ABSTRACT
In the last book of his Metamorphoses, Ovid introduces the figure of Pythagoras, who soon launches into a lengthy disquisition designed to illustrate the principle of permanent flux and how it manifests itself in both nature and history. The transition from mineralogical discussion to animal lore is as stark as it is unmarked; Theophrastus clearly assumed that the origin of the stone from the urine of the lynx was an established fact for his audience, which he could simply presuppose without further explication. Coral is a peculiar lifeform. Nowadays biologists classify the polyps that form coral among the so-called antozoaria, that is, 'flower animals'. Ovid's version of the origin of coral inevitably activates some of the thematic patterns that evolved in the ancient discourse around this creature, though he manages to give a surprising twist even to the conventional elements.
