OVIDIUS NASO, PUBLIUS, in some respects the greatest poetical genius of Rome, was born at Sulmo, in the country of the Peligni, on the 20th of March B.C. 43. In that year Cicero was murdered, and on the very day of the poet's birth the consuls Hirtius and Pansa died in the campaign of Mutina. His father, a member of an old equestrian family, was only moderately wealthy. At an early age the poet and his brother Lucius, who was exactly a year older than he, were sent to Rome to be educated for the bar. Though placed under the first teachers of eloquence of that age, Arelius Fuscus and Portius Latro, the poet never took kindly to the study of oratory. His tendencies were all to literature, and especially to poetry. His father, with whom poetry was only a synonyme for poverty, warned him, but in vain, against his favourite pursuit. The death of his elder brother Lucius placed him in circumstances of moderate affluence, and from that time he was allowed to follow out his tastes pretty much as he chose. After completing his education, and mastering the Greek tongue at Athens, he travelled with the poet Macer in Asia and Sicily. After spending nearly a year in the latter country, he returned to Rome. His delicate health and indolent temper disqualified him for active life. It does not appear that he ever practised at the bar. He sat for a short time as a judge in the court of the Triumviri Capitales, and afterwards of the Centumviri, besides acting occasionally as a judge. His chief pleasure, however, was in the literary society of the capital. Among his friends he counted such men as Bassus, Ponticus, Propertius, and Macer. Virgil he only saw once. Horace, who was twenty-two years his senior, he often met. His intimacy with Tibullus was fast ripening into friendship when that poet was prematurely cut off. Unlike most of these literary friends, he owed nothing to the favour of Mæcenas. It is a significant fact that the name of that patron of letters does not occur once in all the poet's works. Ovid was three times married. His first wife proved unworthy of his choice, and was soon put away. His second was in like manner speedily divorced, though her chastity was, on the poet's own admission, beyond dispute. The real culprit in this case was the poet himself. Falling in with the fashion of the day,—a fashion which accorded only too well with his inclinations,—Ovid devoted himself to his mistress Corinna, and probably to other women. When about thirty years of age, he espoused his third wife, a member of the Fabian family. With her he lived happily till his exile, and by her he had his only child, his daughter Perilla. This daughter was twice married, and had a child by each husband. Not long after the birth of the first of these children, Ovid's father died, at the age of ninety. His mother survived her husband only a few months. They had lived to witness their son's rise and growing fame. They were spared the sight of his fall and banishment.
Ovid's life at Rome was on the whole a singularly fortunate and happy one. He had competent means, a house near the Capitol, a pleasant garden between the Flaminian and Clodian ways, a farm of some value in the country of the Peligni, access to the best literary society of Rome, and the favour of Augustus himself. His growing fame as a poet was justified by his three books of Amores, his
Ovid. Epistola Heroidum, and his Ars Amatoria. The last of these works was published in u.c. 2, the year in which the elder Julia was sent into exile by her father. He had also completed, though he had not published, his Metamorphoses and his Fasti. He had submitted these, the most valuable and important of his works, to his literary friends, and was engaged in giving them the finishing touches, when he was overtaken by the great calamity of his life. In the year A.D. 8, he was banished from Rome. The place of his exile was Tomi, or, as he himself calls it, Tomis, an old Milesian colony on the shores of the Black Sea, near one of the mouths of the Danube. His sentence was a simple relegatio, and did not involve the loss of citizenship or the confiscation of his property. He has himself described with the most touching pathos (Trist. i. 3) the last night he was allowed to spend in Rome, and the pangs with which he tore himself for ever from his friends and family. The voyage to Tomi occupied the greater part of a year, and more than once the poet was in danger of his life from shipwreck. When at last he reached his destination, it almost seemed as if death would have been preferable. Tomi could hardly be said to be within the pale of civilization. The inhabitants were barbarous and ignorant, the soil barren, and the climate so cold that in winter even the wine froze. Savage hordes of Getæ from the northern banks of the river sometimes attacked the place, and rendered life itself insecure. It is hardly to be wondered at that in his petitions to be recalled, or at least transferred to some less utterly miserable place of exile, the poet should use the language of fulsome and even abject flattery to Augustus. But the emperor was inexorable; and neither the poet's own urgent prayers, nor the interest of his friends, availed to procure any mitigation of his sentence. He was left to drag out his remaining years, a prey to anxiety and despair, perhaps also to remorse. With his new towns-men he ingratiated himself by learning their language, and versifying their local legends and traditions. So popular did he make himself among them by these arts, that they passed a decree exempting him from all taxes. While his health allowed, he spent his time in putting the finishing touches to his Fasti, and in writing those letters to his wife and friends at Rome which we now possess in four books, under the title of Letters from Pontus. To this period of his life we also owe his Ibis, and the five books of the Tristia. It is from this last-named work that the events of the poet's life are chiefly known. Ovid died at Tomi A.D. 18, in the sixtieth year of his age and tenth of his exile.
Much has been written, and to little purpose, on the cause or causes of Ovid's banishment. The ostensible ground was the immoral tendency of many of his writings, especially his Ars Amatoria. But he confesses that this was a mere pretext, and hints obscurely at some "error" as the real cause of his punishment. What this "error" was, it is useless to conjecture; but we may conclude that it partook of the nature of a grave moral offence, as, on the poet's own admission, it deserved a severer punishment than even the very severe punishment it received. It was long a favourite theory with some scholars that the crime in question was an intrigue with the emperor's daughter Julia, the Corinna, as they maintain, of the Amores. A refutation of this view, however, is contained in the fact, that Julia was exiled ten years before her supposed paramour. A more plausible theory is that which alleges an intrigue between the poet and the younger Julia, the emperor's grand-daughter. It is a strong objection to this view that Ovid was old enough to be the younger Julia's father; but it receives a curious confirmation from the circumstance that they were both banished in the same year. The idea that he fell under the displeasure of the imperial family for his political views, is both at variance with his own statements, and is not sufficiently supported by historical evi-
dence. The real cause was no doubt the "error" to which he himself alludes. What that "error" was, is, and is likely ever to be, a mystery.
The longest and most ambitious of Ovid's works is his Metamorphoses, in fifteen books. It is the only one of all his writings in which he does not use the elegiac metre. The mythologies of Greece and Rome furnished Ovid with the materials for this work, which comprises every, or nearly every legend and tradition involving, as the name implies, a transformation. The component parts are worked into a harmonious whole with rare skill; while many of the episodes are unrivalled in Latin literature for vigour of fancy, warmth of colouring, and simplicity and variety of diction. Next in importance to the Metamorphoses come the Fasti, in twelve books, six of which only have survived. This work is a kind of poetical Roman calendar, in which, beginning with January, he describes the rites and festivals peculiar to every day of every month, preserving every old story or interesting legend attached to each. As much of this work was drawn from the oral traditions current among the common people, and from ancient chronicles extant in his day, but long since lost, the Fasti form a valuable historical monument. It is inferior in general effect to the Metamorphoses, but is read with interest for the events it relates, and with pleasure for the real poetry with which these are set off. Of his minor works, the Amores and the Ars Amandi are notable for the deep knowledge of human nature, and especially of the female heart, which they display. The general tone of both is indefensibly immoral, and in many passages they breathe a warmth and even grossness of passion which nothing can excuse. The effect of such writings could not but have been dangerous to the morals of the people, and the danger is enhanced rather than diminished by the transparent veil under which the author affected to hide his voluptuous pictures. Even his Epistola Heroidum, a work still highly popular as a text-book for schools, is far from being quite free of these vices. In addition to the works already mentioned, Ovid wrote a tragedy entitled Medea, which is mentioned in terms of praise by Tacitus and Quinctilian. It has long since perished.
The memoirs of Ovid are numerous. The most careful and elaborate, though not the most correct, is that of M. M. M. originally published at Amsterdam in 1708, and frequently reprinted since that date. The most accurate and reliable, besides the most interesting, is the Life of the poet in Italian by Rosmini, Milan, 1821. Besides these there are numerous shorter sketches, of which may be specified the two old Latin biographies generally prefixed to the larger editions of Ovid's works, and those by Manutius, Paulus Marsius, and others, which are given collectively in Burman's edition.
The editio princeps of Ovid appeared at Bologna in 1471, and at Rome in the same year. The first Aldine edition was published in 1502. The Elzevir edition of Heinsius appeared at Leyden in 1629; and that In usum Delphini at Lyon in 1689. The best is that of Burman (see BURMAN, Peter), Amsterdam, 1727, which has not been superseded by the later French edition of J. A. Amar in Le Maire's Bibliotheca Latina, or by the German one of J. C. Jahn, Leipzig, 1828. The editions of the separate works are numerous, and some of them excellent. The translations of Ovid into the languages of modern Europe are very numerous. Of these we can only indicate here a few of the best that have appeared in English. The most admired is "Ovid's Metamorphoses, in fifteen books, translated by the most eminent hands," London, 1717. The "eminent hands" in question were Dryden, Addison, Congreve, Rowe, Gay, Phillips, Croxall, Sewell, and, Garth; the last of whom wrote the preface and saw the work through the press. This version has been frequently reprinted. The earliest English verse translation of the Meta-
Oviedo. morphoses is that of Arthur Golding, London, 1567. The first five books of the same work were "Englished in verse, mythologized, and represented in figures" by G. Sandys, Oxford, 1626. A blank-verse translation of the whole poem was published by Howard in London, 1807. The Epistles were rendered into English verse by several hands, —viz., Dryden, Otway, Settle, and others. This translation, which has been several times reprinted, appeared first in London in 1680, with a preface by Dryden. Of the literal prose translations may be mentioned that by Clarke, London, 1735; another which appeared in 1748; and that by H. T. Riley, published in 1851-2, forming 3 vols. of Bohn's Classical Library.
Ovid has always been highly popular in France; and the French translations of his various works are very numerous. A very complete list of these is appended to the article on Ovid in the Biographie Universelle, by M. Villenave. (J. c—i.)