1 Jupiter and Fate from Iliad 16 to Metamorphoses 15 (via Aeneid 10)

When Venus at same time understands that, in order for the future Augustus not to be born of mortal seed, it is necessary for Caesar to be made a god, and sees that a grim death is being prepared for Caesar by the weapons of the conspirators, she grows pale and starts lamenting with every god she meets, asking them to thwart that murderous attempt. But the gods, though moved by her words, “cannot break the iron decrees of the ancient sisters (the Parcae)” (rumpere …/ ferrea non possunt veterum decreta sororum, 15.780–781), and limit themselves to manifesting their grief with a series of horrendous omens. Then, at 803–806 Venus meditates on hiding Caesar in a cloud and snatching him from death, as once she had done with Paris (at Il. 3.374–382) and with Aeneas (at Il. 5.311–317):

tum vero Cytherea manu percussit utraque

pectus et Aeneaden molitur condere nube,

qua prius infesto Paris est ereptus Atridae,

et Diomedeos Aeneas fugerat enses.¹

Met. 15.803–806

Then in truth Venus struck her breast with both hands, and tries to hide the descendant of Aeneas in that same cloud in which she once had snatched away Paris from the attack of the son of Atreus, and Aeneas had escaped Diomedes’ sword.²

Jupiter intervenes and asks her if she alone intends to move unconquerable Fate: Caesar’s destiny is written in the tabularia of the Parcae, and can be read by Venus herself, if she goes there; he has read and memorized it,³ and now he will recount it to her (15.807–815):

talibus hanc genitor: “sola insuperabile fatum,

nata, movere paras? intres licet ipsa sororum

tecta trium; cernes illic molimine vasto

ex aere et solido rerum tabularia ferro,

quae neque concursum caeli neque fulminis iram

nec metuunt ullas tuta atque aeterna ruinas.

invenies illic incisa adamante perenni

fata tui generis; legi ipse animoque notavi

et referam, ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri.”

Thus the father spoke: “Alone, daughter, do you prepare to move unconquerable Fate? You yourself are allowed to enter the dwelling of the three sisters: there you will see, with their massive structure, the archives of the world, made of bronze and solid iron, which fear neither the crashing of the sky nor the anger of the lightning bolt or any destruction, being safe and eternal; there you will find the fates of your descendants engraved on everlasting adamant. I read them myself and noted them in my mind and will relate them, lest you be even now unknowing of the future.”

The primary model for this scene is clearly the dialogue between Jupiter and Venus in Aen. 1, as we shall see; but this sequence, not by chance introduced by two Homeric references,⁴ also alludes to the sequence at Il. 16.431–457, the dialogue between Zeus and Hera about the impending death of Sarpedon.⁵ There, it is Zeus himself who sees that death is approaching his son Sarpedon, and it is he who meditates upon snatching him from death (Il. 16.433–438):

ὤ μοι ἐγών, ὅ τέ μοι Σαρπηδόνα φίλτατον ἀνδρῶν

μοῖρ᾽ ὑπὸ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι.

διχθὰ δέ μοι κραδίη μέμονε φρεσὶν ὁρμαίνοντι,

ἤ μιν ζωὸν ἐόντα μάχης ἄπο δακρυοέσσης

θείω ἀναρπάξας Λυκίης ἐν πίονι δήμῳ,

ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω.

Alas, that it is fated that Sarpedon, whom I love more than any man, be killed by Patroclus, son of Menoetius! And my heart is divided in two as I meditate in my thought whether I shall snatch him up while he is still alive and set him down in the rich land of Lycia, far from the tear-filled war, or whether I shall slay him now under the hands of the son of Menoetius.

The first word Jupiter addresses to Venus, sola (“on your own,” “all by yourself,” but also “you alone”), has multiple ironic resonances. It is, in fact, a witty reminder of the long series of precedents for the scene to follow: first, Venus is surely not “alone” in wanting to “move unconquerable Fate,” for Juno has repeatedly attempted to do the same in the Aeneid (as Venus has just recalled in her previous speech to the gods, 768–774). Secondly, she is also definitely not “alone” specifically in wanting to snatch a divine son from fated death; Jupiter/Zeus himself had had the same thought in Il. 16, and there too he was prevented from acting in favor of his son by the intervention of another divinity, Hera, who reminded him of the inevitability of Fate for mortals (Il. 16.440–449). What the Homeric Hera suggested that Zeus do, was to leave Sarpedon to die, and then, as soon as breath and life had abandoned him, to send Thanatos and Hypnos to seize his body and bring it to Lycia, where it would be honored with funeral rites by his brothers and comrades (450–457). This is the model for Jupiter’s instructions to Venus: she should let Caesar die, and then seize his soul and change it into a star (15.840–842):

hanc animam interea caeso de corpore raptam

fac iubar, ut semper Capitolia nostra forumque

Divus ab excelsa prospectet Iulius aede!

Meanwhile snatch his soul from his murdered body and make a star out of it, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his lofty dwelling on our Capitol and Forum.

True, Venus’ intervention as suggested by Jupiter is much more invasive and radical than that suggested by Hera to Zeus in Il. 16: Venus is ordered to create a new star, while Zeus was simply allowed to transport a dead body to its fatherland. But the sequence (a) a divine parent is tempted to snatch his/her son from death; (b) is reminded by another god/dess of the inevitability of Fate; (c) is allowed to do at least something to alleviate his/her grief after the death of the son, is clearly the same in Homer as in Ovid.⁶

The Homeric Zeus evidently has, at least in this passage, the power of subverting Fate, since Hera considers as a possibility that he may in fact choose to save Sarpedon; the only problem would be the angry reaction of all the other gods—even if that very reaction, as foreseen by Hera, means that Zeus at least is not expected to do things contrary to Fate.⁷ Anyway, the god learns his lesson. In the adaptation of the Zeus-Hera scene of Il. 16 at Aen. 10.464–473, it is Jupiter who plays the role of the Homeric Hera, reminding Hercules of the inevitability of Fate (even by self-reflexively using the very example of Sarpedon’s death).⁸ While Jupiter’s words do not explicitly clarify anything about the relationship between Jupiter’s will and Fate, the context clearly suggests that Vergil is hinting here at a notion of Jupiter’s will as subordinated to Fate: here, there is not even a question of subverting Pallas’ destined death; Hercules, unlike Zeus in Il. 16, is not thinking about saving Pallas, but is just mourning his impending death, and the possibility that Jupiter might save Pallas is not contemplated, while the god concludes his speech by saying that “Turnus too is called by his fates, and has come to the end of the lifetime that has been given to him” (etiam sua Turnum fata vocant metasque dati pervenit ad aevi, 471–472). It is difficult not to feel that here Jupiter attributes the inevitability of death for mortals to something different from his own will.⁹ However, this contrasts with other passages of the Aeneid which clearly imply, as we shall see, an identification of Fate with Jupiter’s will, and, after all, in this very passage of Aen. 10, Vergil is ambiguous: could Jupiter have saved Pallas? The fact that this possibility is not hinted at in his speech does not necessarily mean that it would be impossible for Jupiter to prevent Pallas’ death. Perhaps what is understood is that he can prevent Pallas’ death but chooses not to do so, for the same reasons expounded by the Homeric Hera; or perhaps what is understood is that he really cannot subvert the “will” of Fate.¹⁰

The incoherencies of Vergil’s theology reflect and reproduce the incoherencies of Homer’s theology.¹¹ It is not a coincidence if the critics of Homer and those of Vergil often share the same vocabulary and the same expressions when speaking of the difficult problem of the relationship of Zeus/Jupiter with Fate: is Zeus subject to Fate? Is mortals’ moira identical with Zeus’s will? Vergil decides to reproduce Homer’s incoherence; Ovid simplifies and brings order to Vergil’s confusion: it is crystal clear that his Jupiter is subordinate to the decisions of Fate, and it is equally clear that this position of Ovid’s is meant to be read as a comment on Vergil’s bewildering confusion of this matter.¹²

1 Jupiter and the Book of Fate in Aeneid 1, Metamorphoses 15, and Vergil’s Ancient Exegesis

Let’s approach the issue this time starting from the influence of the dialogue between Venus and Jupiter in Aen. 1 on the Venus-Jupiter scene in Met. 15. Ovid reworks at the same time the Zeus-Hera scene in Il. 16 (and through it Vergil’s adaptation in Aen. 10) and the Venus-Jupiter scene in Aen. 1. From the first context come both Venus’ project of Homerically snatching away Caesar from impending death and Jupiter’s concession to her of at least something, that is, the possibility of making a star out of his soul; from the second comes the bulk of Jupiter’s speech, with the prophecy about Augustus’ future greatness, which corresponds to the Roman and Augustan prophecy of Vergil’s Jupiter.¹³

Jupiter’s words at the beginning of his speech to Venus (sola insuperabile fatum, / nata, movere paras, 807–808) obviously echo those addressed by the god to Venus at the beginning of his prophetic speech in Aeneid 1: parce metu, Cytherea, manent immota tuorum / fata tibi (“spare yourself these fears, Cytherea: the destinies of your descendants remain unchanged,” Aen. 1.257–258).¹⁴ In both contexts the point revolves around the inevitability of Fate, but in Aen. 1 the problem is that Venus fears that the destinies of her descendants might have changed, and Jupiter reassures her that everything will go according to his old promises (whereas in fact Vergil is indeed introducing here major changes to the destinies of Venus’ descendants from the versions of Naevius and Ennius, to which Venus herself seems to allude by recalling, at 1.234–237, Jupiter’s old promises: see below).¹⁵ In Ovid, instead, Venus wants to change the fate of her descendant, Caesar, by saving him from being killed, while Jupiter admonishes her that his fate is immutable. Also, a major irony here is that, in this very moment, and with these very words, Ovid too is “changing” the fate of Caesar, by inventing the notion of the fated inevitability of his death, and by creating this kind of divine charade around the events surrounding it.¹⁶

Another marker of Ovid’s repetition of the scene in Aeneid 1 is found in Met. 15.809: cernes illic molimine vasto / ex aere et solido rerum tabularia ferro. The verb cernes is a clear signal that Jupiter is reworking his prophecy of Aeneid 1: the verb occurs in the same metrical position at Aen. 1.258–259 cernes urbem et promissa Lauini / moenia (“you will see the city and the promised walls of Lavinium”), and these are the only occurrences of this word in this metrical position in both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses. In the Aeneid, cernes is a direct part of Jupiter’s own prophecy: he predicts that Venus “will see” Lavinium, as promised; in the Metamorphoses, cernes is no longer part of Jupiter’s prophecy: the god only says that, if Venus enters the house of the Parcae, she “will see” the tablets containing the fates of her descendants.¹⁷ This highlights the fact that Ovid’s Jupiter, while “quoting” his own Vergilian prophecy, is no longer actually prophesying: rather, he has memorized the prophecy contained in the tablets he has read in the house of the Parcae, and now he limits himself to repeating it for Venus’ benefit.

This brings us back to Ovid’s “clarification” of the relationship between Jupiter and Fate. In the Aeneid there are two conflicting views: sometimes Jupiter appears to be only a mouthpiece of Fate; most of the time, however, Fate seems to be identified with Jupiter’s will itself. It is not by chance that many distinguished Vergilianists wish to propose the second view as the “official” view of Jupiter within the Aeneid.¹⁸ As a matter of fact, the Venus-Jupiter scene in Aen. 1 is one of the passages which modern critics tend to use to support the idea of an identification of Fate with Jupiter’s will. Already Venus in her complaint refers to Jupiter’s previous promises and opinion, thus highlighting the importance of his will in deciding the destiny of the Trojans and of their descendants (pollicitus: quae te, genitor, sententia vertit? “you promised: what opinion, father, has turned you?” 235), though it is not altogether clear how this reference to Jupiter’s will is to be combined with her “weighting fates against opposed fates” (fatis contraria fata rependens, 239); it seems impossible to understand here exactly which idea of the relationship Jupiter-Fate(s) Venus has in mind. In his speech, however, Jupiter is apparently explicit in equating Fate with his own will, as the etymological wordplay fabor … fatorum would also seem to suggest (fabor enim, quando haec te cura remordet, / longius et volvens fatorum arcana movebo, “for, since this worry torments you, I will speak, and, further unrolling the secrets of fate, I will ‘move’ them,” 261–262).¹⁹ The future destiny of Aeneas and his descendants is presented as determined by what he thinks and does: neque me sententia vertit (“no thought has changed me,” 260); his ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono: / imperium sine fine dedi (“to them I set no limits of fortune or time: I gave them a power without end,” 278–279); sic placitum (“so it is decided,” 283, where, in the light of the previous first person verbs, it is easiest to understand mihi, though the absence of an explicit dative is in itself suggestive).²⁰ However, the very line containing the word fata (longius et volvens fatorum arcana movebo), notwithstanding the above mentioned cluster fabor … fatorum, creates a problem: does movebo here mean “I will stir up,” implying that the course of future events is actually set in motion by Jupiter’s words, or does it mean “I will reveal, relate,” so potentially suggesting that Jupiter is here but a mere mouthpiece of the will of Fate (even if, of course, movebo could still mean “I will relate my decisions”)? Are fata here just “the things Jupiter has said,” or are they some power distinct from the god?

The issue is even more interesting if we reflect on the implications of volvens, which suggests the unrolling of a scroll, and hence the reading of a book.²¹ Jupiter’s words are ambiguous: is he referring to a “book of Fate” independent from his will (so DServ. Aen. 10.8, quoted above), or, as the etymological wordplay fabor … fatorum would seem to suggest, the “book of Fate” contains his own very words?²² That ancient exegetes of the Aeneid—as we are about to see—read this line as implying the first alternative is very suggestive in view of Ovid’s decision to develop the hint of writing in Jupiter’s speech into an elaborate description of the tabularia written (evidently; at least preserved) by the Parcae, which he himself has read and memorized, and which he will now reveal to his daughter.²³

The ancient exegesis of the Aeneid was interestingly well aware of the problems presented by 1.262, for the line is cited as an example of the distinction between Fate and divine will in Servius Danielis’ note on 10.8:²⁴

abnveram bello italiam concvrrere tevcris quo modo “abnueram,” cum ipse in primo dixerit bellum ingens geret Italia? [1.263] sed secundum sapientes quosdam alia est necessitas fati, alia voluntas deorum, ⟨etsi contra fatum deorum⟩ [suppl. Timpanaro 1270] vis nulla est:²⁵ quod ipse manifestius in quinto ostendit his versibus vel quae portenderet ira / magna deum uel quae fatorum posceret ordo [5.706–707]: nam et in primo de ira Iunonis ait acti fatis maria omnia circum [1.32], et iterum in primo fatorum arcana se dixit moturum [1.262], non suam voluntatem ostensurum. sed ibi secreto filiae dicit, hic aliter [Daniel, Timpanaro 1278, Murgia: alter F, Thilo] idem invidiose diis omnibus praesentibus videtur loqui propter removendam eorum dissensionem.

I had prohibited Italy from clashing in war with the Teucrians: how can he say “I had prohibited,” when he himself in book 1 has said “Aeneas will wage a great war in Italy” (1.263)? But according to some wise men the necessity of Fate is one thing and the will of the gods another, even if the gods are powerless against Fate. This is shown even more clearly by Virgil himself in these lines from book 5: [Pallas giving Nautes answers] “telling either what the mighty wrath of the gods portended, or what the course of Fate demanded” (5.706–707); after all, in book 1, Virgil said of the wrath of Juno, “driven by the fates all over the seas” (1.32), and again, in book 1, Jupiter said that he would have revealed the secrets of the fates (1.262), and not shown his own will. But there [i.e. at 1.263] he speaks in secret to his daughter, whereas here [i.e. at 10.8], differently, the same Jupiter appears to speak manipulatively²⁶ to the assembly of all the gods, in order to remove their disagreement.

Servius Danielis addresses here a notorious difficulty: in the council of the gods at the beginning of Book 10, Jupiter says that at some point in the past he had prohibited a war in Italy, also implying that the gods had given their assent to his order (10.6–7 quianam sententia vobis / versa retro …? “Why have you changed your mind?”), whereas in his dialogue with Venus in Book 1, he had predicted the war to come (bellum ingens geret Italia etc., 1.263).²⁷ Servius Danielis cites the view of “some wise men,” according to whom Vergil would posit a difference between the necessity of Fate and the will of the gods, and hence, of Jupiter himself. Three passages would sustain this view: 5.706–707, where the narrator, apparently, makes a distinction (vel … vel) between the anger (and hence the will) of the gods and the course of the fates; 1.32, where the narrator speaks of the fates which drive the Trojans all over the seas, so implying, evidently, that there are two different causes for the Trojan wanderings, Fate and the wrath of Juno;²⁸ and, most importantly because it involves Jupiter himself, 1.262, Jupiter’s reference to his “revealing” (since this is clearly what DServ. takes movebo to mean) of the fatorum arcana in his dialogue with Venus.

In Servius Danielis’ note there follows a rather difficult transition, again introduced by sed.²⁹ The “solution” eventually given to the problem of 10.6–10 is that ibi (that is, at 1.263 bellum ingens geret Italia etc., and not at 1.262 longius et volvens, etc.) Jupiter speaks in secret to his daughter—and so presumably speaks sincerely, telling her truthfully that a war in Latium is foreseen by Fate—whereas hic (that is, at 10.6–9) the god speaks to the assembly of the gods—and so presumably dissimulates that truth, presenting the war in Latium as something that could have been avoided.

It is not clear if this solution to the problem of 10.6–9 is to be connected with the view of the sapientes that Jupiter’s will is something potentially distinct from Fate, or if instead Servius Danielis is leaving unexplained the relevance of this view to the problem of 10.6–10. If we were to accept the second possibility, we could think that the relevance of the thesis according to which in the Aeneid (at least sometimes) there is a distinction between Fate and the will of Jupiter, to the problem of 10.6–10—left unexplained by Servius Danielis—could be that at a certain point in the past Jupiter had expressed his will, prohibiting a war in Italy; then, however, Juno’s will interfered with that of Jupiter’s, provoking the war all the same. Accordingly, in Book 10 he reminds the gods of his previous prohibition, while in Book 1 he had rhetorically represented to Venus that the war in Italy, the future result of Juno’s intervention (which he was evidently able to foresee), was something positively fated to happen. This solution would be almost the opposite of Servius Danielis’ ultimate one (sed ibi secreto filiae dicit etc.), because in this solution the war in Latium is to be seen as not fated to happen, but only provoked by Juno’s intervention, notwithstanding Jupiter’s original prohibition, and, in Book 1, Jupiter would have falsely presented the war in Latium as something decided by Fate in order to reassure his daughter.³⁰

Otherwise, if we instead think that Servius Danielis’ “ultimate” solution to the problem of 10.6–10 is to be connected with the view of the sapientes that Jupiter’s will is something potentially distinct from Fate, we should probably imagine that the commentator thinks that Jupiter, at some point in the past, would have forbidden a war in Italy, notwithstanding his knowledge of the fact that it was fated to happen; at 1.293 he would have revealed to Venus, in a private conversation, that he knew the truth—that is, the fated nature of the future war in Latium, while in Book 10 he would have referred to his previous prohibition, and to the gods’ acceptance of it, in order to appease the riotous assembly of the gods. This would imply the distinction of the sapientes between Jupiter’s will (contrary to the war) and the decrees of Fate (which instead schedules a war), and above all would cohere with Servius Danielis’ final explanation. Harrison approvingly summarizes Servius’ Danielis view with these words: “the politic Jupiter adapts his words to the situation, saying one thing to Venus alone in book 1 and another to pacify the assembled and at least partly rebellious gods in book 10” (Harrison 1991, 60). From Harrison’s note, however, it is not possible to understand clearly what he thinks about the details of this solution. In fact, this cannot simply mean that Jupiter is lying to the assembled gods in Book 10, since it must be true that he had once expressed his opposition to the war (for at 10.6–7 the gods themselves are said to have accepted that prohibition), and so we should confront here two issues: (i) a clear distinction between Jupiter’s will and the decrees of Fate, as was said above; and (ii) the strange idea that Jupiter would have once tried to forbid something which he knew was fated to happen.³¹

At any rate, that this is what (the source of) Servius Danielis has in his mind is confirmed by the fact that his “ultimate” solution to the problem of 10.6–10 had already been advanced by Servius on 1.261: tibi fabor enim] hoc loco excusat quaestionem futuram, quasi Veneri dolenti quae vera sunt dicat, sed aliter loquatur cunctis praesentibus dis: dicet enim in decimo [8] “abnueram bello Italiam concurrere Teucris” (for i will tell you] in this place [i.e. by emphatically saying tibi] he prevents a future problem, as if he were saying the truth to Venus in her grief, when he speaks differently to all the gods in assembly; for in Book 10 [line 8] he will say “I had prohibited Italy to move war against the Teucrians”). Here, quae vera sunt must mean “the war in Latium as decreed by Fate,” whereas when Jupiter speaks to the assembled gods in Aen. 10 he refers evidently to something which is not true, and which cannot but be the fact that the war in Latium was not decreed by Fate, but instead has been provoked by the gods’ intervention, in violation of his previous prohibition. Also in this formulation, this explanation presupposes both a distinction between Jupiter’s will and Fate, and the awkward situation of a Jupiter attempting to prohibit the fulfillment of the decrees of Fate.

The contradiction in Aen. 10 is an intriguing problem, but what interests us now is the Servian thesis in itself; that is, the idea that in the Aeneid there is no coincidence between Jupiter’s will and the decrees of Fate. The ancient exegetes tend to underline the difference between Fate and Jupiter’s will, and this obviously means that they were well aware of the contradictoriness of Vergil’s position about Jupiter and Fate (cf., explicitly, DServ. Aen. 8.398 nec pater omnipotens Troiam nec fata vetabant: notandum quod hic Iovem a fatis separat, cum alibi iungat, ut “sic fata deum rex / sortitur” (3.375–376), “we must notice that here he separates Jupiter from the fates, while elsewhere he unites them, as at ‘thus does the king of the gods cast the lots of fate’ ”). There is no way of overlooking those passages which clearly do imply an identification of the two powers, and elsewhere Servius himself sustains this identification: see e.g. on 10.628, quae voce gravaris] quae negas fato; vox enim Iovis fatum est: Statius [Theb. 1.213] “et vocem [sc. Iovis] fata secuntur” etc. (“what you refuse with your voice] what you refuse by fate: for fate is the voice of Jupiter: Statius ‘and fates follow Jupiter’s voice’ ”);³² and on 12.808, sed Iuno, sciens fatum esse quicquid Iuppiter dixerit (but Juno, knowing that anything Jupiter might say is fate).³³ Ovid, faced with this quaestio (what is exactly the relationship between Jupiter and Fate in the Aeneid?), chooses to embrace the same view of the sapientes cited by Servius Danielis on 10.8, that of a complete separation between Jupiter and Fate. He does so in a typically exaggerated way, very clearly showing that he is developing a parody of a critical discourse on the Aeneid and its contradictions—and specifically on the self-contradictory prophecy of Jupiter in Aeneid 1. On the eve of the killing of Caesar, Ovid drastically and parodically simplifies Vergil’s complexity and contradictoriness. If I have insisted on the reaction of the ancient exegetes to the problems posited by Jupiter and Fate in the Aeneid, it is because I think that we should be prepared to consider the possibility that Ovid himself is already reading an “annotated” Aeneid, so to speak, in which such quaestiones as the contradiction between different views on the Jupiter/Fate relationship in the Aeneid are already part of the critical debate.³⁴

2 Jupiter and Fate in the Rest of the Metamorphoses

Ovid provides clarity where Vergil had been obscure and complicated. In Ovid’s view, the Parcae, not Jupiter, are responsible for the destiny of the world. The Parcae are present also in the Aeneid,³⁵ but their role there is wholly mysterious, and there is no way of locating them in a triangulation with Jupiter and Fate. In the Metamorphoses, instead, the role of the Parcae as a power superior to that of Jupiter is maintained through the whole poem. At Met. 5.532 the first and only occurrence of the name of the Parcae in the poem appears in Jupiter’s mouth. Ceres asks Jupiter about allowing Proserpina to come back to the world of the living. The god, after saying that, after all, Pluto is really in love with her daughter, and that in any case he would not be an unworthy husband for her, assures her that, if Ceres really wants to part them, Proserpina will reach the sky again—but only if in the Underworld she has touched no food: nam sic Parcarum foedere cautum est (“for such is the rule decreed by the Parcae,” 5.532). Ceres is determined to win her daughter back, but “Fate does not allow that” (non ita fata sinunt, 534), because she has eaten seven seeds from a pomegranate.³⁶ Already in this passage, then, the subordination of Jupiter’s will to the decrees of the Parcae is clear. Ovid is explicit and coherent on this matter.

Ovid’s vision of the relationship between Jupiter and Fate is confirmed by the passage in Book 1 where Jupiter is about to blast mankind with thunderbolts, but suddenly remembers that it was fated that some day the universe would collapse, devoured by a cosmic conflagration (1.253–258):

Iamque erat in totas sparsurus fulmina terras,

sed timuit, ne forte sacer tot ab ignibus aether

conciperet flammas longusque ardesceret axis.

esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, adfore tempus,

quo mare, quo tellus correptaque regia caeli

ardeat et mundi moles operosa laboret.³⁷

And he was already ready to scatter lightning bolts all over the earth, but he feared that the sacred aether might be ignited by so many fires and that the distant axis of the world might burn. He also remembers that Fate had decreed that there would come a time when sea, land, and the royal palace of the sky would be seized by fire and burn, and the elaborate structure of the universe would be in distress.

There is a witty irony here: in a passage where Ovid most clearly affirms Jupiter’s independence from Fate, what the god suddenly remembers is the Stoic doctrine of the final ἐκπύρωσις.³⁸ Also according to mainstream Stoic doctrine, however, Jupiter is of course to be identified with Fate: see e.g. Cic. ND 1.40 idemque (sc. Chrysippus) etiam legis perpetuae et aeternae vim, quae quasi dux vitae et magistra officiorum sit, Iovem dicit esse eandemque [eundemque Roby] fatalem necessitatem appellat, sempiternam rerum futurarum veritatem (“He also states that the power of the enduring and eternal law, which he calls the guide of life and mentor in our duties, is Jupiter, and he calls that law (or, with Roby, calls him) the necessity of Fate, the enduring truth of future events,” trans. Walsh).³⁹ What Ovid presents here is a contradiction in terms: it is a profoundly un-Stoic Jupiter who remembers a doctrine about a fated, final, and Stoic, ἐκπύρωσις.⁴⁰ The philosophical paradox here highlights the fact that, already in this passage, Ovid shows us a Jupiter entirely subordinated to Fate.

Finally, there is a third passage in the Metamorphoses where Ovid theorizes about the relationship between Jupiter and Fate, the speech Jupiter gives to the assembled gods about the rejuvenation of Iolaus and the sudden growth of Callirhoe’s sons at Met. 9.426–438. This passage has been studied by Luigi Galasso in an excellent article, and I will limit myself here to highlighting some of its Vergilian connections.⁴¹

As Barchiesi (2001, 131) says, Jupiter’s description of the tabularia of Fate arrives “just in time, since the poem has had little to say about Fate.” It is true that the Metamorphoses had little to say about Fate, but that little is always associated with the role of Jupiter vis-à-vis Fate, is always developed in relationship with the Aeneid, especially with Jupiter’s prophecy in Book 1 and his intervention in the council of Book 10, and is also pointedly coherent—pointedly, that is, in constant and polemical contrast with Vergil’s incoherence on this matter. However, especially in the council scene of Book 9, some of Vergil’s more problematic approaches to the relationship of Jupiter with Fate might also be reproduced, or at least hinted at, by Ovid.

After the miraculous rejuvenation of Iolaus through Hercules and Hebe’s intercession, the goddess Themis makes a prophetic speech in which she announces, among other things, that the children of Callirhoe are also about to be miraculously transformed into grown-up men, courtesy of Jupiter himself. The other gods are outraged by this news, and each of them would like to be able to rejuvenate their sons. Jupiter intervenes to rebuke the riotous gods, and to explain that those miracles can happen only because they are required by Fate, which is a power stronger than all the other gods, including Jupiter himself (9.426–438):

cui studeat, deus omnis habet, crescitque favore

turbida seditio, donec sua Iuppiter ora

solvit, et “o! nostri siqua est reverentia” dixit

“quo ruitis? tantumne aliquis sibi posse videtur,

fata quoque ut superet? fatis Iolaus in annos, 430

quos egit, rediit; fatis iuvenescere debent

Calliroe geniti, non ambitione nec armis.

vos etiam, quoque hoc animo meliore feratis,

me quoque fata regunt. quae si mutare valerem,

nec nostrum seri curvarent Aeacon anni, 435

perpetuumque aevi florem Rhadamanthus haberet

cum Minoe meo, qui propter amara senectae

pondera despicitur, nec quo prius ordine regnat.”

Each god has someone whose cause they support, and because of their partiality the turbulent mutiny grows, until Jupiter opens his mouth and says: “Oh, if you have any reverence for me, where are you rushing to? Does anyone think he is so powerful as to overcome Fate as well? By Fate Iolaus was restored to the years which he had passed. By Fate the children of Callirhoe must become men before their time, not by ambition or arms. Fate rules even you, and, yes, even me, so that you can tolerate this with a better mind. If I had power to alter it, old age would not bend low my Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus would enjoy a perpetual youth with my Minos, who is now despised because of the bitter weight of old age, and no longer reigns in his former majesty.”

Let us see how Ovid develops here his critical discourse about Jupiter and Fate in the Aeneid.⁴² Jupiter’s address to the seditious gods at Met. 9.428–438 clearly recalls Jupiter’s addresses to the less literally seditious but still riotous gods at Aen. 10.6–15 and 104–112.⁴³ On the other hand, the more general context rather recalls the other “fateful” passage in Aen. 10, that is the Hercules-Jupiter scene at 10.464–473; in both cases the issue revolves around the possibility of subverting Fate as far as regards the destiny of a son of a divinity, to be saved from death in the Aeneid, from old age in the Metamorphoses; and in both cases Jupiter reminds his interlocutor(s) that he himself has suffered similar tragedies (respectively, the death of Sarpedon, and the old age of Rhadamanthus and Minos).⁴⁴

Ovid once again interprets and corrects Vergil and his view of the relationship Jupiter-Fate. In this case, he makes explicit what in the Hercules-Jupiter passage was, as we have seen above, ambiguously expressed. While Homer’s Zeus in Iliad 16 was clearly presented as more powerful than Fate, which was then possibly to be identified with his own will (for Hera says that he could have saved Sarpedon from his fated death), Vergil’s Jupiter, though directly echoing the words of Zeus, was ambiguously presented as acquiescing to a Fate about which it was unclear whether he could have subverted it or not. Why is Zeus letting Sarpedon die? We cannot know: no explanation is given for his behavior. Ovid’s Jupiter, on the contrary, is very clear, and removes all doubts: me quoque fata regunt. quae si mutare valerem etc. (434).

Additionally, the intertextuality of the scene in Metamorphoses 9 with the council of the gods that opens Aen. 10 can be seen as an interpretative and corrective move. In this case, Vergil’s Jupiter was also unclear and contradictory regarding his relationship with Fate. In his first, opening speech he refers to a past prohibition on his part, a move which might seem to suggest that his power is stronger than that of Fate (even if the other gods evidently have in their turn the power of contesting it); furthermore, the prophecy of the Punic Wars (adveniet iustum pugnae (ne arcessite) tempus etc., “there shall come the right time for war, do not hasten it,” 11–14) which he delivers immediately afterwards contains no reference to Fate as having any role in its historical necessity. His second and final speech, however, closes with a declaration which since antiquity has been seen as hinting at a different conception: rex Iuppiter omnibus idem. / fata viam invenient (“Jupiter is an equal king for everybody. The Fates will find their way,” 112–113). Servius Danielis observes: et videtur hic ostendisse, aliud esse fata, aliud Iovem (“and here he seems to show that Fate is one thing, Jupiter another”). What is more, Servius’ comment here implies a further distinction between Jupiter and Fate: scit enim hoc esse fatale, ut Aeneas imperet in Italia (“for Jupiter knows that it is fated that Aeneas rule over Italy”): once again, Jupiter is not identified with Fate; he is the one who knows Fate (Timpanaro 1989, 1272). Harrison himself in his note here refers to Jupiter’s “apparent separation of his own powers from those of destiny” (Harrison 1991, 90).⁴⁵ Ovid removes the contradiction inherent in Vergil’s depiction of Jupiter in the council of the gods, again resolutely “following” the “Servian” approach to the problem—so that once again we might wonder if discussions of the kind presupposed by the Servian commentary were perhaps already current at the time of the composition of the Metamorphoses.

But let us come back to the other major contradiction aroused by Jupiter’s speeches in the council of Aeneid 10, that between his reference to the war in Latium as something he had previously forbidden (6–10) and what he has said to Venus in Book 1 (293 bellum ingens geret Italia etc.). According to the most popular critical approach to this issue, which is ultimately inspired by Servius Danielis’ note on 10.8, which we have discussed above, Jupiter is here mendacious in his information to the other gods: his words to Venus in Book 1 would demonstrate that he fully knows that the war in Latium was fated to happen, or even that he wanted the war to happen.⁴⁶ Though the problem is very complicated, and probably insoluble, the inconsistency here between Aeneid 1 and 10 is unmistakable. Now, if there are no inconsistencies in Ovid’s depiction of the relationship Jupiter-Fate inside the episode of Book 9 we are considering—Jupiter’s speech to the rebellious gods about the rejuvenation of Iolaus and the sudden growth of the sons of Callirhoe—and between this depiction and that which Ovid will give in Book 15, there are perhaps at least some degrees of inconsistency between this episode and what preceded it in Book 9 itself.

In his speech to the rebellious gods, Jupiter insists most clearly and most resolutely that the miracles that have outraged them had been decreed by Fate. As Galasso says, “Non c’è nessun passo nella poesia ovidiana in cui la parola fatum venga ripetuta con un pathos anche lontanamente simile. Giove ha qualche difficoltà a spiegare che si tratta di una forza al di sopra degli dèi, dovendo al contempo giustificare il ringiovanimento di Iolao e la crescita dei figli di Calliroe” (2002, 129–130). The emphasis Jupiter places on the superiority of Fate over all other powers, himself included, betrays the difficulty he encounters in explaining to the other gods that the rejuvenation of Iolaus and the growth of the sons of Callirhoe have happened because of the decrees of Fate, since nothing in the previous narrative had even remotely suggested that such was the case. Both the cases which have provoked the indignation of the gods in Metamorphoses 9 have been described as gifts conceded by some god or goddess as a response to someone else’s prayers: Iolaus has been rejuvenated by Hebe, conquered by the prayers of his husband Hercules (hoc illi dederat Iunonia muneris Hebe, / victa viri precibus, 400–401); no reason is given for Hebe’s request for the rejuvenation of Iolaus, but we know from Euripides’ Heraclidae (849–858) that it had been Iolaus himself who had asked Hebe and Zeus about being made young again (for one day only) in order to seek revenge on his enemy Eurystheus: a very human and, apparently, scarcely a “fateful” reason. And of course, Iolaus invokes Hebe because she is the wife of his dear friend Hercules. As for the sons of Callirhoe, in Themis’ prophecy, it is Jupiter himself who will concede to the suppliant Callirhoe “the gifts of his stepdaughter and daughter-in-law” (i.e. of Hebe), that is, will transform her sons into men while they are still in their childhood years (tum demum magno petet hos Acheloia supplex / ab Iove Calliroe natis infantibus annos; / … / Iuppiter his motus privignae dona nurusque / praecipiet, facietque viros inpubibus annis, 413–417). If the troublesome line 415 (neve necem sinat esse diu victoris inultam, “and he will not allow the death of the winner be unavenged”) were to be parenthesized, as in Tarrant’s text, Themis would not even explain the reason for Callirhoe’s rather peculiar request—in any case, we know from other sources that she wanted her sons to avenge the killing of her husband Alcmaeon: vengeance, again. And while Themis does not say anything either about why Jupiter did accede to Callirhoe’s request, we know from Ps.-Apollodorus (3.91) that the two were lovers.⁴⁷

There is no hint of Fate in these divine actions, either in what Ovid says or in what he left implicit and to be reconstructed by the astute reader.⁴⁸ This applies also to Jupiter’s speech to the rebellious gods in Metamorphoses 9, in which, just as in his words to the equally rebellious gods in Aeneid 10, there is a strong suspicion that he may be not wholly honest in his insistence on the key role of Fate in human affairs.

Perhaps, then, Ovid not only interprets Vergil’s inconsistencies in matters of Fate in order to “correct” them (his Jupiter is most clearly and explicitly dominated by Fate); he also hints at them in order to reproduce them, but more subtly.

3 Venus and Jupiter from Naevius to Ovid

We have seen above the metanarrative significance of sola, the word with which Jupiter addresses Venus at the beginning of his speech at Met. 15.807: the goddess is not “alone” in wanting to save her son from fated death; Jupiter himself had wished to save his son Sarpedon from fated death in Iliad 16. Similar metanarrative implications are also present in the last words of this first, introductory section of Jupiter’s speech to his daughter: invenies illic incisa adamante perenni / fata tui generis: legi ipse animoque notavi / et referam, ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri (813–815): the importance of etiamnum has been remarked upon by both Barchiesi and Hardie: “What follows clearly shows that Jupiter can speak thus because he has read the Aeneid, and he is going to replay for Venus’ behalf—who must be a little absent minded, cf. 815: ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri—the prophecy concerning the fate of the Julian line that he had already expounded for her in Aeneid 1” (Barchiesi 2001, 131); “Etiamnum potrebbe esprimere sorpresa che Venere debba ancora sentirsi ricordare il futuro: dopo tutto, proprio lei aveva portato il profetico scudo a Enea” (Hardie 2015, 604, with reference to Barchiesi). The reference to Jupiter’s prophecy in Aeneid 1 is of course especially appropriate, since here Ovid is reworking that very scene. This cross-reference to a previous meeting of Jupiter and Venus in the epic tradition is not just a typically Ovidian move, but fits into an already Vergilian pattern of cross-referencing between epic divine dialogues which Ovid, once again, both exaggerates and “clarifies.”

A problematic aspect of the passages of the Aeneid dealing with divine assemblies or dialogues is that they constantly refer to an epic tradition of divine communications which is difficult or impossible to reconstruct, and not only because of the loss of Naevius’ and Ennius’ poems. For example: (i) in Book 1 Venus refers to promises that Jupiter had made to her in the past; when and where this happened we do not know, even if the reader acquainted with Ennius and Naevius was certainly in a better position than we are in today to recognize this reference; (ii) at 4.227–228 Jupiter refers to some unknown episode in which Venus vouched for her son to him: non illum nobis genetrix pulcherrima talem / promisit (“It was not such a man as this that his beautiful mother promised us”); (iii) as we have seen, in the divine assembly of Book 10, Jupiter refers to some unknown meeting in which he had prohibited the war in Latium. Vagueness and confusion also characterize the possibility of foreseeing future divine communications: at 1.279–282 Jupiter predicts a reconciliation of Juno, but it is not immediately clear when this will happen, and it took Feeney’s 1984 article to clarify once and for all that this reconciliation is not to be identified with the scene between Jupiter and Juno in Book 12.

The references of Vergil’s Venus to Jupiter’s past promises about the glorious future of the Trojans/Romans at Aen. 1.234–237 are particularly interesting from the perspective of the Venus-Jupiter scene in Met. 15. As was said above, in all probability there is here cross-referencing between the Aeneid and the epic poems of Naevius and Ennius. In the surviving fragments of Ennius’ Annals there are of course (scanty) traces of the council of the gods in which the destiny of Romulus was discussed (Ann. 51–55 Sk.), but we have no knowledge of any “private” meeting between Jupiter and Venus in that poem. However, as is well known, such a meeting was featured in Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, and the Venus-Jupiter scene of Aen. 1 is allegedly modeled on it: hic locus [i.e. the storm and the Venus-Jupiter meeting in Aen. 1] totus sumptus a Naeuio est ex primo libro Belli Punici. illic enim aeque Venus Troianis tempestate laborantibus cum Iove queritur et sequuntur verba Iouis filiam consolantis spe futurorum (“all of this passage is derived from the first book of Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, for there too Venus complains to Jupiter while the Trojans are tossed by a tempest, and there follow Jupiter’s words consoling his daughter with the hope of future things,” Macrob. Sat. 6.2.30 = Naev. BP fr. 14 Strz.). It is probable that, while consoling Venus “with the hope of future things,” Jupiter gave her those “books of the future” that (as we know from another source), the goddess gave in her turn to Anchises: Naevius enim dicit Venerem libros futura continentes Anchisae dedisse (“for Naevius says that Venus had given to Anchises books containing the future,” Schol. cod. Par. lat. 7930 (11th century) on Aen. 7.123 = fr. 9 Strz.). This is a further reason to see a reference to the unrolling of a scroll of fata at Aen. 1.262 longius et voluens fatorum arcana movebo (see above),⁴⁹ and it raises further complications in Ovid’s depiction of Jupiter consulting the tabularia of the Parcae: is Ovid “returning” to Naevius’ version of the dialogue between Venus and Jupiter? That is, was Naevius’ Jupiter already just a simple reader of books of Fate written by other powers, or were those books his own work? We cannot know, but what is certain is that there is a “book of Fate”-related thread which connects the three Venus-Jupiter scenes in Naevius, Vergil, and Ovid.

In the Metamorphoses Ovid repeatedly plays upon the Vergilian difficulties concerning the cross-references between past and present divine meetings, both exaggerating and clarifying them. Mars’ famous quotation of the words of Ennius’ Jupiter at Met. 14.814 (= Enn. Ann. 54 Sk.) is to be seen in such terms, as an exaggeration of a Vergilian tendency to refer to past divine promises and past assemblies about which it is not very clear where and when they happened; Ovid, instead, is, once again, very clear. Furthermore, on the occasion of the apotheosis of Aeneas, Ovid ironically multiplies the reconciliations of Juno (14.581–582, 592–593), as a comment on the plurality of Juno’s reconciliations in the Aeneid and the epic tradition.⁵⁰ On the other hand, in contrast with the remarkable memory of Mars in the later scene of the apotheosis of Romulus, and in striking contrast with the Vergilian tendency to refer to past promises and previous encounters, both Venus and Juno are presented as completely forgetful of Jupiter’s promises of immortality for Aeneas in the Aeneid.⁵¹

Venus’ forgetfulness resurfaces here in Metamorphoses 15 on the occasion of her dialogue with Jupiter. After all, Venus’ forgetfulness has been literally evoked by the goddess herself in the speech she gives to every god she encounters at 765–778: quid nunc antiqua recordor / damna mei generis? timor hic meminisse priorum / non sinit (“Why do I remember now the ancient sufferings of my descendants? This present fear does not allow me to remember the past,” 774–776). At the same time, we must bear in mind two further complications: (i) in his prophecy in Aen. 1, Jupiter has said nothing about the circumstances of the death of Julius Caesar, so Venus has at least some justification in her worrying about the homicidal conspiracy she is looking at; above all, (ii) in that prophecy it is also famously unclear whether Jupiter is referring to Caesar or to Augustus when he speaks of the Troianus … Caesar, a Iulius descended from Iulus, whose power will end with the Ocean, and fame with the stars, and whom Venus will one day welcome in the sky as a god (Aen. 1.286–290). It is not easy to discern what exactly Ovid is doing with this Vergilian ambiguity. Surely, he once again clarifies: in the prophecy of Ovid’s Jupiter, where both rulers are mentioned, it is very clear what refers to whom—what to Caesar, and what to Augustus—and already this might be clarification enough. Hardie, however, is probably right when he says that Ovid is primarily interested in supporting an identification of the Troianus … Caesar with Julius Caesar rather than with Augustus: “Quando Giove conclude il suo discorso con un’istruzione a Venere di trasformare Giulio in un dio, ci può essere implicita una lettura del Caesar di Aen. 1.286–290 come Giulio piuttosto che come Augusto (289–290 hunc tu olim caelo … / accipies secura, ‘un giorno lo accoglierai sicura in cielo,’ ” Hardie 2015, 602). Where Vergil is obscure and ambiguous, Ovid corrects him.