![]() ![]() The Imperial scholar Quintilian described Ovid as the last of the Latin love elegists. Collectively, they are considered the three canonical poets of Latin literature. Ovid's Ars amatoria, a didactic poem purporting to instruct first men and then women on the arts of seduction, is thought to have been the offensive song (Latin: carmen). A contemporary of the older poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during Augustuss reign. Augustus banished his granddaughter Julia and Ovid in the same year, CE 8. Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid, was born in Sulmo, Italy on March 20, 43 BCE. It is assumed that the carmen et error had something to do with Augustus' moral reforms and/or the princeps' promiscuous daughter Julia. His verse is distinguished by its easy elegance and sophistication. Ovid says he saw something he should not have seen. ![]() ![]() What is certain is that in 8 AD Ovid was sent to the bleak fishing-village of Tomi for what he describes as a poem and a mistake, Ovid attempted, on numerous occasions, to find his way back into the good graces of Augustus, writing poems to the emperor and other influential friends. Ovid's plaintive appeals in his writing from exile at Tomi, on the Black Sea, are less entertaining than his mythological and amatory writing and are also frustrating because, while we know Augustus exiled a 50-year-old Ovid for carmen et error, we don't know exactly what his grave mistake was, so we get an unsolvable puzzle and a writer consumed with self-pity who once was the height of wit, a perfect dinner party guest. The reason for Ovid’s exile by Augustus is unknown. ![]()
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