Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid)

Sources

20 Mar. 43 b.c.e.-18 c.e.

Poet

Banishment. Ovid was born on 20 March 43 B.C.E. in Sulmo in the mountains southeast of Rome. His family belonged to the local aristocracy, which meant they held the status of knights (equites) at Rome, and he was sent to Rome itself for his education. He also toured Greece and Asia Minor. After holding a minor post as a public official, he turned to writing poetry fulltime. Although financially independent enough to enter the senate, he joined the circle of poets around Messalla Corvinus and wrote elegies. This step was obviously not welcomed by his father, who, according to an anecdote, had given young Ovid a beating when he wrote poetry as a boy. Ovid’s promise never to write verse again, however, could be scanned as a verse of dactylic hexameter! His first work was five books of Amores in circa 18 B.C.E., later reduced to a three-book edition. This work was followed by fifteen Heroides, fictional letters from mythical heroines to their absent lovers, then two books of a lover’s instruction manual titled The Art of Love. This work, in turn, was followed by a third book as sequel, and the Remedies for Love for those who want to get over being rejected.

Between the years 2 and 8 C.E., he wrote his major works: fifteen books of Metamorphoses, six books of Fasti (on stories associated with the Roman calendar), and six doubleHeroides.(letters and their responses). This period of time is when disaster struck in the form of Ovid’s banishment. He was tried in closed proceedings by the emperor himself, which indicates that the charge was something Augustus wanted to keep secret. Probably Ovid saw the emperor’s granddaughter Julia commit adultery and did not tell. Ovid had to leave Rome and report to the garrison at Tomis, modern Constanza, on the Black Sea coast of what is now Romania. He did not lose his property, and he took about a year to get there. From there he kept writing personal appeals (in verse) to the emperor, his friends, and his wife to get him back. These appeals were published in nine books of elegies. Ovid, however, was never recalled and died in exile in 18 C.E. He had been married three times and had a daughter from his second marriage.

Sources

Barbara Weiden Boyd, Ovid’s Literary Loves: Influence and Innovation in the Amores (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).

G. Karl Galinsky, Ovid’s Metamorphoses: An Introduction to the Basic Aspects (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).

Sara Mack, Ovid (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).