Publica numina

doi:10.1017/9781108891714.004

4 - Publica numina

Conspicuously Consuming the Imperial Image at Tomis

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2020

Nandini B. Pandey

Edited by

Amy Russell and

Monica Hellström

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Amy Russell: Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
Monica Hellström: Affiliation:
University of Durham

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Summary

Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto 2.8 commemorates the exiled poet’s receipt of a gift of silver images of the Caesars from Rome. This paper argues, with reference to Augustan coinage and Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, that the poem deconstructs Romans’ self-subjugation to imperial iconography and highlights their role in vesting it with power. Through comic deployment of the pathetic fallacy via a naïve narrative persona, Ovid shows how, from a provincial perspective, the emperor's numen might really appear to reside in his image, placing the emperor literally in his subjects’ hands. Pont. 2.8 therefore comments more generally on the interpretive possibilities, social practices, and psychology surrounding Roman imperial images, locating their power in plural, subjective, democratic acts of creative consumption.

Keywords

Ovid Epistulae ex Ponto Roman poetry coins Roman iconography Roman Empire viewership commodity fetish portraiture exile subjectivity reader response

Type: Chapter
Information: The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery , pp. 76 - 99

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891714.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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