The Image of the Poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

5 Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles

5 Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles I n Metamorphoses 13, Ovid continues his account of the Trojan War from book 12 with the contest of Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles, a subject popular not only with epic and tragic poets but also with professional rhetoricians in antiquity.1 Devoting nearly half of the book (1–398) to this contest, the poet sustains the traditional contrast between the two heroes: the one is brave but rather taciturn, and the other is cunning and articulate. But he also provides a surprising twist: whereas Ulysses reveals the adaptability characteristic of his Homeric counterpart, Ajax here is much different from the grand Sophoclean hero whose sublimely intransigent nature drives him to commit suicide after losing the contest. His metamorphosis into a flower at the end of the episode reinforces the lack of a lofty, tragic status. As I show, while devaluing the traditionally noble character of Ajax, Ovid privileges the changeable, though at times ethically questionable, nature of Ulysses. Ajax represents the traditional moral as well as social values reflected in the Iliad. Throughout his speech, he naturally emphasizes his courage (virtus) on the battlefield. But he also reflects the importance of good faith (fides), demonstrated in fair dealing with and loyalty to one’s comrades. In censuring Ulysses for causing Philoctetes to be left on Lemnos, the hero apostrophizes the abandoned warrior in a gesture of sympathy as “Poeantia proles” (“offspring of Poeas” [45]) and elaborates on the hardships of his life alone on the island (47–54). He also abhors Ulysses’ false charge that Palamedes had betrayed the Greeks 110 for gold, which cost that hero his life (56–60). Furthermore, critical of his opponent for fleeing the battlefield when Nestor called out for help, Ajax manifests a belief in divine power, affirming that “the gods look on mortal affairs with just eyes” (70). The hero’s connection to these traditional values suggests that Ovid’s Roman audience would have been predisposed to favor him over his cunning opponent.2 By echoing Vergil’s description of Ulysses as “hortator scelerum” (“inciter of crimes” [42]),Ajax seems in accord with conservative Roman moralism.3 The centripetal pull of this episode toward the high moral ground reflected by Ajax (and, conversely, against the rather questionable ethics represented by Ulysses) is weakened by an undercurrent of arrogance that Ovid infuses into the hero’s speech. The poet suggests his own distance from heroic egoism, a hallmark of the Homeric warrior, through aspects of this hero’s rhetoric. Ajax reveals this characteristic in particular by his use of aphoristic sententiae. After referring to his resistance to Hector’s efforts to burn the ships of the Greeks, he employs this pithy sententia: “atque Aiax armis, non Aiaci arma petuntur” (“And Ajax is sought by the arms, the arms are not sought by Ajax” [97]). To be sure, the hero reveals wit by personifying Achilles’ arms. But the implicitly egoistic gesture by which Ajax places his own name first in each unit caps an unfortunately crass display of arrogance. For he precedes this sententia with a boast by which he in effect places himself aboveAchilles: “quaeritur istis, / quam mihi, maior honos” (“Greater glory is sought by those arms than by me” [95–96]). At the end of his speech, the hero utters this challenge testifying to his undaunted courage: “arma viri fortis medios mittantur in hostes: / inde iubete peti” (“Let the arms of the brave hero be sent into the midst of the enemy; then order them to be sought” [121–22]). Ajax here echoes a sententia of Porcius Latro, a renowned Augustan rhetor.4 Ovid’s contemporary reader would likely have been familiar with the version of the contest for Achilles’ arms by the popular Latro.5 Ajax’s boastful words, however, lose their force when measured against the vigor of his model.6 At the conclusion of this episode, the poet himself employs a pithy sententia to undercut Ajax’s bravery. He thus summarizes the results of the contest: “fortisque viri tulit arma disertus” (“The fluent man carried off the arms of the brave man” [383]). On the surface, the poet’s terse comment might appear to imply sympathy with the loser. But the phrase “fortisque viri tulit arma” is an ironic echo of Ajax’s sententia at the end Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles 111 of his speech...