Ovid

Ovid was born in a rural valley near Rome, Italy during the reign of Augustus. Ovid’s father educated Ovid and his brother in rhetoric in hopes that they would practice law as adults. Although Ovid excelled at rhetoric, he was drawn towards using his oratory skills to explore emotional rather than political themes. When his older brother died at age 20, Ovid gave up the study of law altogether and took to traveling through Athens and Sicily. Ovid resolved to be a poet when he was around 20 years old, a decision which displeased his father. During his literary career, Ovid wrote mostly erotic poetry in elegiac meter. He wrote many poems, a manual on the subject of seduction, and the Metamorphoses—the most significant work of mythology to date—by 8 C.E. Over the course of his literary career, Ovid befriended the poets Horace, Propertius, and Macer. He also met Virgil, whose work he admired. In 8 C.E., Ovid was beginning another long poem when he was suddenly banished to Tomis, a city on the Black Sea. Although the exact reason for his exile is unknown, it is known that the emperor Augustus banished Ovid directly, with no preliminary consultation with the Roman Senate. This exile shaped much of Ovid’s subsequent poetry. The poems he wrote while in exile were particularly moving as they addressed the theme of desolation and expressed his longing for Rome and for his third wife whom he’d been forced to leave behind. Ovid died in Tomis between the years 17 and 18, and his long poem Fasti—which he had started before his banishment—was published posthumously.