P. Ovidius Naso

P. Ovidius Naso Sulmone natus est a.d. XIII Kal. Apriles anni XLIII a.C.n., familia equestri antiqua. Cum fratre maiore Romae rhetoricam didicit, postea Athenas, Asiam, Siciliam peragravit. Pater eum ad causas et honores destinabat; minores quosdam magistratus Romae gessit, sed eos poesis causa reliquit, 'et quod temptabam scribere versus erat'.

Publius Ovidius Naso was born at Sulmo on 20 March 43 B.C., into an old equestrian family. With his elder brother he studied rhetoric at Rome, and later travelled in Greece, Asia Minor and Sicily. His father intended him for the law and public office; he held some minor posts in Rome but gave them up for poetry, 'and whatever I tried to write was verse'.

Amoribus, Heroidibus, Arte Amatoria poeta Romae elegantissimus factus est; deinde Metamorphoses et Fastos scripsit, carmen de feriis Romanis, cuius sex libri, a Ianuario ad Iunium, supersunt. Anno VIII p.C.n. Augustus eum ob 'carmen et errorem' Tomos ad Pontum Euxinum relegavit. Carmen erat Ars Amatoria; errorem numquam explicavit.

With the Amores, the Heroides and the Art of Love he became the most fashionable poet in Rome; he then wrote the Metamorphoses and the Fasti, a poem on the Roman festivals of which six books, January to June, survive. In A.D. 8 Augustus banished him to Tomis on the Black Sea for 'a poem and a mistake'. The poem was the Art of Love; the mistake he never explained.

Tomis, in finibus imperii, ubi hostes per Danuvium glacie concretum transibant, Tristia et Epistulas ex Ponto scripsit, reditum orans; linguam Geticam didicit et carmen quoque Getice composuit. Id carmen, ut ait, Augustum domumque eius laudabat. Neque Augustus neque Tiberius eum revocavit, et Tomis circa annum XVII vel XVIII mortuus est.

At Tomis, on the frontier where raiders crossed the frozen Danube, he wrote the Tristia and the Letters from Pontus, pleading to be recalled; he learned the local Getic language and even composed a poem in it. That poem, he says, praised Augustus and his house. Neither Augustus nor Tiberius recalled him, and he died at Tomis about A.D. 17 or 18.

1. 43 a.C.n.43 B.C.Sulmone nascitur, a.d. XIII Kal. Apr.Born at Sulmo, 20 March.
2. c. 16 a.C.n.c. 16 B.C.Amores edit.Publishes the Amores.
3. c. 2 a.C.n.c. 2 B.C.Artem Amatoriam edit.Publishes the Art of Love.
4. 8 p.C.n.A.D. 8Metamorphosibus fere absolutis Tomos relegatur.With the Metamorphoses nearly finished, banished to Tomis.
5. c. 9–16 p.C.n.c. A.D. 9–16Tristia et Epistulas ex Ponto scribit.Writes the Tristia and the Letters from Pontus.
6. c. 17–18 p.C.n.c. A.D. 17–18Tomis moritur.Dies at Tomis.