Abstract

This article presents the first modern exploration of the relationship between Ovid’s Fasti and the Catasterismi attributed to Eratosthenes. It argues that mythological handbooks such as the Catasterismi would have been familiar not only to Ovid but also his readers, and that as such they should be considered as potential intertexts. An examination of this intertextual relationship between the Fasti and the Catasterismi shows how in his first extended star myths Ovid raises the politically sensitive question of how to populate his heavens and how, after teasing his reader with Aratean order and justice, he embraces the chaotic and uncertain world of the Catasterismi.