Abstract

Ovid begins his Metamorphoses with the above statement and indeed this task is accomplished. From the myth of creation in Book One to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar in Book Fifteen, Ovid weaves together mythological and historical tales, one after the other, forming the colorful pattern of Metamorphoses. There are myths of women turned to spiders, barbarous kings altered to howling wolves, peasants changed into frogs, heroes transformed into heavenly stars. Then, in the last book, lodged amid two minor myths of transformation, is a lengthy speech of the philosopher Pythagoras. In this speech, Pythagoras preaches the kinship of living things, the transmigration of souls, the doctrine of recollection and the principle of change in nature. ;This speech has irked scholars for generations. What is its purpose? How does its presence affect a cohesive rendering of the Metamorphoses? Is it a rhetorical digression or an integral part of the work? Is this work to be taken as any more than a cleverly constructed compendium of myths on the subject of change? Could this light poet, known for his witty and amatory verse, have had the philosophical expertise to create a didactic epic on the subject of Pythagorean doctrine? The responses came back a resounding no. At best, the speech was seen merely as a philosophical digression from the rest of the work, loosely joined by the subject of change. ;The purpose of this dissertation is to reevaluate this conclusion by establishing that the entire Metamorphoses was structured on the foundation of Pythagorean epistemology