Ovid
Also known as: Publius Ovidius Naso · P. Ovidius Naso
- 1Ovid was a canonical Roman poet active during the reign of Augustus.
- 2He is recognized as one of the three great poets of Latin literature.
- 3The emperor Augustus ordered his exile to Tomis on the Black Sea.
- 4Ovid attributed his downfall to a mysterious carmen et error.
- 5He is categorized by the scholar Quintilian as the last of the Latin love elegists.
Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus.
Connections1
author of the definitive literary account
His work 'Metamorphoses' contains the most detailed and influential narrative version of the Niobe myth, which shaped later Western artistic depictions.
Publius Ovidius Naso, widely known as Ovid, was a preeminent Roman poet who flourished during the reign of the emperor Augustus. Alongside Virgil and Horace, he is considered one of the three foundational figures of Latin literature.
A statue of Ovid by Ettore Ferrari is shown in the Piazza XX Settembre in Sulmona, Italy. It is a duplicate of an 1887 original found in Constanța, Romania.Wikimedia Commons: File:Sulmona0001.jpgOvid Banished from Rome (1838), by J.M.W. TurnerWikimedia Commons: File:Turner_Ovid_Banished_from_Rome.jpgA statue of Roman poet Ovid in Constanța is shown. In 1925, an identical replica was made in Sulmona, Italy.Wikimedia Commons: File:Statue_of_Roman_poet_Ovid_in_Constanţa,_Romania.jpgMedea in a fresco from HerculaneumWikimedia CommonsEngraved frontispiece of George Sandys 's 1632 London edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses EnglishedWikimedia CommonsA 1484 figure from Ovide Moralisé, edition by Colard MansionWikimedia CommonsDelacroix, Ovid among the Scythians, 1859; National Gallery in LondonWikimedia CommonsOvid as imagined in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493Wikimedia Commons Despite his immense popularity and literary success, Ovid's life took a dramatic turn when he was exiled by Augustus to Tomis, a remote outpost on the Black Sea. He spent the final decade of his life in this harsh environment. Ovid famously described the cause of his banishment as a carmen et error—a poem and a mistake—though the precise nature of his transgression remains a subject of enduring scholarly debate.