Ovid and Fasti 4.

179-372: Cybele
How does Ovids treatment of the Cybele cult compare with that of Republican and
other Augustan writers? Discuss its implications for the understanding of political,
religious, and gender issues.
On the introduction of the cult of Cybele into Rome, cf. Livy 29.10.4-11.8,
14.5-14. For other treatments of the cult, cf. Catullus 63, Lucretius 2.598-643, Vergil
Aeneid 2.788, 3.104-13, 6.784-6, 7.139, 9.82ff., 10.234, 252, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 2.19.4-5. On the Galli specifically, cf. Varro Eumenides in
Menippean Satires ed. Cebe, e.g. frr. 136, 140, or 120.132 Buech., Philodemus A.P.
7.222 = Garland of Philip 26 ed. Gow and Page, Martial 3.24, 5.41, 13.64, 14.204,
and on the use of the word fanaticus of them, cf. Juv. 2.112, Liv. 37.9.9, 38.19.4.
Supplementary Bibliography
M. J. Vermaseren Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult (London, 1977)
E. N. Lane The Cult of Cybele and Attis (Leiden, 1995)
Jacques Perret Le myth de Cybele REL 13 (1935) 332-57
L.E. Roller The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest Gender and History 9.3 (1997) 54259
D. West The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh, 1964) 103-14
J. Jope Lucretius, Cybele, and Religion Phoenix 39 (1985) 250-62
T. P. Wiseman Cybele, Virgil and Augustus in Poetry and Politics in the Age of
Augustus edd. A. Woodman and D. West (Cambridge, 1984) 117-28
J. F. Miller Ovids Elegiac Festivals (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), ch. 4 Megalensia
and Caristia, 82-90
G. Herbert-Brown Ovid and the Fasti: A Historical Study (Oxford, 1994) 33-42, 1115
R. J. Littlewood Poetic Artistry and Dynastic Politics: Ovid at the Ludi Megalenses
(Fasti 4.179-372) CQ n.s. 31 (1980) 381-95
A. Barchiesi The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (California
1997) 194-7
M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price Religions of Rome (Cambridge, 1998) s.v. index
Magna Mater, esp. 96-8, 164-6, Attis esp. 164-6
M. B. Skinner Ego mulier: The Construction of Male Sexuality in Catullus in
Roman Sexualities edd. J. P. Hallett and M. B. Skinner (Princeton, 1997) 129-50