Erotic Epistemology, Cult Didactic Rhetoric, and the “Mysteries of Venus” in Ovid’s Ars amatoria 2.601–40

summary: This article considers the adaptation of mystery cult language and discursive modes to the erotodidactic program of Ovid’s Ars amatoria , with a special focus on the sustained engagement with cult of Ars am . 2.601–40. In this passage, Ovid introduces the concept of cult secrecy in a lesson in erotic discretion, inviting a reconsideration of the intimacies available to elegy on the model of the cultic. Ovid’s engagement with cult terminology has implications for the epistemic entailments of the erotic, the figure of Ovid’s teacher-poet as a hierophant, and the consideration of his poem as a hieros logos .