Identifies the similarities and differences between the various worldviews generated across Ovid’s works, with particular attention given to the beginning of the Fasti. Here Janus presents an alternative vision of how the world came to be through his evolution from primordial chaos. In encouraging us to explore the correspondences and divergences between his different cosmogonies, Ovid introduces a further level of instability into the world and text alike. Ovid also continues to combine allusions to conflicting cosmogonies, with Empedocles and the myth of Statesman from Plato’s Politicus operating as important intertexts for Fasti 1. In the Politicus, Plato parodies and subverts Empedocles’ cosmic system so as to question the parameters of natural philosophy and the approaches of the Presocratics. In the Politicus natural philosophy is seen as largely dependent upon myth to provide an oblique vision of phases in the history of the cosmos that have fallen away from collective human consciousness.

Begins by examining the sculpture Daphne by the artist Kate MacDowell, which is a carefully crafted illusion of the destruction of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. Umberto Eco’s concept of the ‘open work’ which responds to such Baroque art is discussed as a potential theoretical framework before the scene is set for a discussion of how Ovid responds to the works of Greek and Roman philosophy.

Focuses on Ovid’s portrayal of the armillary sphere of Archimedes in book 6 of the Fasti. Ovid, taking a certain cue from Cicero, turns to the armillary sphere of Archimedes to develop an ekphrastic vision of the universe, which on initial glance appears to be divinely designed. The armillary sphere is envisaged as a miniature representation of the cosmos, with its creator operating as a foil for a creationist divinity, closely associated with the divine craftsman or demiurge from Plato’s Timaeus. The armillary sphere, however, also presents a series of challenges to both human and divine craftsmanship. It highlights the fallacy of human attempts to create working replicas of the complex movements of the heavenly bodies, while also indicating how the cosmos might be seen as dependent upon such models for its very generation. Despite being fundamentally flawed, models of the cosmos have the capacity to construct the realities they depict, while the multiplicity of such models (and the philosophical systems they are based upon) continues to disturb our sense of a fixed and stable reality.

Considers how chaos in the Metamorphoses is a non-linear state and force that disturbs the structural hierarchies that we tend to associate with the formed world. Beginning with a rereading of the cosmogony from book 1 of the Metamorphoses, we observe Ovid combining a range of different philosophical systems including materialist physics and creationist cosmogony. Ovid introduces a Platonic demiurge, whose role it is to place order onto this chaotic system; however, his introduction is a false dawn, as chaos, far from being banished to a primordial past, continually intervenes in the created world, disturbing any sense of a fixed or stable reality. This is matched by the intertextual chaos encountered by the reader, who is left to restitch the cosmos from disparate elements, including conflicting philosophical systems and mythological narratives. The Timaeus provides an important counterweight to Ovid’s cosmogony; on the one hand, the recourse to a more perfect and eternal realm beyond the experience of the physical senses is ripe for deconstruction by Ovid. When read alongside the opening of the Metamorphoses, Plato’s creationist cosmogony appears less fixed and more playful than has been traditionally considered.

Shifts focus to the most extensive and contentious passage of natural philosophy in the Ovidian corpus, the Speech of Pythagoras from book 15 of the Metamorphoses. Ovid’s representation of the transmigration of souls has a number of important precedents in Plato’s dialogues, including that from the end of the Timaeus. Recollection forms an important component of the theories of transmigration from the dialogues, with the soul’s access to wisdom being the result of its ability to remember the knowledge that it gained when travelling beyond its incarnate existence. For Ovid’s Pythagoras, however, there is no eternal world beyond that of embodied existence, with the ability to remember past lives being as much a form of intertextual recollection as a precise philosophical theory. The Speech of Pythagoras provides a further opportunity for Ovid to underscore the fluid ontologies of the Metamorphoses, while disturbing the notion of metamorphosis as a unifying principle for the text. The illusion of a regular cycle of transmigration governing the lives and afterlives of the soul is disrupted by the inability for such a cycle to ever be fully integrated with the accounts of metamorphoses that precede it.

Investigates the portrayal of warfare in the Homeric epics, focusing on weapons, military tactics, and the societal implications of conflict. It integrates archaeological findings to provide a comprehensive understanding of the realities and representations of war in Homeric society.

Traces the evolution of Homeric scholarship from antiquity to modern approaches, highlighting the transition from viewing Homer as a historical figure to understanding the epics as the product of a collective oral tradition.

Explores the social structures, political institutions, and daily life depicted in the Homeric epics against the archaeological and textual data from the Mycenaean period and the Early Iron Age.

Summarizes and categorizes the different types of historical elements found in the epics.

Discusses the historicity of the Homeric poems and the Trojan War and the archaeological discoveries related to Troy, contributing to our understanding of the historical and cultural context of the poems.

Examines the religious practices and deities featured in the Homeric epics, comparing them with the evidence from archaeology and the Linear B tablets. It examines the interplay between myth and ritual, highlighting the role of religion in shaping the cultural identity of the Homeric world.