Talk:Vertumnus

Untitled

Someone might want to check Ovid's Metamorphoses and bring the Wikipedia telling into closer allignment with Ovid. --Wetman 05:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Origins of Vertumnus Paradox

Danger, Will Robinson! First it says:

"Vertumnus' cult arrived at Rome around 300 BC (from his Etruscan counterpart: Voltumna)[...]"

Then it says

"His name comes from vertere meaning 'changing'."

Sorry, this crime scene needs to be examined more closely. Based on my instinct, if it's correct that the worship of this god "arrived in Rome around 300 BC", long after the rise of Etruria, then Etruscan Voltumna was loaned into Latin first as Vortumnus. Only **later** would it become Vertumnus, presumably via contamination with the pre-existing Latin word vertēre. Do we agree? In which case, the latter statement should read: "His original name in Latin was likely contaminated by the word vertēre 'to change', hence Vertumnus instead of Vortumnus." --Glengordon01 11:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why should an agricultural deity be contaminated by vertere? Ver, "Spring", seems far more likely, with "vertere" being a later interpretation, possibly by Ovid himself. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The idea, in the article, that his cult "arrived in Rome" sounds misleading too. When was it not there? (Various websites offer various dates in the fourth century BCE.) I've added a quote from Ovid's Fasti.

From Livy (44.16, describing events of 169 BCE) "Out of the sum allotted to him Tiberius Sempronius purchased for the State the dwelling-house of P. Africanus behind the "Old Shops" by the statue of Vertumnus, together with the butchers' stalls and the booths adjoining..." The statue had come from Etruscan Velzna (Volsini) when consul Marcus Fulvius Flaccus overpowered the city in 264 BCE, and was it in the wagon train of booty including 200 bronze statues that were melted down for coinage, save this one, set up in Vicus Tuscus? (Deborah Gage, "Art Thefts Through History" This date 264 BCE is sometimes given for the "arrival" of Vertumnus in Rome. I wouldn't know... --Wetman 07:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'only purely Latin tale'

I'm the one who left the request for a citation for 'only purely Latin tale,' since the phrase is not supported by or discussed as far as I can see in the body text of the article. The meaning of all four words is unclear to me.

Is the distinction meant that all the rest of the Metamorphoses is made up of narratives that come from Greek myths as adapted by Ovid? This isn't exactly true, especially toward the end of the work, where one finds Roman material such as the little passage about Julius Caesar, and about Ovid living in a new Golden Age. See W.R. Johnson, "Vertumnus in Love," Classical Philology 92 (1997) 367–375, reacting against Amy Richlin and her mob, on Ovid on the "Roman destiny" theme. There's also the famous passage connecting Pythagoras to Numa, and if I'm not mistaken the treatment of Greek myth elsewhere, as in the Phaethon episode, draws on elements that reflect Italic versions (or even at moments perhaps Celtic, according to Frederick Ahl).

Since the Barbu Ovidianum has no online preview, I can't check how accurately the source is represented. Is there a distinction being made between "Latin" and "Roman"? So maybe this means "Vertumnus and Pomona" is the only myth retold by Ovid in the Metamorphoses that originates within Italic religious narrative tradition (does "Latin" = "Italic" here)? Except that Roman sources insist on an Etruscan connection, casting "purely" into doubt. So I think all four words are doubtful, if "tale" = "narrative, story". If "tale" means "myth," however, it should say that. It would make sense to me if it said something like "V and P is the only tale in the Metamorphoses that is based on a Roman myth," that is, without a Greek origin. (Though this assumes readers coming to this article know that Ovid retells Greek myths in the Metamorphoses.) So the statement as it stands may sound "simple," but it is not usefully accurate. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the quote from the source article to the long footnote. Ambiguities do remain, as Cynwolfe notes.--Wetman (talk) 17:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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