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The death of Chiron: Ovid, Fasti 5.379–414*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ian Brookes
Ian Brookes
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The story of the death and catasterism of Chiron is one of the most charming and skilfully-presented episodes in the Fasti. Ovid relates how Hercules, in the course of his twelve labours, came to Mount Pelion, and was hospitably received by the centaur Chiron and his pupil, the young Achilles. While admiring Hercules' splendid arms, Chiron drops one of the hero's poisoned arrows onto his foot. Despite desperate attempts to find a remedy, he fails to recover, but is transformed into the constellation of Centaurus.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 444 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

1 The text used is that of the Teubner edition of Alton, E. H., Wormell, D. E. W. and Courtney, E. (Second edition, Leipzig, 1985).Google Scholar

2 von Albrecht, M., ‘Zur Funktion der Tempora in Ovids elegischer Erzählung’, in von Albrecht, M. and Zinn, E. (edd.), Ovid (Darmstadt, 1968), pp. 451–67.Google Scholar

3 Santini, C., ‘Lettura Strutturale ed Etimologia in un Catasterismo dei Fasti’, MCSN 1 (1976), 49–56.Google Scholar

4 See Bömer, F., Publius Ovidius Naso. Die Fasten. Band II: Kommentar (Heidelberg, 1958), p. 314.Google Scholar

5 Eratosthenes, Catasterisms 40; Hyginus, De Astronomia 2.38; Scholiast on Caesar Germanicus, Aratea 417.

6 Homer, Iliad 11.832.

7 See Bömer, loc. cit.

8 Diodorus Siculus (3.67.2), Apollodorus (2.4.9) and Aelian (Varia Historia 3.32) report how Hercules was taught the lyre by Linus, but killed his tutor in a fit of rage. The contrast between this story and Chiron's success in restraining Achilles' instincts makes Chiron's achievement all the more remarkable.

9 A similar effect is achieved by Ovid at Heroides 21.58, where the rhythm reflects Cydippe's hysteria, and Metamorphoses 1.504, where it indicates Apollo's breathlessness. See also [Longinus], De Sublimitate 22.

10 See Hyginus, De Astronomia 2.38; von Albrecht, op. cit. [n. 2], p. 455; Braun, L., ‘Kompositionskunst in Ovids Fasti’, ANRW II.31.4 (1981), 2365.Google Scholar

11 The poetic plural is, of course, common in the Fasti (see Frazer, J. G., The Fasti of Ovid [London, 1929], vol. IV. p. 2Google Scholar; Bömer, op. cit. [n. 4], pp. 92–3).

12 Mr A. S. Hollis has pointed out to me that the idea of the young child playing with the lion's skin may have occurred to Ovid as a result of the story, which appears in Pausanias (1.27.8), about the young Theseus and Hercules' lion's skin. Mr Hollis suggests that Ovid may have known this story from a treatment of it in Callimachus' Hecale.

13 The story is told by Ovid at Metamorphoses 11.212–15.

14 Homer, Iliad 24.486–7: μνσαι πατρς σοῖο, θεοῖς πιεκελ᾽ Ἀχιλλε, | τηλκου ὥς περ γών λοῷ π γραος οὐδῷ.

15 Homer, Iliad 24.540–1: λλ᾽ ἕνα παῖδα τκεν παναώριον· οὐδ νυ τν γε | γηρσκοντα κομζω.

16 The translations of Frazer and Bömer are misleading in this respect.

17 Santini, op. cit. [n. 3].

18 Homer, Iliad 18.316–17: τοῖσι δ Πηλεΐδης δινο ξρχε γοιο, | χεῖρας π᾽ νδροϕνους θμενος στθεσσιν ταρου; 24.478–9: χερσν Ἀχιλλος λβε γονατα κα κσε χεῖρας | δεινς νδροϕνους, αἵ οἱ πολας κτνον νἷας.

19 A close parallel for this line occurs at Metamorphoses 5.345. For Ovid's use of antimetabole, see Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation (Liverpool, 1949), p. 154Google Scholar; for his general predilection for verbal trickery, see Frécaut, J.-M., L'esprit et l'humour chez Ovide (Grenoble, 1972), pp. 45–58Google Scholar; Booth, J., ‘Aspects of Ovid's Language’, ANRW II.31.4 (1981), 2686–700.Google Scholar

20 See von Albrecht, op. cit. [n. 2], p. 456, n. 17.

21 The irony of the doctor who cannot heal himself is a common motif. Ovid's use of the theme is noted by M. von Albrecht (‘Ovids Homor’ in Albrecht and Zinn, op cit. [n. 2], p. 422).

22 Rabel, R. J. (‘Hippothous and the Death of Achilles’, CJ 86 [1991], 130)Google Scholar sees a similar irony at work at Iliad 17.288–303.

23 See Dilke, O. A. W., Statius: Achilleid, edited with introduction, apparatus criticus and notes (Cambridge, 1954), p. 94.Google Scholar

24 The relevant material is listed in Kemp-Lindemann, D., Darstellung des Achilleus in Griechischer und Römischer Kunst (Frankfurt, 1975), pp. 218–22.Google Scholar

25 The story is told by Ovid himself at Metamorphoses 9.101–272. The description of the poison in that account (‘Lernaeae virus echidnae’, 158) bears a close verbal resemblance to the description in the Fasti of the poison which kills Chiron.

26 For example, Fränkel, H., Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds3 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), p. 148Google Scholar; Barsby, J. A., Ovid: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics. No. 12 (Oxford, 1978), p. 29Google Scholar; Johnson, W. R., ‘The Desolation of the Fasti’, CJ 74 (1978), 7–18Google Scholar; Syme, R., History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978), p. 35.Google Scholar

27 See especially Miller, J. F. ‘Research on Ovid's Fasti’, Arethusa 25 (1992), 1–10.Google Scholar