Scene di vita quotidiana nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio: donne e dee al telaio

Abstract

In the literature of the Augustan age, the subject of sedula matron with her attendants dedicated to the work of Minerva is a recurring formula that has its model in the chaste Lucretia. The spinners are featured in several passages of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will be analyzed here, as they provide valuable information on women’s work in terms of both technical and political terms. Regarding technical aspects, the comparative reading of the different steps allows us to reconstruct the sequence of actions leading to the production of fabric from amorphous glomera. However, from a socio-political perspective, Ovid’s work captures an opinion on women’s activities far and away against the canons of Augustan culture. In particular, whether in the long passage dedicated to Minieidi, or in that of Minerva and Arachne, the reader sees a clash between Minerva and Bacchus to the benefit of the latter, who was not among the deities in the pantheon beloved by the founder of the Empire. Here also perhaps we may see emerging the anti-augustan opinions of Ovid about which the critics argue to this day. A final consideration is suggested by the reading of Book IV in which the daughters of Minia in turn tell the old stories: the industrious female universe which Ovid illustrates, whose members work hard within closed rooms, becomes an important means for disseminating and sharing a common heritage of myths and legends, the same tales which the dominae and maidens had heard during childhood and had seen represented in the theater, and daily admired on the walls and floors of the domus and villas and upon objects of adornment and use