Publius Ovīdius Naso

, a celebrated Roman poet, born at Sulmo on the 20th of March, about 43 B.C. As he was intended for the bar, his father sent him early to Rome, and removed him to Athens in the 16th year of his age. The progre of Ovid in the study of eloquence was great, but the father’s expectations were frustrated; his son was born a poet, and nothing could deter him from pursuing his natural inclination, though he was often reminded that Homer lived and died in the greatest poverty. Everything he wrote was expre ed in poetical numbers, as he himself says, et quod tentabam scribere versus erat . A lively genius and a fertile imagination soon gained him admirers; the learned became his friends; Virgil, Pro pert i us, Tibullus, and Horace, honoured him with their correspondence, and August us patronized him with the most unbounded liberality. These favours, however, were but momentary, and the poet was soon after banished to Tomos, on the Euxine sea, by the emperor. The true cause of this sudden exile is unknown. Some attribute it to a shameful amour with Livia the wife of August us, while others support that it arose from the knowledge which Ovid had of the unpardonable incest of the emperor with his daughter Julia. These reasons are, indeed, merely conjectural; the cause was of a very private and very secret nature, of which Ovid himself is afraid to speak, as it arose from error and not from criminality. It was, however, something improper in the family and court of August us, as these lines seem to indicate. Cur a liquid vid i? Cur noxia lumina feci? Cur imprudent i cognita culpa mihi est? Inscius Actæon vid it sine veste Dianam; Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis. Again, Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina plector, Peccatumque oculos est habui e meum. And in another place, Perdiderunt cum me duo crimina, carmen et error, Alter i us fact i culpa silenda mihi est. In his banishment, Ovid betrayed his pusillanimity, and however afflicted and distre ed his situation was, yet the flattery and impatience which he showed in his writings are a disgrace to his pen, and expose him more to ridicule than pity. Though he prostituted his pen and his time to adulation, yet the emperor proved deaf to all entreaties, and refused to listen to his most ardent friends at Rome who wished for the return of the poet. Ovid, who undoubtedly wished for a Brutus to deliver Rome of her tyrannical August us, continued his flattery even to meanne ; and, when the emperor died, he was so mercenary as to consecrate a temple to the departed tyrant on the shores of the Euxine, where he regularly offered frankincense every morning. Tiberius proved as regardle as his predece or to the entreaties which were made for Ovid, and the poet died in the seventh or eighth year of his banishment, in the 59th year of his age, A.D. 17, and was buried at Tomos. In the year 1508 of the christian era, the following epitaph was found at Stain, in the modern kingdom of Austria: Hic situs est vates quem Divi Cæsaris ira. August i patriâ cedere ju it humo. Sæpe miser voluit patriis occumbere terris, Sed frustra! Hunc ill i fat a dedere locum. This, however, is an imposition, to render celebrated an obscure corner of the world, which never contained the bones of Ovid. The greatest part of Ovid’s poems are remaining. His Metamorphoses , in 15 books, are extremely curious, on account of the many different mythological facts and traditions which they relate, but they can have no claim to an epic poem. In composing this the poet was more indebted to the then existing traditions, and to the theogony of the ancients, than to the powers of his own imagination. His Fasti were divided into 12 books, the same number as the constellations in the zodiac; but of these, six have perished, and the learned world have reason to lament the lo of a poem which must have thrown so much light upon the religious rites and ceremonies, festivals and sacrifices, of the ancient Romans, as we may judge from the six that have survived the ravages of time and barbarity. His Tristia , which are divided into five books, contain much elegance and softne of expre ion, as also his Elegies on different subjects. The Heroides are nervous, spirited, and diffuse, the poetry is excellent, the language varied, but the expre ions are often too wanton and indelicate, a fault which is common in his compositions. His three books of Amorum , and the same number de Arte Am and i , with the other de Remedio Amoris , are written with great elegance, and contain many flowery descriptions; but the doctrine which they hold forth is dangerous, and they are to be read with caution, as they seem to be calculated to corrupt the heart, and sap the foundations of virtue and morality. His Ibis , which is written in imitation of a poem of Call i mach us, of the same name, is a satirical performance. Besides these, there are extant some fragments of other poems, and among these some of a tragedy called Medea . The talents of Ovid as a dramatic writer have been disputed, and some have observed that he, who is so often void of sentiment, was not born to shine as a tragedian. Ovid has attempted perhaps too many sorts of poetry at once. On whatever he has written, he has totally exhausted the subject, and left nothing unsaid. He everywhere paints nature with a masterly hand, and gives strength to the most vulgar expre ions. It has been judiciously observed, that his poetry, after his banishment from Rome, was destitute of that spirit and vivacity which we admire in his other compositions. His Fasti are perhaps the best written of all his poems, and after them we may fairly rank his love verses, his Heroides , and, after all, his Metamorphoses , which were not totally finished when August us sent him into banishment. His Epistles from Pontus are the language of an abject and pusillanimous flatterer. However critics may censure the indelicacy and the inaccuracies of Ovid, it is to be acknowledged that his poetry contains great sweetne and elegance, and, like that of Tibullus, charms the ear and captivates the mind. Ovid married three wives, but of the last alone he speaks with fondne and affection. He had only one daughter, but by which of his wives is unknown; and she herself became mother of two children, by two husbands. The best editions of Ovid’s works are those of Burman, 4  vols. , 4to, Amsterdam, 1727; of Leiden, 1670, in 8vo, and of Utrecht, in 12mo, 4  vols. , 1713. Ovid , Tristia , bks. 3 & 4, . — Paterculus , bk. 2 .— Martial , bks. 3 & 8.――A man who accompanied his friend Cæsonius when banished from Rome by Nero. Martial , bk. 7 , ltr. 43 .