Editing Fames

{{Short description|Roman personification/deity of hunger}}
In [[Roman mythology]], '''Fames''' is the personification of hunger, who can arouse an insatiable appetite. She was often said to be one of the several evils who inhabit the entrance to the Underworld. In [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', she lives in [[Scythia]], a desolate place where she scrabbles unceasingly for the scant vegetation there, and at Ceres' command, she punishes [[Erysichthon of Thessaly|Erysichthon]] with a never-ending hunger. [[Servius the Grammarian|Servius]] calls Fames the greatest of the [[Furies]]. She is the equivalent of the Greek [[Limos]].<ref>Schaffner, [https://referenceworks-brill-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/display/entries/NPOE/e409620.xml s.v. Fames]; Grimal, s.v. Fames; [[Servius the Grammarian|Servius]], ''Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0053%3Abook%3D6%3Acommline%3D605 6.605].</ref>

==Sources==
===Plautus===
In ''[[Stichus]]'' (200 BC), a comedy by the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] playwright [[Plautus]], the ever-hungry Gelasimus, in the role of the ''[[Theatre of ancient Rome#Stock characters in Roman comedy|parasite]]'', one of the stock characters in Roman comedy, describes Fames as his mother:<ref>Schaffner, [https://referenceworks-brill-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/display/entries/NPOE/e409620.xml s.v. Fames].</ref>
{{blockquote|I suspect that Hunger was my mother: from the time that I was born I’ve never been full. And no one will repay his mother better ... or has repaid her better than I repay my mother, Hunger: she carried me in her belly for ten [lunar] months, whereas I have been carrying her in my belly for over ten years. ... Every day I get pangs in my stomach, but I can’t give birth to my mother and I don’t know what to do.<ref>[[Plautus]], ''[[Stichus]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/plautus-stichus/2013/pb_LCL328.35.xml?result=17&rskey=NdHopS 155&ndash;166].</ref>}}

===Virgil, Seneca, and Claudian===
The Latin poets [[Virgil]], [[Seneca the Younger]], and [[Claudian]] all list Hunger as among the many evils said to dwell in the Underworld. Describing the approach to the Underworld, Virgil, in his ''[[Aeneid]]'', says:
{{Blockquote|there pale Diseases dwell, sad Age, and Fear, and Hunger, temptress to sin, and loathly Want, shapes terrible to view.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.551.xml 6.275&ndash;276].</ref>}}
Seneca, in his ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules]]'', says that next to the Underworld river [[Cocytus]] lies:
{{blockquote|sad Hunger with wasted jaws, and Shame, too late, covers its guilty face. There are Fear and Panic, Death and gnashing Resentment; behind them black Grief, trembling Disease and steel-girt War; hidden at the back, feeble Old Age.<ref>[[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/seneca_younger-hercules/2018/pb_LCL062.71.xml 691&ndash;696].</ref>}}

While Claudian lists among "Hell's numberless monsters ... Discord, mother of war, imperious Hunger, Age, near neighbour to Death" and several others.<ref>[[Claudian]], ''Carmina'' [https://archive.org/details/claudian01clau/page/28/mode/2up?view=theater 3.28&ndash;32].</ref>

===Ovid===
[[Ovid]], in his ''[[Metamorphoses]]'',  tells the story of the [[Thessaly|Thessalian]] king [[Erysichthon of Thessaly|Erysichthon]] and his grim fate at the hands of Fames.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA133 p. 133]; [[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-metamorphoses/1916/pb_LCL042.457.xml 8.738–878]. Compare [[Callimachus]], ''Hymn VI to Demeter'' 31ff.</ref> When Erysichthon cut down a grove of trees sacred to [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], the goddess of grain, looked to her antithesis Fames to deliver her punishment: "Let pestilent Hunger torture his body!"

In Ovid's account, Fames lives at the farthest edge of [[Scythia]], a frozen, gloomy wasteland, high in the [[Caucasus Mountains]], where little grows. But, Ceres and Hunger being opposites, the Fates never let the two meet. So, in her stead, Ceres sent an [[oread]] nymph to seek out Fames:
{{poemquote|
"Go to a place on the farthest borders of icy Scythia,
gloomy terrain, where the earth is barren of crops and of trees.
Sluggish Cold has its home in that land, with Pallor and trembling,
ravenous Hunger too. Tell Hunger to fasten herself
in the cursed maw of that impious man, and never to yield
to abundance of food. Let her vie with my nourishing power &mdash; and defeat it!"<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 8.788&ndash;793 as translated by David Raeburn.</ref>}}

So the nymph when to Scythia. There she found Fames ceaselessly grubbing ("nail and tooth") in the ground for whatever little bit of vegetation she could find. She was starving and emaciated:
{{poemquote|
Her hair was tangles, her eyes like hollows, complextion pallid,
her lips grimy and grey, her throat scabrous and scurfy.
Her skin was so hard and fleshless, the entrails were visible through it;
her shrunken bones protruded under her sagging loins;
her belly was merely an empty space; her pendulous breasts
appeared to be strung on nothing except the cage of her backbone;
her leanness had swollen all her joints; the rounds of her knees
were bulbous; her ankles were grossly enlarged to a puffy excrescence.<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 8.801&ndash;808 as translated by David Raeburn.</ref>}}

Fames did as Ceres had commanded. She entered Erysichthon's chamber:
{{poemquote|It was night and she found him buried in sleep. Then twining her arms
around him, she poured herself deep inside as she breathed on his throat,
on his breast, on his mouth, and dispersed starvation throughout his veins.<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 8.817&ndash;820 as translated by David Raeburn.</ref>}}

Thereafter, Erysichthon is filled with a never ending hunger. He sells all his possessions, including his daughter as a slave, in a futile attempt to satisfy his insatiable appetite. He is ultimately driven to eat his own body.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
* [[Callimachus]], ''Hymn VI to Demeter'' in ''Callimachus and Lycophron with an English Translation by A. W. Mair; Aratus, with an English Translation by G. R. Mair'', London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. [https://archive.org/stream/callimachuslycop00calluoft#page/n5/mode/2up Internet Archive], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL129/1921/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].

* [[Claudian]], ''Claudian with an English Translation by Maurice Platnauer'', Volume I, [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 136. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]]; London: William Heinemann, Ltd.. 1922. {{ISBN|978-0674991514}}. [https://archive.org/stream/claudian01clau#page/n5/mode/2up Internet Archive]. 

* Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-631-20102-1}}. [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofclas0000grim/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater Internet Archive].

* Hard, Robin (2004), ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004, {{ISBN|9780415186360}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC Google Books].

* [[Ovid]]. ''[[Metamorphoses]], Volume I: Books 1-8''. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 42. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]], 1977, first published 1916. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99046-3}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL042/1916/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].

* [[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', translated by David Raeburn, Penguin Classics, 2004. {{ISBN| 978-0-14-044789-7}}.

* [[Plautus]], ''[[Stichus]]'' in ''Stichus, Three-Dollar Day, Truculentus, The Tale of a Travelling-Bag, Fragments'', edited and translated by Wolfgang de Melo, [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 328, Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 2013. {{ISBN| 9780674996816}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL328/2013/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].

* Schaffner, Brigitte, [https://referenceworks-brill-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/display/entries/NPOE/e409620.xml s.v. Fames], in [https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/package/bnpo ''Brill’s New Pauly Online''], Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and, Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry, published online: 2006.

* [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules]]'' in ''Seneca, Tragedies, Volume I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra.'' Edited and translated by John G. Fitch. [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 62. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99602-1}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL062/2018/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].

* [[Servius (grammarian)|Servius]], ''Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil'', Georgius Thilo, Ed. 1881. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0053%3Abook%3D1%3Acommline%3Dpr Online version at the Perseus Digital Library (Latin)].

* [[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [books 1&ndash;6], in ''Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid: Books 1-6'', translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, revised by G. P. Goold, [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 63, Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 1999.  {{ISBN|978-0-674-99583-3}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL063/1916/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].

[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]
[[Category:Starvation]]
[[Category:Chthonic beings]]