Oikoi in the Arician Grove

By now we're used to the fact that anything can happen in the Metamorphoses. This "fact" shouldn't inure us to the singularly strange transitions and juxtapositions woven into the text, because we are probably meant to be perplexed by them. The rapid reader will find sheer arbitrariness in a segue that moves swiftly from the end of a 400+ line speech by an ancient Greek philosopher to a telegraphic note on the death of Numa, to the transformation of his consort Egeria, to the sudden intrusion of the voice of a figure who claims to be the dead Hippolytus, now restored and assisting Diana in Aricia under the new identity of Virbius. And that fast reader's reaction would be understandable. But perhaps there's more to it.

For purposes of making some headway here, note that Ovid has turned from the voice of Pythagoras to the texts of several of Euripides' tragedies -- the Orestes, Iphigeneia at Tauris and Hippolytus. These plays deal with the fates of two of the great Greek houses (oikoi) -- of Atreus and of Theseus. (Of course the Oresteia of Aeschylus is involved as well.)

Orestes and Pylades kill Aegisthus

These two tales couldn't be more different, and their differences are worth pondering. For example, Agamemnon's son Orestes (who was sent to live in Phocis after his mother, Clytemnestra, begins her involvement with Aegisthus) is ordered by the gods to kill his mother. Pursued by the Erinyes, he goes insane before being restored, judged not guilty, cleansed (by nine men at Troezen), and elevated to succeed his father as ruler of Mycenae. He also recovers Hermione, daughter of Helen and Paris, who was betrothed to him by Tyndareus, but who, after he went insane, was given by Menelaos to Neoptolemus.


In a nutshell, the concern with Orestes is with intra-familial murder, revenge, justice, and the recovering of kingly succession. The kingdom passes from Agamemnon to his son, but not in quite the ceremonial and orderly fashion most states would prefer.

Athena, Orestes, Priestesses at Delphi

The house of Theseus is not so much of a house. Through his human father Aegeus (who shares paternity with Poseidon), Theseus can trace his line to Erichthonius, the allegedly autochthonous early king of Athens. Theseus had a somewhat peculiar marriage with the Amazon Hippolyta (the only Amazon ever to wed any man), and Hippolytus was their child. After the death of Hippolyta, Hippolytus was sent to live in Troezen with his great-grandfather, Pittheus, while Theseus married Minos's daughter Phaedra, Ariadne's sister. Phaedra's unquenchable desire for Hippolytus leads to his brutal death. She lies to Theseus, claiming Hippolytus had assaulted her, and Theseus uses one of three wishes granted him by Poseidon to cause the death of his son.

The figure of a bull appears in a giant wave, frightening Hippolytus's horses, and fulfilling the apparent meaning of his name, which can mean "unleasher of horses," or, "destroyed by horses."

So, two stories of royal houses, fathers and sons, things going awry. In one, a son kills his natural mother; in the other, a stepmother brings about the death of the king's son. In one, order is restored, in the other, the house ends, but the son has a curious afterlife.

What brings these tales together in the Arician grove of "Oresteian Diana"? Why, after listening for quite some time to the voice of Pythagoras, do we suddenly out of the blue hear Hippolytus speaking to Egeria? What is at stake in this strange juxtaposition, and in the admittedly in-credible tale of how this tragic figure became Virbius? (Virgil's version of that tale is told in Aeneid 7).

To get a sense of the background, it might be useful to look at two of Ovid's Heroides in connection with this part of Metamorphoses 15: The letter of Hermione to Orestes, and the letter of Phaedra to Hippolytus.

After Numa: "The ghastly priest"

Numa's trip to Croton gives us the opportunity to hear Pythagoras's speech. It's one of the longest of the Metamorphoses, comparable to that of Ulysses. (A comparative look at the philosopher from Samos with the hero of Ithaca might prove worthwhile, when time permits.)

More to the point for Metamorphoses 15 is to hear the voice of Pythagoras within the strange narratives that frame it. It's tempting, and far too simplistic, to take the philosopher's speech as in some sense a privileged "reading" of what has come before it. To be sure, Pythagoras does "cover" some of the same ground as books 1-14, with a strong emphasis upon mutability, along with an even stronger ethical argument against the eating of flesh. The Greek contemplative mind is here on display -- far-ranging, vivid, and eloquent. It is accompanied by claims of inspiration from Delphi, elements of prophecy, and extraordinary powers of conception and knowledge.

Yet if Pythagoras wants to have the last word, he certainly doesn't get to have it here. His speech is preceded by the tale of Heracles and Croton. It ends by reiterating the warning against devouring living creatures, beginning with an allusion to the high-flying Phaethon of Book 2 before going on to compare the eating of animals to Thyestean feast, and ending with a warning not to bite off more than we might wish to chew:

Let your mouth be free of their blood, enjoy milder food!

ora cruore vacent alimentaque mitia carpant!

Immediately following this, Numa returns to his people:

he taught the sacred rituals, and educated a savage, warlike, race in the arts of peace 

and dies, in the space of six lines.

Lake Nemi, John Robert Cozens

The "segue" that follows is complex and unexpected. Egeria, mourning Numa, melts into a spring in "Oresteian Diana's" sacred grove in Aricia, but not before receiving cold comfort from Hippolytus, who will vividly evoke the climax of the Phaedra. With no preparation or foreshadowing, we pass from Numa's "arts of peace" to a sacred place suffused with Greek nightmares about innocent sons of accursed royal houses: Orestes of the House of Atreus and Thyestes, and Theseus' blameless son Hippolytus, destroyed by Phaedra, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë.

Ovid doesn't drop these references casually. Orestes, the murderer of a murderous mother, and Hippolytus, destroyed by his father's curse at this stepmother's behest, both had come to this Nemorean grove. It was here that Hippolytus instituted the office of Rex Nemorensis, priest of Diana, says Pausanias. The kingship was open to no freemen; only to slaves. To accede to the throne, the escapee had to kill the previous priest, also a former slave, in single combat. The tale attracted the attention of Macaulay:

From the still glassy lake that sleeps
Beneath Aricia's trees--
Those trees in whose dim shadow
The ghastly priest doth reign,
The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain 

It inspired Sir James Frazer as well. As Wikipedia notes, the "successful candidate had first to test his mettle by plucking a golden bough from one of the trees in the sacred grove."

As Book 15 moves from Pythagoras to Numa to Hippolytus and eventually Aesculapius, Ovid gives us a good deal to ponder: A peaceable Sabine king dies, his consort hides in triform Diana's grove in Aricia, a place haunted by memories of powerlessness, of refugees from accursed feasts and Cretan labyrinths, the site of a lurid rite of passage and a savage succession of kings.