ABSTRACT
This chapter explores aspects of Virgil’s Aeneid that engage with euhemeristic thought, and their reception in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. That Virgil should turn to Ennius’ euhemerism as a way to prepare Rome for the idea of Augustus’ deification is not surprising. That Virgil’s Aeneid could have engaged, even remotely, with Euhemeristic thought might therefore seem counterintuitive, at odds with the poem’s divinely endorsed telos and with conservative attitudes to Roman religion, especially under Augustus. Ovid uses euhemerism as a counter-frame of reference to Ennius’ and Virgil’s receptions of Euhemerus, to suggest that the Aeneid is essentially driven by the imperative of making Augustus a god. Ovid’s response in the Metamorphoses deliberately overlooks such ambiguities, presenting Virgil’s poem as thoroughly Ennian in its deifying ambitions for Augustus. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid includes no less than seven apotheoses.
