and then declaring herself Saturnia (nec sum Saturnia, si non/ab Iove mersa suo Stygias penetrabit in undas, 3.271-2). Tiresias’ metamorphosis of role (and its subsequent consequences) needs to be more carefully examined because it reflects a significant change in Roman judicial affairs. Zeus, in thanks for his support, gave him the gifts of prophecy and longevity. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Bruxelles. The central debate is whether the ius actually existed and whether it was a special right granted by Augustus or if it was a continuation of a right held by all jurists to which Augustus added his imperial backing (Tuori, 329). On the other hand, while Tiresias can deliver his sententia from personal experience, any authority this sententia has ultimately comes from Jupiter. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. While a Roman judge who betrayed partiality could in turn suffer legal action, Tiresias’ conscientious verdict here is above reproach: he is the innocent victim of a deity who is a bad loser. Tiresias was a mythological blind seer who plays a significant role in Greek tragedy involving the House of Thebes.

21A private matter which has been under the purview of the paterfamilias is now a public matter, with defendants charged and punished before the eyes of all. Ovid then establishes the origins of the god of freedom, Bacchus, and the blind prophet himself, Tiresias. Jupiter then mitigates the punishment by giving Tiresias the gift of prophecy.

10The next question we must ask is whether this legal terminology is still significant when placed into the contexts of the Tiresias myth in ancient literature.

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