# The Deifications of Ino in Ovid's *Fasti* and *Metamorphoses*

K. Sara Myers

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1624

DOI : 10.54563/eugesta.1624

## Electronic reference

K. Sara Myers, « The Deifications of Ino in Ovid’s *Fasti* and *Metamorphoses* », *Eugesta* [Online], 15 | 2025, Online since 25 novembre 2025, connection on 25 février 2026. URL : https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1624

## Copyright

CC-BY
# The Deifications of Ino in Ovid's *Fasti* and *Metamorphoses*

K. Sara Myers

## OUTLINE

* *Metamorphoses* 4.416-562
* *Fasti* 6.473-568

## TEXT

1. Ovid narrates two versions of the deification of Ino and her son Melicertes, one in the *Metamorphoses* and one in the *Fasti*. As is the case with the other episodes shared between both poems, we are encouraged to read one version in the light of the other and a comparison can reveal important similarities and differences between the two poems.¹ Most obviously, in the *Fasti* Greek mythology becomes the background for Roman religious aetiology.² In the *Metamorphoses* Ino and Melicertes are transformed into the Greek deities Leucothoe and Palaemon (4.416-562), while in the *Fasti* they are also identified with the Italian gods Mater Matuta and Portunus (6.473-568).³ Generic contrast has been suggested in the epic episode's emphasis on Juno's wrath and her visit to the Underworld, while in the elegiac *Fasti* episode Ino's suffering is strongly featured.⁴ Both passages, however, share a marked intertextual engagement with Vergil's *Aeneid*, which establishes links between Ino and Aeneas' deifications and between the two Ovidian passages. Ovid's two narratives of Ino's apotheosis address the question of female deification, a topic of contemporary political relevance.⁵ In the *Metamorphoses* there are only four female deifications, while this number doubles in the *Fasti*. In each poem Ino's deification is matched with another female deification that can be associated with Augustus' wife Livia: Hersilie in the *Metamorphoses*, Carmentis in the *Fasti*. While Ino's deification provides a model for the divine elevation of a woman, her mythological background troubles this identification.
2

Ovid would have had numerous literary sources for the myths of Ino, and the associated figures Athamas, Phrixus and Helle, and Melicertes. Ino appears in Greek literature as early as Homer (Od. 5.333-5) and Hesiod (Th. 976). The tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides all treated the myth; its popularity in ancient drama continued up to the Latin authors Ennius and Accius.⁶ There are three main events in the mythology of Ino, daughter of Cadmus. She first receives prominence by nursing the newly born Dionysus, her (dead) sister Semele's child (Met. 3.313-15, F. 6.485-6). Next, she is variously the first, second, or third wife to Athamas, and is alternat-ively victim or victimizer, murderer or attempted murderer of her own children or her stepchildren (Phrixus and Helle: F. 3.849-76; Apollod. 1.9.1, Hygin. Fab. 2)⁷ or victim of a plot by another wife of Athamas.⁸ Finally, as a result of her care of Bacchus, Ino is driven mad by the jealous Hera/Juno and attempts to kill herself and Melicertes. In some versions she does kill Melicertes (Apollod. 3.4.3), but in others she is rescued and deified along with her son and they are worshipped as the Greek gods Leucothea and Palaemon (Met. 4. 539-42, F. 6.543-8).⁹ In a Roman sequel Ino and Melicertes are identified with Mater Matuta and Portunus (F. 6.545, 547).
3 While Ino's deification as Leucothea is attested already by Homer (Od. 5.333-5), her identification with the Roman Mater Matuta appears first in Cicero (Tusc. 1.28 Quid? Ino Cadmi filia nonne Λευκοθέα nominata a Graecis Matuta habetur a nostris?, 'What? Is not Ino, daughter of Cadmus, called Leucothea by the Greeks, regarded by our people as Matuta?'). Cicero's source is unknown and he does not explain the syncretism. Spencer Cole suggests that it was the death of his daughter Tullia and the case for her possible consecration that first motivated Cicero to consider female deification: "The really surprising - and of course necessary - development with the Consolatio is the explicit inclusion of women."¹⁰ The reason, however, for Ino's insertion in Cicero's list in the Tusculan Disputations of "boundary-crossing mortals" along with the conventionally cited Romulus, Hercules, Liber, and the Dioscuri, who "furnish established precedents for the divinization of mortals,"¹¹ is difficult to understand. As a "precedent for merit-based deification"¹² what can she have achieved? In fact, in the De Natura Deorum Cicero has Cotta object to Ino's claim to deification simply on the grounds of her paternity (3.48 Ino dea ducetur et Λευκοθέα a Graecis a nobis Matuta dicetur cum sit Cadmi filia? 'Is Ino to be considered a goddess and be called Leucothea by the Greeks and Matuta by us because she is the daughter of Cadmus?').¹³ Ino's paradigmatic role as the only mortal woman to be deified in Cicero's list gives her deification a prominence that should not be ignored. She may be seen to serve as a precedent for Ovid's seemingly invented divinizations of Hersilie in the Fasti and that of Carmentis in the Metamorphoses.¹⁴ Carmentis' prophecy of the future divinization of Livia, which was resisted by both Augustus and Tiberius but widely discussed and propagated outside of Rome, specifically links these poems with this contemporary issue. It is well known that "Ovid writes more about Livia and the question of deification than any other surviving writer of his lifetime, not only reflecting the tensions and biases that underpin the new representations of elite women, but also helping to forge the discourse."¹⁵

**Metamorphoses 4.416-562**

4 Deification is an unusual form of transformation in the *Metamorphoses*, but it notably becomes more frequent at the end of
5

the poem in Books 14-15. 16 While the deification of Hercules at Met. 9.239-72 has most often been seen to serve as the paradigm for the imperial apotheoses, the episode of Ino and Melicertes stands out as the first extended example of apotheosis in the *Metamorphoses* (4.416-562), when the two mortals are turned into the Greek deities Leucothoe and Palaemon. 17 The involvement of Venus in Ino and Melicertes' deifications prefigures her advocacy on behalf of Aeneas and Caesar at the end of the poem, thus connecting Ino and Melicertes with the later imperial apotheoses. 18 The next female deification in the poem will be that of Hersilie, Romulus' wife, in Book 14 (829-51), which has been seen as prefiguring the empress Livia's deification. 19 The Ino episode's numerous echoes of the *Aeneid* are well known. 20 Philip Hardie has argued that these Vergilian echoes are part of a Theban "anti-Aeneid" in Met. 3.1-4.603. 21 Juno's indignant speech replays her soliloquy in Aen. 1 (F. 4.22-3 ~A.1.37-40, cf. A. 7.293-322) and introduces the epic theme of anger, which is followed by an extensive description of her visit to the underworld to rouse the fury Tisiphone that is indebted to Juno's summoning of Allecto in Aen. 7 and Vergil's underworld in *Aeneid* 6. 22 Tisiphone's attack on Ino and Athamas recalls Allecto's assault of Amata and Turnus in Aen. 7 (341-77). 23 These epic elements are absent in the retelling of Fasti 6, although the *Aeneid* continues to be an important intertext.

Ino is introduced as Bacchus' aunt (417 *matertera* 'mother's sister') and ominously said to be the only one of her sisters not to have suffered tragedy. 24 Juno, angry at the power of Semele's son Bacchus and Ino's familial pride in him (421 *alumno numine*, 'divine foster-son'), 25 decides to punish Ino and her husband Athamas with madness, on the model of Bacchus' punishment of Pentheus (428-31). 26 Her prime motivation is 'that the royal house of Cadmus should fall' (470-1 *ne regia Cadmi / staret*). Driven mad, Athamas hunts down and kills their young son Learchus, while Ino flees with their other son, Melicertes, and in her mad fearlessness (529 *nullo tardata timore*, 'delayed by no fear') leaps from a cliff into the sea. Ino's leap with her son could be considered as infanticide caused by her madness, but Ovid's language seems to exonerate her of any crime. 27 She seems less affected by the madness than grief at her son's murder (519-21 *tum denique concita mater, / seu dolor hoc fecit seu sparsum causa*
venenum/ exululat, 'then finally the mother having been stirred up howled, either grief caused this or the cause was the sprinkled poison').²⁸ This apparent contradiction or hesitation in the causality of Ino's motivation leaves open the possibility that "when Ino leaps into the sea, it is at least possible to read it as an attempt to protect her remaining son, Melicertes, rather than to kill him."²⁹ At this point Venus (mother of Cadmus' wife Harmonia, cf. 3.132) is said to 'pity the undeserved sufferings of her granddaughter' (531 at Venus immeritae neptis miserata labores) and she entreats Neptune to deify them both as sea deities (536 dis adde tuis). The motivation of pity occurs nowhere else in the poem for apotheosis, but it does recur for metamorphosis in similar cases of attempted suicide or death (6.135 (Arachne/spider), 11.339 (Daedalion/bird), 11.784 (Aesacus/bird). Neptune agrees and turns them into the sea gods Leucothoe and Palaemon:³⁰

adnuit oranti Neptunus et abstulit illis
quod mortale fuit maiestatemque verendam
imposuit nomenque simul faciemque novavit
Leucothoeque deum cum matre Palaemona dixit. (4.539-42)

Neptune approved her prayer and took from them that which was mortal,
and bestowed on them a majesty worthy of reverence
and at the same time changed their name and appearance;
he called the new god Palaemon and his mother Leucothoe.

6 Venus rescues Ino as she does Aeneas in Book 14 (581-608) and both "are rewarded with apotheosis, of a watery kind."³¹ The language of deification here both recalls that of metamorphosis (cf. 2.674-5 novata est / et vox et facies, 'both voice and appearance were changed'),³² but also prefigures the process described in later deifications in the poem where the loss of the mortal element (*quod mortale fuit*) is also specified. We see a similar process in the apotheoses of Hercules (9.268 *mortales Tirynthius exuit artus*, 'the Tirynthian shed his mortal limbs'), Aeneas (14.603 *quidquid in Aenea fuerat mortale repurgat*, 'she washed away whatever was mortal in Aeneas'), Glaucus (13.950 *mortalia demant*, 'they remove what was mortal'), and Romulus (14.824-5 *corpus mortale per auras /*
*dilapsum tenues*, 'his mortal body dissolved into the thin airs'). Ino and Melicertes' acquisition of a 'majesty worthy of reverence' (540 *maiestas verenda*) is analogous to the process Hercules undergoes (9.270 *augusta* . . . *gravitate verendus*, 'venerable in his august gravity'), as well as Romulus, who becomes 'more worthy' (14.828 *dignior*), which suggests "a 'morphing into something larger', i.e. assuming the more-than-human stature traditionally attributed to the gods."³³ The description of the actual physical and metaphysical processes involved in deification, which assimilates apotheosis to metamorphosis, is limited to the deifications in the *Metamorphoses* and does not occur in the *Fasti*.

7

The involvement of Venus in Ino's deification, which is not attested elsewhere,³⁴ connects Ino with the later deifications of Aeneas and Caesar, also engineered by Venus (14.585-608, 15.761-851). I have also suggested that Ino's apotheosis in Ovid anticipates and prefigures the seemingly invented catasterism of Romulus' wife Hersilie at Met. 14.829-51.³⁵ There is no mention in Met. 4 of the Greek cults for either Leucothoe or Palaemon,³⁶ instead, as if to emphasize the theme of metamorphosis and to contrast with the sequence of the *Fasti* episode, a pendent narrative of the metamorphoses of Ino's Theban companions into stone or birds is added, which seems to be original to Ovid.³⁷ The omission of Ino and Melicertes' Roman names is a component of the erasure of Rome from this Theban "anti-Aeneid." The Vergilian echoes in the *Metamorphoses* episode, however, already suggest that Ino's story will continue in Italy, as does that of Aeneas. In an example of "divided allusion," ³⁸the Ino passage in the *Fasti* continues the allusions to the *Aeneid* from Book 7 to Aeneas' arrival at Pallanteum in Book 8.

## Fasti 6.473-568

8

Ovid's *Fasti* episode begins with a short reprise of the episode of Ino and Athamas' madness in Met. 4. and then proceeds to supply a revised sequel, inventing a pendent story to account for the origins of the Italian goddess Mater Matuta and her rites at the *Matralia* celebrated on June 11. We might well wonder how Ino, a figure linked in Greek myth with infanticide, could become associated with a Roman
festival celebrated by 'good mothers' (6.475 *bonae matres*).<sup>39</sup> The origin of the identification of Ino with the Italian Mater Matuta, "one of the most enigmatic female deities in the Etrusco-Italic pantheon,"<sup>40</sup> is unclear, appearing, as we have seen, first in Cicero. Mater Matuta was an indigenous Italic deity, not an imported god from Greece; but, as Maureen Carroll has suggested, "some common elements of Mater Matuta and Leukothea, perhaps the connection to motherhood and the protection of children, allowed the two to be translated and equated."<sup>41</sup> The origins of her name and even the nature of her cult are disputed.<sup>42</sup> Matuta is associated with the sea at F. 6.543 (*numen eris pelagi: natum quoque pontus habebit*, 'you will be a divinity of the sea, your son also the sea will claim'; cf. *Met*. 4.536),<sup>43</sup> but this designation seems to fit the Greek Leucothea and Palaemon/Portunus better than Mater Matuta.<sup>44</sup> Ovid's Italian sequel to the Greek story seems to be original,<sup>45</sup> although Peter Wiseman has suggested that it originated in stage performances.<sup>46</sup> In the Roman aetiological tradition scholars and poets had long been making Greek gods and cults the origins for Roman ones.<sup>47</sup> Servius Tullius, Rome's sixth king (578-535 BCE) is credited with the foundation of temples to Fortuna and Mater Matuta in Rome (F. 6.569-71, Livy 5.19.6, 23.7), which have been identified with excavations near the Church of St Omobono, in the Forum Boarium.<sup>48</sup> The pairing of their temples is reflected in Ovid's treatment of both goddesses on June 11 in the *Fasti*. The myth of Ino explains features of the festival and cult of the *Matralia*, such as the exclusion of slave women (F. 6.551-8, Plut. *Camillus* 5.2; Q.R., 16 [*Mor.* 267D]), the offering of cakes (*testucia*, Varro LL 5.106) and the participants' prayers for nieces and nephews, instead of their own children (F. 6.559-62, Plut. *Camillus*, 5. 1-2; Q.R. 16-17 [*Mor.* 267D-E]; *De frat. amor.* 21 [*Mor.* 492D]).<sup>49</sup> The late second-century Christian writer Tertullian records a custom that seems to have no connection with Ino, that only *univirae* could participate in the *Matralia* (*Monog.* 17).<sup>50</sup>

The passage opens with a request for Bacchus' help in explaining the goddess Mater Matuta and the features of her festival that are explained by Ino's story:

> Quae dea sit, quare famulas a limine templi
> arceat (arcet enim) libaque tosta petat,

9
Bacche racemiferos hedera redimite capillos,
si domus illa tua est, derige vatis opus (6.481-4)

who the goddess is, why she excludes (for she does exclude) female
slaves from the threshold of her temple, and why she asks for toasted
cakes, may you, O Bacchus, whose grape-bearing curls are bound
with ivy, steer the work of the poet, if her house belongs to you.

10
Ovid next gives a summary in a mere twelve lines (487-98) of the
events familiar from Greek mythology and narrated at much greater
length in *Metamorphoses* 4 (416-562).⁵¹ Here, in what is merely a
prequel to the following Italian narrative, we hear how Juno's anger
was turned towards Ino after she nursed Bacchus, that it was
Athamas who was driven mad by Juno (489 *hinc agitur furiis Athamas
et imagine falsa*, 'then Athamas was driven by furies and a false
image'), while Ino first buries Learchus before she seizes Melicertes
'with frenzied arms' (497 *insanis natum complexa lacertis*) and leaps
into the sea. In the *Metamorphoses* Venus rescues the two from a
watery death by turning them into the gods Leucothoe and
Palaemon, but in this version they are instead transported, untrans-
formed (*nondum*), to Italy by Panope and her sister nereids: ⁵²

excipit inlaesos Panope centumque sorores,
et placido lapsu per sua regna ferunt.
nondum Leucothea, nondum puer ille Palaemon
verticibus densi Thybridis ora tenent (6.499-502)

Panope and her hundred sisters receive them unharmed and bring
them through their realms in a smooth glide. They reach the mouth
of the Tiber dense with eddies, she not yet Leucothea, nor that
boy Palaemon.

11
The echo of Vergil's description of the Tiber at Aeneas' arrival in Italy
establishes a parallel between Ino and Aeneas (Aen. 7.30-1 *Tiberinus* . .
. *verticibus rapidis*) that continues throughout the passage. 53 Like
Aeneas in *Aeneid* 8, Ino arrives at the site of Rome during a Greek
festival being celebrated by Arcadians/Italians ruled by Evander,
although her visit predates Aeneas'. She finds, as did Aeneas, violence
in primitive Italy and is further pursued by Juno's wrath. In the (in
either case) aptly named *lucus Semelae Stimulaene*<sup>54</sup> Ino
comes across *Maenadas Ausonias* (504, cf. 505 *Arcadas*, 507 *Latias* . .
. *Bacchas*), women whose bi-culturalism prefigures Ino's own trans-
formation from Greek to Roman deity.<sup>55</sup> Although the festival's
Dionysian focus should bode well for Ino, Juno once again attempts
to punish her through a reprisal of Pentheus' murder (509-12) and she
instigates (508 *instimulat*) the women to attack Melicertes by
emphasizing Ino's foreignness (510). This time it is Hercules, rather
than Venus, who comes to Ino's assistance as the women flee at his
arrival (523 *turpia femineae terga dedere fugae*, 'they disgracefully
retreated in womanish flight'). Hercules' easy routing of the women
constitutes a humorously female 'elegiac' version of his epic defeat of
the monster Cacus, an event which was narrated to Aeneas by
Evander (*Aen.* 8.213-67) and appears in *Fasti* 1 (543-78, cf. 6.79-82).<sup>56</sup>
Ino's visit dates to the period described by Evander to Aeneas in
*Aeneid* 8 when Hercules was passing through Italy while driving the
cattle of Geryon (F. 6.519 *vaccas* . . . *Hiberas*), although it is left unclear
whether Cacus has already been defeated. Hercules recognizes Ino,
addressing her as *matertera Bacchi* (523), and she tells him her story—
in an edited version:

illa docet partim, partim praesentia nati
continet, et furiis in scelus isse pudet (525-6)

She tells her story in part, but in part the presence of her son
restrains her,
for she is ashamed to have been driven to a crime by the furies.

12

Although her embarrassment is specified as the crime caused by her
moment of temporary madness, Ino's omission of her leap with her
son only serves to draw attention to another more negative part of
her story, which was in fact narrated earlier in *Fasti* 3.849-76, where
as a wicked stepmother (853 *sceleratae fraude novercae*, 'by the
treachery of an evil stepmother') she had attempted to have her step-
children Phrixus and Helle sacrificed to end a famine she had caused
by toasting the grain seed. ⁵⁷ This episode is mentioned again as an
explanation for why servant women (551 *ancillas*) are excluded from
her cult at 6.551-7, where we are told that Cadmus had an affair with
one of Ino's handmaids and it was from her that he learned of Ino's
plot against Helle and Phrixus. Hugh Parker has argued that this prejudiced source of information and Ino's subsequent denial absolves her of any crime (557 *ipsa quidem fecisse negas, sed fama recepit*, 'you yourself deny that you did this, but tradition has accepted it'),<sup>58</sup> but her deliberate obfuscation to Hercules and Ovid's own earlier account of this well-known event (*fama*) makes this doubtful. How do we reconcile these two conflicting portrayals of Ino's character? While Parker has argued that Italy has an ameliorative effect and wipes away Ino's Greek past, Carole Newlands and others have suggested that Ino's earlier background continues to resonate and "'contaminate' the story of Mater Matuta" (526 *scelus isse pudet*, 'she is ashamed that she committed a crime').<sup>59</sup> As we have seen, a central feature of Mater Matuta's cult is explained by Ino's failure as a mother to her own children (and step-children): mothers pray for the children of their siblings and not their own because Ino was 'shown to be an unlucky parent' (560 *ipsa parum felix visa fuisse parens*) and 'more useful as foster-mother to Bacchus than to her own children' (562 *utilior Baccho quam fuit ipsa suis*).<sup>60</sup>

After her second rescue Ino is welcomed into the home of Carmentis, Evander's mother. Here again her actions repeat or prefigure those of Aeneas, who is received into Evander's humble home in *Aeneid* 8.<sup>61</sup> As Lily Panoussi has observed, "Ovid uses Vergil's foundational story, which centers on men's actions, and transforms it into one revolving around women."<sup>62</sup> Carmentis entertains Ino with cakes that serve as the aetion for those offered at the *Matralia* (533 *nunc quoque liba iuvant festis Matralibus illam*, 'even now the cakes please her at the festival of the Matralia').<sup>63</sup> Carmentis, here called *Tegeaea vates* (537) to remind us that she too is a Greek immigrant, proceeds to predict Ino and Melicertes' deifications as both Greek and Roman divinities:

*'laeta canam: gaude, defuncta laboribus Ino'
*dixit, 'et huic populo prospera semper ades.*
*numen eris pelagi: natum quoque pontus habebit.*
*in vestris aliud sumite nomen aquis:*
*Leucothea Grais, Matuta vocabere nostris;*
*in portus nato ius erit omne tuo,*
*quem nos Portunum, sua lingua Palaemona dicet.*
*ite, precor, nostris aequus uterque locis.'*

13
adnuerat, promissa fides; posuere labores,
nomina mutarunt: hic deus, illa dea est (6.541-50).

'I will sing happy news: rejoice, Ino, you have completed your labors,' she said, 'and may you always be favorable to this people. You will be a deity of the sea; the sea will also have your son. Both of you take a different name in your own waters: you will be called Leucothea by the Greeks and Matuta by our people.

All authority over ports will be your son's, whom we call Portunus, his own tongue Palaemon. Go each of you, I pray, friendly to our lands.' Ino nodded in agreement, her fidelity promised. They put aside their labors, they changed their names: this one is a god, she a goddess.

14 Unlike in their rescue from death in *Metamorphoses* 4, no reason or explanation is given for Ino's or her son's deifications.⁶⁴ This is in fact typical of the *Fasti*, which, unlike the *Metamorphoses*, usually does not offer justification for apotheosis nor describe the procedure,⁶⁵ even in cases of the imperial family. We can compare, for example, the extended (but not unambiguous) lists of Caesar and Augustus' achievements in *Met*. 15.745-870 with Caesar's succinct apotheosis at F. 3.697-710 (701 *ipsa virum rapui*; 'I myself snatched him up,' 703 *caelo positus*, 'placed in the sky', cf. 2.144 *caelestem fecit te pater, ille patrem*, 'your father made you divine, Augustus Caesar made his father divine').⁶⁶

15 Carmentis' prophecy reprises her earlier prophecies in *Fasti* 1, in which she predicted the apotheoses of Hercules and the Julian rulers, as well as of herself and the empress Livia (1.509-36, 583-4).⁶⁷ As has been seen, the combination of Carmentis, Evander, Hercules in *Fasti* 6 forms a "neat symmetry" with the earlier episode in *Fasti* 1 on the *Carmentalia* (Jan. 11),⁶⁸ and constitutes one of many closural gestures in Book 6.⁶⁹ The passage in Book 1 begins with Evander's arrival in Italy and includes Hercules' defeat of Cacus at the recently founded Pallanteum (1.461-586). At the end of her prophecy delivered in Book 1 Carmentis offers her own deification as a precedent for that of Livia: 'and as I will one day be consecrated at eternal altars, so Julia Augusta will be a new divinity' (1.535-6 *utque ego perpetuis olim sacrabor in*
aris, / sic *Augusta novum Iulia numen erit*).⁷⁰ Livia's deification was in fact delayed until the reign of Claudius in 42 CE, which, as Anke Walter observes, “makes this one of the very few ‘actual’ prophecies in Latin literature, which can only have been inserted into the *Fasti* after AD 14, when Livia was adopted into the Julian family as Julia Augusta in Augustus' will (Tac. *Ann.* 1.8)”.⁷¹ While Livia had received divine honors in her lifetime in the Eastern provinces and was represented with the attributes of divinity, especially those of Hera and Demeter, both Augustus and Tiberius resisted efforts to deify her both while she was alive and after she died.⁷² After the death of Augustus, Tiberius had considered but rejected deifying his mother, insisting, according to Tacitus, that ‘honors accorded to women should be limited’ (Tac. *Ann.* 1.14.2 *ille moderandos feminarum honores dictitans*).⁷³ The question of her deification arose again when Livia died in 29 CE and was again rejected by Tiberius.⁷⁴ When she was finally deified under Claudius, Marleen Flory argues, “There is no evidence that there was any discussion of Livia’s *merita* ['merits or services'] in Claudius’ announcement to the Senate that he wished her deified; rather, her *merita* was that she had produced the heirs to the throne and had been married to Augustus. On that basis rested the claims as well of all future female relatives of emperors to divine status.”⁷⁵ In his post-exilic poetry Ovid, however, treats Livia as a “goddess-in-the-making.”⁷⁶ Carole Newlands has argued that with his invented story of Carmentis, “Ovid presents the idea of female deification as not foreign to Roman practice, linking it moreover to Rome’s noble origins and thus establishing a precedent for Livia.”⁷⁷ Herbert-Brown has argued that the episode in Book 1 is a post-exilic attempt to eulogize Livia and has the “design of highlighting the theme of maternal dynastic superiority.”⁷⁸ The prophecy in Book 1 also has the effect of associating Livia with Ino’s deification in Book 6.

16

Carmentis' two prophecies in *Fasti* 1 and 6 connect Livia and Ino narratologically, but Livia is also directly linked with the cult of Mater Matuta through her dedication of a shrine to Concordia (*Aedes Concordiae*) on the same day: 'Livia dedicated also to you, Concordia, a magnificent shrine, which she offered to her dear husband' (6.637-8 *te quoque magnifica, Concordia, dedicat aede / Livia, quam caro praestitit ipsa viro*). This shrine was built in or
near the *Porticus Liviae* (dedicated jointly by Livia and Tiberius in 7 BCE) on the Esquiline.⁷⁹ Barbara Kellum has underlined the significance of *concordia* in the Augustan era, when “the concord of the state and the concord of the imperial family became one and the same.”⁸⁰ Flory has suggested that Livia chose June 11 because she wished to associate her shrine to marital harmony with the two other women’s cults celebrated on that day, the *Matralia* and the shrine of *Fortuna*, associated with fertility and marriage.⁸¹ Mater Matuta shared the day of her festival with the celebration of the shrine of Fortuna, which was adjacent to her temple and also associated with Servius (6.569 *lux eadem, Fortuna, tua est, auctorque locusque, 'the same day, Fortuna. is yours, as is the founder and location'*).⁸² Yet, as has been seen, the “dysfunctional family relationships”⁸³ and destructive women featured in the stories associated with both of these cults contrast with the image of Livia as a model wife and mother, and the dynastic harmony represented by her dedication of the shrine to Concordia.⁸⁴ Ovid’s narrative of a veiled statue in the temple of Fortuna includes both mention of an affair between Servius and Fortuna (573 *furtivos. . . amores*, ‘secret loves’) and the story of the parricidal and power-hungry Tullia (6.585-620).⁸⁵

17

For Geraldine Herbert-Brown, “Ovid’s less than satisfactory rendering of the female cults and their connection with Livia on 11 June seems to reflect his own predicament as a witness to the dynastic tensions of his time.”⁸⁶ She suggests that Ovid’s notable failure to mention any aspect of Livia’s maternal role in the context of the *Matralia* exposes contemporary dynastic struggles involving Tiberius’ marriage and succession.⁸⁷ In the post-exilic revised mention of the presumably the same altar of Concordia at *Fasti* 1.649 Ovid seems to attempt to compensate for the awkwardness of the June 11 passage by praising Livia as a mother: *hanc tua constituit genetrix et rebus et ara, 'this godhead your mother established both by her deeds and with an altar.'*⁸⁸ Ino cannot be considered a model mother or step-mother.⁸⁹ As we have seen, in the *Metamorphoses* and *Fasti* Ovid offers two versions of Ino’s history, one negative and one more positive. Ino as nurse of Bacchus represents a positive image of nurturing that is reflected in the *Matralia*.⁹⁰ Attempts to erase Ino’s Greek mythical history in Italy are belied by Ovid’s insertion of Ino’s plot against Phrixus and Helle in *Fasti* 3. Cicero had
18

already broached the question of Ino's qualifications for deification (Nat. D. 3.48)⁹¹ and, considering her mythological background, we may well question her function as a paradigm for Livia's eventual divinization.⁹² For Newlands, Ino's apotheosis casts doubt on the whole nature and basis of imperial deification and a similar case has been made for questioning the authority of the imperial deifications in the *Metamorphoses*.⁹³ For others, Ino's Greek past is erased and the comparison uncomplicated.⁹⁴ Mythological comparisons, however, carry with them baggage and, while panegyric in general often demands a “selective memory,”⁹⁵ the terms of comparison cannot be “fixed or controlled”⁹⁶ and all versions of myths, positive and negative, remain available for different readings.⁹⁷ Stephen Hinds has proposed the influential idea of the 'hermeneutic alibi' to explain the possibility of alternative readings of Ovid's poetry, as either encomiastic or dissonant and oppositional.⁹⁸

Ovid's interest in exploring the procedures and motivations for apotheosis is evident in both the *Metamorphoses* and *Fasti* and has been well examined.⁹⁹ In his interest in deification, Ovid is entering into a contemporary and wide-ranging religious, philosophical, and political discussion and debate. From the late Republic, in the works of Cicero and Varro and in political discourse, the deification of humans was “high on the cultural and political agenda” and was actively discussed and debated.¹⁰⁰ It was, however, largely the work of poets such as Horace, Vergil, and Ovid which constructed the mythological narratives providing justifications and precedents for these political divinizations.¹⁰¹ Ovid is unique in his emphasis on female deification and his inclusion of Livia.¹⁰² More women than men are deified in the *Fasti*, among these the nymphs Lara (2.611-16), Flora (5.183-206), Carna/Cranaë (6.1.125-30) are turned into Italian divinities through rape by a god and similarly Callisto's catasterism results from her rape by Jupiter (2.153-92). At *Fasti* 3.459-516 Bacchus comforts Ariadne (upset at his infidelity) by promising her an apotheosis as the Italian goddess Libera and the catasterism of her crown.¹⁰³ Anna Perenna is variously identified with Dido's sister Anna (3.653-6), Themis, Io (3.658), or an old woman (661-74).¹⁰⁴ The female focused *Fasti* 6 concludes with praise of two more women, Marcia and Atia, *matertera Caesaris*, younger sister of Augustus'
mother Atia: 'O glory, O woman worthy of a sacred house!' (810 o decus, o sacra femina digna domo).

As with other narratives shared between the two poems, comparison between the two episodes of Ino shed light on both the *Metamorphoses* and *Fasti*. I have suggested that Ovid was perhaps motivated by Cicero's evidently novel insertion of Ino into his list of precedents for the deification of mortals to include her in his own exploration of the theme of female deification, with Livia perhaps specifically in mind. In the *Fasti* Ino's apotheosis is linked with the projected deification of Livia through the shared prophecies of Carmentis in Books 1 and 6. This suggests that in the *Metamorphoses* Ino's deification may anticipate that of Hersilie in Book 14, which provides the only other significant example of female deification in the epic. Hersilie's deification, seemingly original to Ovid, would seem to suit better Livia's public image as model wife than Ino.¹⁰⁵ Juno is responsible for Hersilie's deification and the justification given is her relationship with her husband Romulus/Quirinus: 'most worthy of such a great man' (14.833-4 *dignissima tanti . . . viri*), language which is reproduced in Ovid's praise of Livia at F. 1.650 *sola toro magni digna reperta Iovis* ('alone found to be worthy of the bed of great Jove') and elsewhere.¹⁰⁶ Intertextual engagement with the *Aeneid* also connects the two Ino passages. The allusions to the *Aeneid* in Met. 4 take us to Italy, Amata, and the outbreak of war in *Aeneid* 7, while the *Fasti* 6 passage continues these allusions to the arrival of Aeneas at Evander's proto-Roman settlement in *Aeneid* 8, where Ino and Carmentis adopt the roles of Aeneas and Evander, in another example of Ovid's 'feminization' of the *Aeneid*.¹⁰⁷ Reading the two Ino passages together brings out the different focus of the *Fasti* on Roman religious aetiology, but also brings out the shared interest in deification, and specifically female deification, evidenced in both poems.¹⁰⁸

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## NOTES

<footnote n="1">1 It is generally accepted that the *Fasti* and *Metamorphoses* were composed to some extent contemporaneously. Ovid gives strong indications that the two poems are to be read in the light of one another; see Heinze (1919) and Hinds (1987); also Hardie (1991); Heyworth (2019) 5-9. On the two Ino passages, see Bömer (1976) 139-40; Murgatroyd (2005) 243.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 On the mythological dimensions of the Augustan ritual and cultural program, see Feeney (1998) 56-7 with references; Scheid (1992).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Waldner (2007) 226 contrasts the different treatment of the myth of Leucothoe/Leucothea and Palaemon in the *Metamorphoses* and in the *Fasti* to highlight the religious aetiological focus of the *Fasti*; cf. Feeney (2020).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Littlewood (2006) 155; F. 6.491 *maesta* . . . *mater* (‘unhappy mother’), *tumulaverat umbras* (‘buried the shades’), 492 *miseris* . . . *rogis* (‘sad funeral pyres’), 493 *funestos*, . . . *capillos* (‘mournful hair’), 517 *miserae* . . . *matri* (‘sad mother’).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5 The divinizations of Aeneas, Romulus, and Hersilie in book 14 anticipate those of Caesar and Augustus in the final book and have been seen as</footnote>
reflecting on contemporary imperial dynastic politics concerning ruler cult, see Feeney (1991) 207-24; Tissol (2002) 321; Hardie (2002) 208; Šterbenc Erker (2023).

6 For the many variants and ancient sources, see Gantz (1993) 177-80, 478; cf. Otis (1970) 401-3; Russo (2017). Gildenhard and Zissos (1999) 174-6 identify specific 'stage effects' in Ovid's passage in Met. 4.

7 Ino kills one or both of her sons: e.g. Eurip. Medea 1282-89; Apollod. 3.4.3. Watson (1995) 223-4 lists the main sources for Ino as “murderous step-mother.” See also Bömer (1958) on F. 3.853.

8 See Lyons (1997) 64-7. In Hygin. Fab. 1 and 4 Themisto, another wife of Athamas, plots to kills Ino's sons, but is tricked by her into killing her own children.

9 On the goddess Leucothea, see Farnell (1916); Krauskopf (1981); Lyons (1997) 202; Finkelberg (2006).

10 Cole (2013) 2. Ino is once again the only female exemplum in the Consolatio. The text of the Consolatio is found in Lact. Inst. Div. 1.15.19-20: *cum vero inquit et mares et feminas complures ex hominibus in deorum numero esse videamus* ‘since indeed, he says, we see that many people, both male and female, from the human race who are now in the number of gods’) ... si Cadmi progenies aut Amphitryonis aut Tyndari in caelum tollenda fama fuit, huic idem honos certe dicandus est (‘if the progeny of Cadmus or Amphitryon of Tyndareus deserved to be raised to heaven by fame, for her the same honor must be confirmed’).

11 Cole (2013) 146. Cicero at Leg. 2.19.7 lists the conventional heroes Hercules, Liber, Asculapius, Castor and Pollux, and Quirinus among those whose meritorious services gained them apotheosis (ollos quos endo caelo merita locaverunt); cf. Nat. D. 2.62 with Pease (1958).

12 Cole (2013) 191. Fantham (1992) 164n.25 observes that Ino in both of Cicero's lists is mentioned after Liber/Dionysus, perhaps underlining her role as his nurse.

13 Cf. Nat. D. 3.39 *iam vero in Graecia multos habent ex hominibus deos... Leucotheam quae fuit Ino et eius Palaemon filium cuncta Graecia (...) 40 Haec igitur indocti...*, ‘truly in Greece they have many gods who were mortals... Leucothea, who was Ino and her son Palaemon throughout Greece... these things then the unlearned believe...’

14 Carmentis has an altar at Verg. Aen. 8.337-41.
15 Newlands (2016) 81; see also Syme (1978) 44; Herbert-Brown (1994) 130-72; Johnson (1996-97); Barchiesi (2006) 104; Thakur (2014); Chiu (2016) 101-14.

16 On deification in the Met., see Lieberg (1970); Petersmann (1976); Schmidt (1991) 128-9, 133-8; Feeney (1991) 205-24; Salzman (1998); Tissol (2002) 322-7; Myers (2009) 8-10.

17 Earlier at Met. 1.747 Io is identified with Isis (1.747 *nunc dea linigera colitur celeberrima turba*, ‘now she is much worshipped as a goddess by the linen-clad crowd’) and Callisto and Arcas are made into constellations (2.505-7, 521 *facta est dea*, ‘she was made a goddess’). Other deifications in the poem include: the Dioscuri (8.372 *nondum caelestia sidera*, ‘not yet heavenly stars’); Hercules (9.242-72), Acis (13.885-87), Glaucus (13.920-63), Aeneas (14.597-608), Romulus (14.816-28), Hersilie (14.829-51), Hippolytus (15.533-46), Caesar and Augustus (15.745-870), Ovid (15.873-9). Feeney (1991) 206 claims Hercules as “the poem’s first case of a demigod undergoing apotheosis.”

18 Lieberg (1970) 129.

19 Domenicucci (1991); Flory (1995) 129-30.

20 See Bernbeck (1967) 4-30, Otis (1970) 401-2; Hardie (1990); Gildenhard and Zissos (1999) 174; Rosati (2024) ad loc.

21 Hardie (1990) 24 a “ktisis gone wrong.” See also Janan (2009) 87-113.

22 Bernbeck (1967) 8-9; Otis (1970) 131, 401; Bömer (1976) ad loc, Hardie (1990) 232-3. Döpp (1968) 121 suggests that Juno’s Vergilian role is displaced from Ovid’s ‘*Aeneid*’ episode in Books 13-14 to that of Ino.

23 Amata is the *matertera* of Turnus, just as Ino is the *matertera* of Bacchus (Met. 3.313); see Bettini (1991) 68-9. On the Tisiphone scene in Ovid, see Feeney (1991) 240: “This is divine machinery with a vengeance, hyperbolical, redundant, and gratuitous.”

24 Autonoe lost her son Actaeon due to the punishment inflicted by Diana (Met. 3.143-252), while Bacchus made Agave mad and she killed her son Pentheus (3.708-33), a murder in which Ino participated (3.722).

25 Cf. Met. 3.313-14 *furtim illum primis Ino matertera cunis / educat*, ‘Ino, his mother’s sister, secretly raised him [Bacchus] in his infancy.’ All quotes are from Tarrant’s (2004) *Metamorphoses* OCT.

26 The passage is called “A horrible parody of the Pentheus episode” by Otis (1970) 131.
27 In one version Ino killed Melicertes and jumped with his corpse (Apollod. 3.4.3). Salzman-Mitchell (2021) 43 asks: “Could Ino’s action thus be aimed not at death but rather at immortality? Even in this we may see resistance and agency.”

28 Feeney (1991) 240 suggests that “Ovid is splitting up Vergil’s two incommensurate ways of reading Amata’s madness.” Cf. Bernbeck (1967) 32; McAuley (2016) 80-1.

29 McAuley (2016) 134.

30 McAuley (2016) 135 observes that maternal metamorphosis in the poem can be read as “a release from extreme suffering or emotion and its destructive consequences (as in the stories of Hecuba, Myrrha, and Ino).” The form of her name *Leucothoe*, which is different from *Leucothea* in the Fasti, is attested also in Prop. 2.26.10 and 2.28.20.

31 Hardie (1990) 234. Hardie also compares the metamorphosis of Aeneas' ships into water deities, after they are attacked by Juno: *Aen.* 9.102 *aequoris esse deas* ~ *Met.* 4.564 *aequoris esse deos*. Acis (13.885-97) and Glaucus (13.935-65) also become water gods.

32 *novare/novus*, cf. 1.1-2 *in nova* . . . *corpora* ('into new bodies'), 8.853 *formamque novat* ('changed shape'), 11.261 *illa novat formas* ('she assumed new forms').

33 Rosati (2024) on 4.539-42.

34 In Hyg. *Fab.* 2 it is Bacchus who deifies Ino, not Venus. Venus’ emphasis on the derivation of her own ‘Greek name’ from the sea-foam (4.538 *Graimumque manet mihi nomen ab illa*, ‘My Greek name remains from this’) is perhaps a gesture towards the choice here of Greek names for Ino and Melicertes and the suppression of their Roman names.

35 See Myers (2009) 208.

36 See Feeney (1998) 71, on the “amputation” of Greek cult *aetia* in the *Metamorphoses* as “part of a systematic dialogue between work on Greek and work on Roman myth.” For the foundation of the Isthmian games by Sisyphus in honor of Melicertes/Palaemon, see Pind. I. fr. 5-6; Pausanias (1.44.7, 2.1.3) and Apollodorus (3.4.3); Gebhardt and Dickie (1999). Callim. *Aet.* 4 frr. 91-2 Pfeiffer = Harder gives an explanation (*αἴτιον*) for an abolished cult for Melicertes on Tenedos (presumably after the leap into the sea).

37 See Bömer (1976) on 4.543-62. The women are called *Sidoniae comites* (543), which recalls both Cadmus’ and Dido’s origins (*Sidonia Dido*: *Aen.*
1.446, 613, 9.266, 11.74). Janan (2009) 231 suggests that the atavistic toponym "makes Thebes seem to flow back toward its own contentious cause."

38 For the term, see Wills (1998).

39 Medea in Euripides cites Ino as an example of a mother who killed her own children (Eur. Med. 1282-92).

40 Carroll (2019) 4. Carroll suggests that this "blending or conflation of the Greek goddess Ino/Leukothea and the Latin deity Matuta, however, may be a late phenomenon, possibly of the second or first century BC." Fantham (1992) 165 suggests that Mater Matuta and Leucothea were identified because of their male children, Portunus and Palaemon, and "their marine jurisdiction." See also Halberstadt (1934) 65-9; Castagnoli (1979) 146; Coarelli (1988) 249-53; Bouma (1996) 251-2; Littlewood (2006) 147-51; Mantzilas (2018).

41 Carroll (2019) 4. See Smith (2000) 139 "the rites remain mysterious, but it seems reasonable to see aspects of fertility and the preservation of young children as part of the cult at Rome." On Mater Matuta and the Matralia, see further Halberstadt (1934); Radke (1965) 206-9; Boëls-Janssen (1993) 341-53; Bouma (1996) 250-62; Prescendi (2000) 124-6.

42 The etymology of her name is much debated. The association with the dawn (*matutinus*) is suggested by Lucr. DRN 5.650-1 *tempore item certo roseam Matuta per oras / aetheris auroram refert et lumina pandit*, ‘again at a fixed time Matuta diffuses the rosy dawn through the regions of the ether and spreads her light.’ At F. 6.473-4 Ovid opens the passage with the arrival of dawn, which may gesture towards the etymology. Radke (1979) 208 sees a possible etymology from *manus* ‘good’ (cf. F. 6.475 *bonae matres*); see Walde-Hofmann LEW II³ 53-4. Varro (Aug. Civ. D. 4.8) associated Mater Matuta with ‘ripening grains’ (*frumentis maturescentibus*). For further discussion, see Halberstadt (1934) 62-4; Desport (1947); Champeaux (1982) 308-13; Boëls-Janssen (1993) 345-6.

43 I cite from the Teubner of Alton, Wormell, Courtney, *Fastorum Libri Sex* (1997).

44 Portunus, god of ports (Cic. Nat. D. 2.66 *Portunus a portu*) was an ancient Italian god with his own flamen (Fest. p.238, 9L) and a temple in the Forum Boarium (Varro LL 6.19, Coarelli [1988] 113-20; Richardson [1992] 320). The *Portunalia* was celebrated on August 17 (Radke [1979] 258-9). See further, Holland (1961) 141-78.

45 Porte (1985) 129-31.
46 Wiseman (1998) 48-51.

47 Feeney (1998) 131, (2020) 354; Parker (1997). The *Fasti* throughout shows an interest in uncovering or constructing a Greek background for Italian divinities. In addition to Carmentis, Ino, and Melicertes, other Greek figures who are changed into Italian deities include Hippolytus/Virbius, Anna/Themis/Io/Anna Perenna, Ariadne/Libera, Chloris/Flora, Lala/Lara/Dea Tacita, Carna/Cranaë/Cardea.

48 Richardson (1992) 246; Castagnoli (1979); Smith (2000) 145. Livy 5.19.6 says that Camillus rebuilt the temple of Mater Matuta in 396 BCE, replacing Servius' earlier shrine. The temple was rebuilt after a fire in 212 BCE (Livy 24.47.15, 25.7.6). On the connection between Fortuna and Mater Matuta, see Champeaux (1982) 313-24.

49 See Bettini (1991) 85-7 for a discussion of the position of aunts in the *Matralia*. Saller (1997) 24 contests the evidence for the theory that only *materterae*, rather than all aunts, participated in the rites of Mater Matuta.

50 Carroll (2019) 8-9 questions Tertullian's reliability.

51 See Bömer (1976) 139-40 for a comparison.

52 Newlands (1995) 226 sees Venus' absence as an indication of "*discordia*." Panope appears since Homer, *Il*. 18.45; cf. Verg. *Geo*. 1.437 *Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicerteae, Aen*. 5.240-3 *Panopeaque virgo, / et pater ipse manu magna Portunus euntem / impulit* ('the virgin Panopea and father Portunus himself with his great hand drove him'); 823-5 *et senior Glauci chorus Inousque Palaemon . . . laeva tenant Thetis et Melite Panopeaque virgo* ('and the ancient chorus of Glaucus and Ino's son Palaemon . . . on the left hold Thetis and Melite and the virgin Panopea'). Thomas (1988) on *Geo*. 1.437 sees possible Callimachean origins.

53 Desport (1947) 116 "Une sorte de doublet féminin d'Énée." For the parallels, see also Parker (1997) 51-8, (1999). Salvadori (1982) 215n. 54, notes Ovid's adoption of the motif of travel to Italy for Carmentis, Anna and the Magna Mater.

54 Livy (39.12.4) describes the famous Bacchanian rites of 186 BCE as occurring in a *lucus †Similae†*; see Briscoe (2008) ad loc for the suggestion that this be emended to *Stimulae* or *Semeles* based on Ovid's text; *instimulat* at 508 may be a *figura etymologica*.

55 Fantham (1992) 165 suggests that Ovid is adapting Juno's indirect maddening of Amata and her women with Bacchic frenzy in *Aen*. 7.385-405;
cf. Parker (1999) 343.

56 Littlewood (2006) on F. 6.518-22. Fantham (1992) 165n.34 notes the parallel with the women's hostile treatment of Hercules in Prop. 4.9.2.

57 This negative portrayal of Ino was already prefigured at F. 2.628 *quae ruricolis semina tosta dedit* ('who gave toasted seeds to the farmers'), where Ovid excludes her, along with Atreus, Thyestes, Medea, Thyestes and Procne from the family-oriented rites of the *Caristia*, open only to the blameless (2.623 *innocui*). At *Met*. 3.722 Ino participates in the dismemberment of Pentheus, tearing off his left arm; cf. *Ars* 3.175-6 *Inois . . . dolis* ('Ino's plots').

58 Parker (1997) 62, (1999). Parker argues that Ino, like other Greek figures in the poem, undergoes an amelioration in Italy and is “redeemed,” yet Homer already says that Ino as Leukothea “has won a share of honor from the gods” (*Od*. 5.335). Cf. Johnson (1997) 410: “Ovid’s revision of the tradition is very clear, and makes painfully apparent his accommodation to the interests of the imperial house”

59 Newlands (2002) 200; cf. Newlands (2000); Littlewood (2002) 203; Salzman-Mitchell (2021) 39.

60 Newlands (1995) 227; cf. Herbert-Brown (1994) 149.

61 Verbal echoes include 6.534 *rustica sedulitas* ('rustic civility')~*Aen.* 8.455 *ex humili tecto* ('from the humble home'); 6.529 *penates* ~*Aen.* 8.123 *penatibus* ('household gods').

62 Panoussi (2019) 189

63 Varro LL 5.106 calls them *testuacia*: *testuacium*: *quod in testu caldo coquebatur*, *ut etiam nunc Matralibus id faciunt matronae* ('pot-cake: because it is cooked in a hot pot (*testu*), as even now matrons make it at the Matralia').

64 Newlands (2000) 189. Salzman (1998) 322-3, however, argues that Ino and Melicertes' deification is earned through their 'labors' (M. 4.531 *miserata labores*, 'pitied her labors', F. 6.541 *defuncta laboribus Ino*, 'Ino, having completed her labors,' 549 *posuere labores*, 'they completed their labors'), on the model of Hercules, whose deification Carmentis foretells at F. 1.583-4.

65 Cf. Carmentis 1.585-6 *ut dis gratissima vixit / possidet hunc Iani sic dea mense diem* ('as she lived most pleasing to the gods, so she as a goddess has this day in the month of Janus'); Anna Perenna 3.677 *nuper erat dea facta*
73 See Flory (1995) 132: "Events at the end of Livia's life show that her deification had been considered by Tiberius and Livia but was refused by both." Barrett (2002) 219; Walter (2019-20) 387n.18.

74 Tac. Ann. 5.2.2 (*addito, ne caelestis religio decereretur*, ‘a stipulation was added that divine honors were not to be decreed’) Suet. *Tib*. 51.2; Dio 58.2.1.

75 Flory (1995) 134. Herbert-Brown (1994) 161 suggests of Ovid's Carmentis/Evander episode that “the dynastic allusion in this mother/son relationship is directly analogous with that of Livia and Tiberius.” So also Pasco-Pranger (2002) 264: “The model suggests that Livia will be deified as mother of Tiberius, rather than as wife of Augustus.” See Corbier (1995) 185-6 on Claudius' motive of seeking legitimacy.

76 Herbert-Brown (1994) 130; See also Johnson (1997); Thakur (2014). See Pont. 1.4.55, 2.2.69, 2.8.1-8, 4.9.107-8.

77 Newlands (2016) 84; cf. Walter (2019-20) 387.

78 Herbert-Brown (1994) 161.

79 The year is unknown. See Coarelli (1974) 206; Flory (1984); Richardson (1992) 314; Barrett (2002) 200-2.

80 Kellum (1990) 278, cf. 277 “*concordia* had always had a familial as well as political aspect.”

81 Flory (1984); cf. Johnson (1997) 410; Purcell (1986) 88; Herbert-Brown (1994) 146-7; Barrett (2002) 203-5. On Fortuna, see Champeaux (1982) 199-207, 243-332; Coarelli (1988) 301-28; Fantham (2002) 43-5.

82 Fantham, (2002) 41-4.

83 Newlands (1995) 227.

84 See Newlands (1995) 226-30 on the “discordant” women in Book 6.

85 F. 6.587 *coniugio sceleris mercede peracto*, ‘her marriage having been contracted by the price of a crime,’ 616 *nefanda ora*. ‘execrable face.’ For Tullia, see Liv. 1.46-48, Dion. Hal. 4.29-40.

86 Herbert-Brown (1994): 156. Cf. Newlands (2002) 245; Dolansky (2020).

87 Herbert-Brown (1994) 151. She also suggests that “Ovid’s failure to mention the necessity of being a *univira* to participate in the *Matralia* may be interpreted as a sensitivity to the feelings of Livia, who did not belong in that category” (148).
88 Herbert-Brown (1994) 162-72. In contrast Šterbenc Erker (2023) 47 argues that this “hyperbolic” praise highlights “the fissure between imperial self-display and reality.”

89 Tempting as it may be to link Ino as malevolent stepmother (F. 3.853 *sceleratae fraude novercae*, 'by the deception of an evil stepmother') with Tacitus' depiction of Livia as an evil stepmother (e.g. Ann. 1.3.3 *novercae Liviae dolus*, 'the treachery of their stepmother Livia'), Barrett (2001) 173 emphasizes that such a characterization was not part of the “stock rhetoric about Livia” in Suetonius and other Latin sources, but he finds a possible historical source in Agrippa Postumus' charges against Livia recorded by Dio 55.32.2. See Purcell (1986) 95 on how the anti-Livia tradition of her as “family destroyer” derived from her unprecedented “crossing of the boundary between private and public.”

90 McAuley (2016) suggests that Ino “encapsulates the way in which destructive and caring maternities do not stand independently” in the *Met*. See Pedrucci (2020) 346 on the *Fasti* as “a narrative full of women who can either protect or threaten infants.” On motherhood in the *Fasti*, see McAuley (2012), (2020); Panoussi (2019) 188-202; Myatt (2025). Sharrock and Keith (2020).

91 See Cole (2013) 163 “This could be construed as a sustained self-rebuttal that Cicero undertakes after a sudden and decisive shift to deep skepticism.”

92 So Newlands (2021) 168.

93 Newlands (1995) 43-44, Barchiesi (1997) 114-19; Calzascia (2014), Walter (2020), Šterbenc Erker (2023) all see elegiac playfulness and ambiguity in the apotheoses in the *Fasti*. On the ambiguity of deification in the *Metamorphoses*, see, e.g. Feeney (1991) 211; Fabre-Serris (1998) 94-99.

94 Salzman (1998) 319 argues for “a more explicitly positive, accepting view of all of the deifications in the *Fasti*—Augustan and non-Augustan deifications alike—and a more ambivalent, ironic tone throughout the *Metamorphoses*.” Cf. Parker (1997), (1999). Thakur (2014) 12n.33 argues that Ovid changed details of the Mater Matuta story from that in *Met*. 4 “to hint at the flight of Livia and Tiberius, and Augustus’ subsequent marriage to Livia.”

95 Hunter (1996) 166; cf. Newlands (1995) “The beauty of imperial panegyric often consists in its ambiguity, its capability of being read in different ways depending on the predisposition of the listener”; and Barchiesi (1997) 98-9 on “reading round the edges” of eulogy.
96 The wording is adapted from Feeney (1991) 220.

97 On Livia's assimilation with Juno, the tormentor of Ino (e.g. Pont. 3.1.117, 145; Scott (1930) 57), see, for example, Johnson (1997) 417: "The comparisons of Livia with these eminent goddesses are, on the face of it, harmless eulogy and in keeping with the creeping deification of Roman rulers; in the context of Ovidian mythology, however, they are devastating." Ovid's insistence on the polyvalence of myth is famously exemplified in his tendentious interpretation of Augustus' Mars Ultor Temple as a monument to Venus' adultery at Tr. 2.296 *Venus Ultori iuncta, vir ante fores* ('Venus joined to Mars, her husband in front of the doors').

98 Hinds (1987b) 29.

99 E.g. Feeney (1991) 20-24, (2020) 360; Barchiesi (1997); Tissol (2002) 322-7; Šterbenc Erker (2023).

100 Beard (2007) 233; see, e.g., Weinstock (1971); Price (1984); Beard (1994) 749-55; Feeney (1998) 108-114; Cole (2006), (2013); Pandey (2018) 35-82.

101 See, e.g. Hardie (1997) on how Ovid shows that legitimation of imperial succession has "a purely textual, constructed history"; cf. Feeney (1998) 113-14; Pandey (2013); Xinyue (2022) 8-30. Often cited is Pont. 4.8.55 *di quoque carminibus, si fas est dicere, fiunt* ('even the gods, if it is allowed to say it, are created by poems').

102 Cf. Newlands (2016) 84 "For Ovid's contemporaries, female deification was generally regarded as transgressive and foreign."

103 Heyworth (2019) on F. 3.511-12 suggests that Ariadne's apotheosis as Liber, with its "change of name to one like her husband's, bears an obvious similarity to Livia." At Ars 1.555-8 Bacchus first introduces himself to the abandoned Ariadne with the promise of a constellation and, possibly, deification.

104 As for male deifications in the *Fasti*, aside from the 'historical' deifications of Romulus (2.475) and Caesar (3.701-4), Ovid only otherwise includes brief mentions of the transformation of Hippolytus to Virbius (3.265-6), Chiron's catasterism (5.413-14), and Hercules' deification (1.583-4).

105 Myers (2009) ad loc; cf. Salamon (2012). See Chiu (2016) 102-103 on the prominence given to Hersilia at F. 3.205-13.

106 Pont. 3.1.118 *sola est caelesti digna reperta toro* ('she alone was found worthy of the divine bed'); cf. Tr. 1.6.25-7, Tr. 2.161-4 Pont. 4.13.29; see Hardie (2024) on Met. 14.833-4: "digna is often used of Livia's worthiness of her
divine husband.” See also the similar language used of Hersilie’s and Ino’s deifications: Met. 4.541 (Leucothea and Palaemon) *nomenque simul faciemque novavit* (‘she changed her name at the same time as her appearance’) ~14.850–1 *priscum pariter cum corpore nomen / mutat* (she changes her old name along with her body’). Cf. Flory (1995) 129: “As regarded his womenfolk, Octavian learned a lesson from Cleopatra, and, for the purposes of propaganda, advertised Livia and Octavia as exemplars of old fashioned, dutiful Roman wives.” Some read this praise of Livia as hypocritical or ironic, e.g. Newlands (1995) 44–5; Luisi (2010); Šterbenc Erker (2023) 56.

107 Cf. Carmentis in *Fasti* 1 and Anna in Book 3.545-656. See Porte (1985) 144-50 (Anna as *Aeneid* in miniature); Chiu (2016) 17-18; 64-79; Wise (2017); Beek (2019). This ‘feminizing’ tendency perhaps culminates in Flora’s claim for an all-female conception of Rome’s own Mars: ‘Mars also, in case you don’t know, was produced through our arts’ (5.229). This can, of course, be interpreted generically; see Hinds (2000).

108 I would like to thank the journal's editors and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

## ABSTRACT

### English

In both the *Metamorphoses* and *Fasti* Ovid narrates the deification of Ino and her son Melicertes. In the *Metamorphoses* they become the Greek deities Leucothoe and Palaemon, while in the *Fasti* they also are identified with the Roman gods Mater Matuta and Portunus. Reading the two Ino passages together brings out the different focus of the *Fasti* on Roman religious aetiology, but also brings out the poems’ shared interest in deification, and specifically female deification. The two episodes are linked narratologically with the projected divinization of the empress Livia.

## INDEX

### Keywords

Ovid, Ino, Metamorphoses, Fasti, Livia, deification

## AUTHOR

K. Sara Myers