Predecessors to Rome
Brief Chronology Roman Republic 509-31 B.C. Century of Revolution 133-31 B.C. Gracchi 133-122 Civil Wars Marius and Sulla 105-81 B.C. Caesar and Pompey 55-45 B.C. Octavian and Antony 43-31 Principate 27BC-193 AD Julio-Claudians 27 BC -68 AD Year of 4 Emperors 69 Flavians 69-96
Ovid Born 43 BCE in Sulmo Italy Died 17/18 CE in Tomis on the Black Sea
Manuscripts and Books
Translations William Caxton 1480 Ted Hughes 1997 Arthur Golding 1567
Survival in Art and Literature
Poets and Genres Epic Lyric Homer, Hesiod, Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Apollonius Aratus Ennius, Lucretius, Vergil Sappho and Alcaeus, Callimachus Theocritus Drama: Tragedy and Comedy Pastoral Elegy: Theocritus, Vergil Lyric Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior Athenian, Plautus Terence Horace Catullus Tibullus Propertius Sulpicia
Two Different Genres Epic Long narrative poem Focus on single hero Actions related are serious and involve death and gods Poet anonymous narrator, Not part of story Meter dactylic hexameter Elegiac Lyric Short topical poem relating experience or feeling Poet/persona is himself the hero Collection traces ups and downs of affair Playful, trivial, lower genre Meter Elegiac Couplet, which is one dactylic hexameter line, followed by one dactylic pentameter line, called hemiepes because it is actually the first half of a hexameter repeated
Ovid as Lover: 15-1 BC Amores, The Art of Love, Remedies for Love, On Facial Treatments for Ladies
Heroides: 15-2 B.C.:Ovid as Epistle Writer and Psychologist of Separation
Ovid as Epic Poet and Mythographer: Metamorphoses 1-8AD
Fasti- A Roman Sacred Calendar in Verse,1-8 AD January to June Completed Ovid as Antiquarian
Ovid in Exile: Tristia and Black Sea Letters, 8-17 AD Vita verecundia est; jocosa musa mea. (Tristia, 2
Though two charges, carmen et error, a poem and an error, ruined me, I must be silent about the second fault: I m not important enough to re-open your wound, Caesar, it s more than sufficient you should be troubled once. The first, then: that I m accused of being a teacher of obscene adultery, by means of a vile poem. Book 2, 202-212 But why is my Muse so wildly wanton, why does my book tempt one to love? Nothing for it but to confess my sin and my open fault: I m sorry for my wit and taste. Why didn t I attack Troy again in my poems, that fell before the power of the Greeks?... Warring Rome didn t deny me matter, it s virtuous work to tell one s country s tale. Lastly, since you ve filled the world with deeds, some part of it all was mine to sing, as the sun s radiant light attracts the eye so your exploits should have drawn my spirit. while I m undeservedly blamed. Narrow the furrow I plough: while that was a great and fertile theme. A little boat shouldn t trust itself to the waves because it dares to fool about in a tiny pond. Perhaps and I should even question this I m fit for lighter verse, adequate for humble music:
I returned to my light labours, the songs of youth, stirring my feelings with imaginary desires. I wish I hadn t. But destiny drew me on, and my cleverness punished me. Ah, that I ever studied! Why did my parents educate me, or letters entertain my eyes? This lewdness made you hate me, for the arts, you were sure, troubled sacred marriage-beds. But no bride learned deception from my teaching, no one can teach what he scarcely knows. I made sweet pleasurable songs in such a way that no scandal ever touched my name. There s no husband even in the lower ranks, who doubts his paternity through my offence..believe me, my character s other than my verse my life is modest, my Muse is playful and most of my work, deceptive and fictitious, is more permissive than its author. A book s not evidence of a life, but a true impulse bringing many things to delight the ear. Or Accius would be cruel, Terence a reveller, and those who sing of war belligerent, Tristia, Book 2, 312-360