Lo sguardo dell'esule. Per un' 'immagine mentale' di Roma fra Tristia ed Epistulae ex Ponto

Abstract

Ovid’s production of exile reveals a different look at the city: a ‘mental image’ that dialogues with the rhetorical codification of the laudes urbium and, at the same time, selects the places that best celebrate the monumentality of Augustan Rome. Of particular interest is the description of the monumental complex on the Palatine Hill (Tr. 3, 1), inside which the protagonist (the liber) follows an itinerary that leads him directly from the Forum to the Palatium and its library. The library-curia, commissioned by Augustus, a political and cultural emblem, as well as a religious one, of the regime is a part of a monumental complex conceived as the new seat of power and represented a few years after the fire in 3 AD. For the rest, the scenes of the monumentality of Rome coincide with the stereotypical images of the Via Sacra and the Capitoline fortress in which the triumphal ceremonies and those of taking office by the consuls took place.