411 



OVTDIUS, PTJBLIUS NASO. 



OVIDIU3, PUBLIUS NASO. 



appeared in the year 2 B.C., the same year ID which Augustus banished 

 hU daughter Julia. Previous to the ' An Amatoria ' he had published 

 hi* three books of ' Amores, 1 which were originally in five books ; and 

 alto hi. < Heroides.' 



At the close of the year A.D. 8, when he had just completed his 

 fiftieth year, he was banished from Rome by Augustus. The sentence 

 was altogether unexpected ; it fell on the astonished poet like a 

 thunderbolt. The place of his exile was Total, a Milesian colony 

 (' Trist,' iii. EL 9) in the country of the Gette, or. the banks of the 

 Euxine. Ovid has described in a most touching manner (' 'Frist..' i. 

 EL 3) the last night which he spent in Borne, and his eternal separa- 

 tion from his wife and friends; his daughter was absent in Libra. 

 HU property was not confiscated, but his exile was for life. The 

 cause of the banishment of Ovid is not distinctly stated by himself, 

 nor by any other writer ; a circumstance which has led to various 

 conjectures, all of which however are devoid of any historical founda- 

 tion. The supposition that Grid was banished for an amour with the 

 emperor's daughter Julia rests on no evidence, and is inconsistent 

 with the fact that Julia was banished ten yean before Ovid. He 

 admit* (' Trist,' v. EL 11) that his offence deserved a severer punish- 

 ment than the emperor inflicted. His sentence was not Exsilium, but 

 Relegatio ; and the difference was not unimportant. Exsilium was 

 followed by loss of fortune and citizenship ; Relegatio was not 

 followed by loas of citizenship, and only accompanied with loss of pro- 

 perty so far as such loss was comprehended in the sentence of 

 Relegatio. The poet himself baa expressed this witli strict technical 

 accuracy in one of his elegies addressed to his wife, in which he tells 

 her that she cannot be truly upbraided as being the wife of an exile, 

 inasmuch as his sentence was only Relegatio : 



" Nee Titam, nee opes, nee ju mihi civis a Jem it ; 



QUID merai vitio perdcre cuncta meo, 

 Bed quia peccato facinui non affuit lilt, 

 Nil nisi me patriis jusslt ablre focls." 



Trist.,' v., EL 11. 



In other passages however (' Trist,' iii. El. 3, &c.) he calls himself 

 Exsul, but doubtless in the general sense of that term ; for Relegatio 

 was one of the species of which Exsilium was the genus. 



He admits (' Trist.,' u. 207) that there were two charges against 

 him, the character of his amatory verses and some fault (error) which 

 he never mentions. The whole of the second book of the ' Tristia,' 

 which is addressed to Augustus, is an apology for his erotic poetry, 

 and he complains that though written long before the date of his 

 banishment it was made the ground or pretext of his punishment. 



" No* quoquo jam pridera scripto pcccavimn* uno : 

 Bupplicium patitur non nova culpa norum." 

 Trist.,' U. SS9. 



In various other passages (' Trist,' iii. EL 14 ; iv. El. 1 ; v. El. 1 ; 

 'Ep. ex Ponto,' i. 1, Ac.) he refers to his poetry as one cause of his 

 misfortunes. It may be conjectured that he was punished under the 

 proviions of the Juuan Law, De Adulteriis coercendia (' Dig.,' 48, tit. 

 v.), which was passed about B.C. 17 ; for though the provisions of this 

 law, as known to us, make no mention of obscene poetry, it is clear 

 from the title in the ' Digest/ that the law extended beyond punish- 

 ing the direct parties to an act of adultery, for it punished, among 

 others, those who lent their houses for adulterous purposes. Ovid 

 himself says that of the two charges brought against him one should 

 be nameless, but the other was founded on his amatory poetry as 

 encouraging to adultery : 



" Alters psrs rapernt qua turpi crlmine tactu, 

 Arfuor obwopni doctor udultcni." 



Trist,'. 211. 



At the time of his banishment the fifteen books of the ' Metamor- 

 phoses ' were unfinished (' Trist,' L El. 1 ; ii. 655 ; iii. EL 14) ; the 

 poet had burned them, as being incomplete, at the time of his leaving 

 Rome, but there were other copies in existence. The twelve books of 

 toe ' Fasti,' of which the fint six only have been preserved, wen also 

 written before his exile, and, as the poet tells us, inscribed to 

 Augustus Csosmr. They were finished during bis exile, and, as we now 

 have them, inscribed to Cesar Germanicun. 



The works of Ovid written during his banishment are, the five books 

 of the ' Tristia,' and the four books of his ' Letters from Pontus : ' the 

 letters an addressed to bis wife, to Haximns, Pedo Albinovanus, Ortcci- 

 nux, Rufinus, and otben of his friends. The ' Ibis* also was written in 

 his banishment, and apparently soon after his arrival at TomL 



Notwithstanding the most abject entreaties of the poet and the 

 interest of bis friends, Augustas never recalled him from banishment 

 He died at Ton.i, A.D. 18, in the sixtieth year of his sge and the tenth 

 of his banihment. Augustus died four yean before him. The cir- 

 cumstance of his not being recalled by Tiberius renders it probable, ss 

 has been conjectured, that he hsd incurred the anger of Livia Augusta. 

 The poet who bad enjoyed all the pleasures of a luxurious capital 

 and the society of all his most distinguished contemporaries, spent the 

 last ytan of his life among a barbarous people and in an inhospitable 

 climate, worn out with grief and mental anxiety ('Ex Ponto,' L Ep. 4). 

 HU only consolation in exile was to address his wife and absent 

 friends, and bit letters were all poetical. The muses, who were the 



cause of his calamity, were also his consolation in mi-fortune. Though 

 the 'Tristia' and the ' Letters from Pontus' have no other topic than 

 the poet's sorrows, hit exquisite taste and fruitful invention have 

 redeemed them from the imputation of being tedious, and they are 

 read with pleasure and even with sympathy. 



It shows the venatility of his talent that he wrote a poem during his 

 exile in the Qetic language ; the subject was the praises of Augustus 

 Cteaar and his family. The rude barbarians to whom Ovid recited this 

 poem were surprised and delighted : their uncivilised minds acknow- 

 ledged the power of ' immortal verse.' They applauded and anticipated 

 the poet's recall; but the stern master of the Roman world was inexor- 

 able. (' Ex Ponto,' iv. Ep. 13.) 



The works of Ovid form one of the most valuable parts of the 

 literature of Rome. With the exception of the ' Metamorphoses,' 

 they are all written in the elegiac measure, the restraint of which 

 would have been ill-suited to such long compositions as the ' Fasti ' in 

 the hands of almost any other Roman poet But Ovid was a perfect 

 master of the technical part of poetry, and it is surprising with what 

 consummate skill he has contrived to include in each consecutive pair 

 of verses a full and complete sense. It is rarely necessary to go 

 beyond each pair of verses in order to obtain the meaning of the poet ; 

 each couplet is generally complete in itself. And yet the whole of a 

 long poem written in this measure is so artfully and skilfully combined 

 that it exhibits a faultless unity. It is a necessary consequence how- 

 ever of this restraint, that thn elegiac poems of Ovid are sometime* 

 expressed with such an epigrammatic brevity as to bo obscure ; and 

 the antithesis, which seems to be in some measure inseparable from 

 this kind of measure, and certainly was rather sought after than 

 avoided by the poet, is sometimes too frequent. 



If we estimate the character of Ovid by his erotic poetry we must 

 admit that be is without excuse. The pleasure of the sex seems to 

 have been the uppermost thought of his mind, and the tendency of his 

 'Amores' and ' Ars Amatoria ' must be considered injurious to the 

 morals of a people. The 'Remedia Amoris' can hardly be viewed, as 

 some are inclined to view it, as a kind of Palinodia, or recantation of 

 his amatory poetry. If we estimate the character of the poet by that 

 of the licentious age in which he lived we shall judge him more 

 favourably : though a man of pleasure he was temperate in eating 

 and drinking, humane, and generally beloved. There are no passages 

 in the extant works of Ovid which approach the gross obscenity of 

 many passages in Catullun, Horace, and other Roman writers; and 

 this is a merit, at least viewed as a matter of taste. In a moral point 

 of view his poetry may be more dangerous. The voluptuous picture 

 of Ovid are only covered with a transparent veil; and even this n 

 sometimes withdrawn. It is rather singular that the ' Heroides,' which 

 abound in obscure allusions and in voluptuous imagery, and are often 

 difficult to understand, should have been so much used as an elemen- 

 tary schoolbook in modern times. 



The two great works of Ovid are his ' Metamorphoses ' and his 

 ' Fasti.' The subject of the ' Metamorphoses ' is briefly expressed in 

 the opening of the fint book : 



" In nova fcrt animus mutatas dicere formal 

 Corpora. Di ctcpUs (nam vot mutaitU et Ilia*) 

 Adsplrate mela : prlmaquc ab origine mundi, 

 Ad men perpetuum dcduclte tcmpora carmen." 



The rich mythology of Greece furnished Ovid, ss it may still furnish 

 the poet, the painter, and the sculptor, with materials for his art. 

 With exquisite taste, simplicity, and pathos, he has narrated the 

 fabulous traditions of early ages, and given to them that appearance 

 of reality which only a master-hand could impart. His pictures of 

 nature are striking and true ; he selects with care that which is appro- 

 priate ; he rejects the superfluous ; and when he has completed his 

 work, it is neither defective nor redundant 



The art of the rhetorician, as well as that of the poet, is perceptible 

 in all the works of Ovid, but particularly in the ' Metamorphoses.' 

 The two speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, in the beginning of the thirteenth 

 book, are in their kind models of oratory. He who could write the 

 speech of Ulysses might himself have become an orator ; and if he 

 had lived in the age of Hortenaius and Cicero might have shown, as 

 Ulysses did 



" quid facandia posset." 



The ' Metamorphoses ' are read with pleasure by youth, and are 

 re-read in more advanced age with still greater delight. The poet 

 ventured to predict that his poem would survive him, and be read 

 wherever the Roman name was known. 



The 'Fasti 'of Ovid are in fact a valuable historical monument. 

 'He has preserved to us the Roman calendar, with all the ancient stories 

 attached to it, collected from the traditions of the people and the old 

 chroniclers and antiquarians. His own explanations may often be of 

 little value, but they are easily separated from the ancient story or 

 tradition which ho reHtes. He begins with January, and following 

 the days of the month in order, he assigns to each its appropriate 

 festival or solemnities. It shows no small art in a poet to convert the 

 calendar of his country into a pleasing and instructive poem, ricii in 

 historical facts, and enlivened and relieved by true poetry. A complete 

 commentary on the 'Fusti' would be a valuable commentary on Roman 

 history. The last six books arc unfortunately lost 



