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O V I D I U S
43 BC - AD
17
Publius Ovidius Naso was born at Sulmo, a small town about 90 miles
(140 km) east of Rome. The main events of his life are
described in an autobiographical poem in the Tristia (Sorrows).
His family was old and respectable, and
sufficiently well-to-do for his father to be able to send
him and his elder brother to Rome to be educated.
At Rome he embarked on the study of rhetoric.
Ovid was thought to have the makings of a good orator,
but in spite of his father's admonitions he neglected his
studies for the verse-writing that came so naturally to
him.
Ovid's first work, the Amores (The Loves), had
an immediate success and was followed, in rapid
succession, by the Epistolae Heroidum (Epistles of the
Heroines), the Medicamina faciei ("Cosmetics";
Eng. trans. The Art of Beauty), the Ars amatoria (The Art of Love), and the Remedia amoris (Remedies
for Love), all reflecting the brilliant, sophisticated,
pleasure-seeking society in which he moved.
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The common theme of these poems is love and amorous
intrigue, but it is unlikely that they mirror Ovid's own life
very closely. His first two marriages were short-lived, but his
third wife, of whom he speaks with respect and affection,
remained constant to him until his death.
In AD 8 the emperor Augustus banished
him to Tomis (or Tomi; near modern Constanta, Romania) on the
Black Sea. The reasons for Ovid's exile
will never be fully known. Ovid specifies two, his Ars amatoria
and an offense which he does not describe beyond insisting that
it was an indiscretion (error), not a crime (scelus).
Of the many explanations that have been offered of this
mysterious indiscretion, the most probable is that he had become
an involuntary accomplice in the adultery of Augustus'
granddaughter, the younger Julia, who also was banished at the
same time. In 2 BC her mother, the elder Julia, had similarly
been banished for immorality, and the Ars amatoria had appeared
while this scandal was still fresh in the public mind.
These coincidences, together with the tone of Ovid's
reference to his offense, suggest that he behaved in some way
that was damaging both to Augustus' program of moral reform and
to the honour of the imperial family. Since his punishment, which
was the milder form of banishment called relegation, did not
entail confiscation of property or loss of citizenship, his wife,
who was well-connected, remained in Rome to protect his interests
and to intercede for him.
Exile at Tomis, a half-Greek, half-barbarian
port on the extreme confines of the Roman Empire, was a cruel
punishment for a man of Ovid's temperament and habits. He never ceased to hope, if not for pardon, at least for
mitigation of sentence, keeping up in the Tristia (Sorrows)
and the Epistulae ex Ponto ("Letters from the Black Sea") a ceaseless
stream of pathetic pleas, chiefly through his wife and friends,
to the emperor.
But neither Augustus nor his successor Tiberius relented,
and there are hints in the later poems that Ovid was even
becoming reconciled to his fate when death released him.
For more information about Ovidius life and
works:
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