BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF OVID—HIS RHETORICAL POWERS—ANECDOTE RELATED BY
SENECA—HIS POETICAL GENIUS—SELF-INDULGENT
LIFE—POPULARITY—BANISHMENT—PLACE OF HIS EXILE—EPISTLES AND OTHER
WORKS—GRATIUS FALISCUS—PEDO ALBINOVANUS—AULUS SABINUS—MARCUS MANILIUS.
OVIDIUS NASO (BORN B. C. 43.)
Ovid, as he himself states,[732] was born at Sulmo (Sulmone,) a town of
the Peligni (Abruzzi,) ninety miles distant from Rome. The year of his
birth was that in which the consuls Hirtius and Pansa fell in the field
of Mutina (Modena.) His family was equestrian, and had been so for some
generations. His father lived to the age of ninety; and, as his mother
was then alive, it is probable that she also attained an advanced age.
He had a brother exactly twelve months older than himself. Their common
birthday was the first of the Quinquatria, or festival of Minerva (March
20th.)
Whilst still of tender age the two boys were sent to Rome for education,
and placed under the care of eminent instructors. The elder studied
eloquence, and was brought up to the bar: but he died at the early age
of twenty. Ovid himself also, for a time, studied rhetoric under
Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, and the results of his study are
visible in his poems;[733] for example, in the speeches of Ajax and
Ulysses.[734]
Seneca has left an interesting account of his rhetorical powers.[735] “I
remember,” he says, “hearing Naso declaim, in the presence of Arellius
Fuscus, of whom he was a pupil; for he was an admirer of Latro, although
his style was different from his own. The style of Ovid could at that
time be termed nothing else but poetry in prose: still he was so
diligent as to transfer many of his sentiments into his verses. Latro
had said—
Mittamus arma in hostes, et petamus.
Naso wrote—
Arma viri fortis medios mittantur in hostes
Inde jubete peti.
He borrowed another idea from one of Latro’s Suasorian orations:—
Non vides uti immota fax torpeat et exagitata reddat ignes?
Ovid’s paraphrase of this illustration is—
Vidi ego jactatas mota face crescere flammas,
Et rursus, nullo concutiente, mori.
When he was a student he was thought to declaim well.”
On the affecting theme of a husband and wife, who had mutually sworn not
to survive each other, Seneca asserts that he surpassed his master in
wit and talent, and was only inferior in the arrangement of his topics.
He then quotes a long passage, in which Ovid analyzes the principles of
love, with a skill and ingenuity well worthy of one who, as a poet, made
love the subject of his song, and with a purity of sentiment which, it
were to be wished, had dignified the sweetness of his verses. Ovid
preferred _suasoriæ_ and ethical themes to _controversiæ_;[736] for all
argument was irksome to him. In oratory he was very careful in the use
of his words: in his poetry he was aware of his faults, but loved them
too well to correct them. He then adds the following amusing and
characteristic anecdote:—Being once asked by his friends to erase three
lines, he consented on condition that he himself should be at liberty to
make an exception in favour of three. He accordingly wrote down three
which he wished to preserve; his friends those which they wished to
erase. The papers were examined, and both were found to contain the same
verses. Pedo Albinovanus used to say that one of these was—
Semibovemque virum semivirumque bovem.
The other—
Egelidum Borean, egelidumque Notum.
Hence it is apparent that judgment was not wanting, but the inclination
to correct. He defended himself by saying that an occasional mole is an
improver of beauty. The former of these miserable conceits is not now to
be found in his poems. The latter occurs in the _Amores_, but it is
usually read—
Et gelidum Borean, egelidumque Notum;
or—
Et gelidum Borean, præcipitemque Notum.[737]
The father of Ovid, who took a utilitarian view of life, is said to have
discouraged the cultivation of his poetical talents, and to have
stigmatized the service of the Muses as barren and unprofitable. Even
Homer himself, he was wont to say, left no property behind him. Ovid
endeavoured to comply with his father’s wishes; he deserted Helicon, and
tried to write plain prose. It was all in vain; his words spontaneously
flowed into numbers, and whatever he tried to say was poetry. His
natural genius and facility displayed itself when he was quite a boy;
for he had not yet put on the _toga virilis_. When he assumed this badge
of mature age, it was bordered with a broad purple stripe, which marked
the patrician order; but being unambitious and indolent, he never took
his seat in the senate, although he filled several magisterial and
judicial offices.
His rank, fortune, and talents enabled him to cultivate the society of
men of congenial tastes. He became acquainted with the best poets of his
day. Macer and Propertius would recite their compositions to him.
Ponticus and Bassus were guests at his table. He had heard the lyrics of
Horace read by himself. Virgil he had only seen; and the untimely death
of Tibullus prevented him from making the acquaintance of that poet. He
was extremely young when his juvenile poems became very popular, and he
wrote far more than he published; for he burnt whatever displeased him;
and, when sentenced to exile, in disgust he committed the Metamorphoses
to the flames.
He himself confesses his natural susceptibility and amorous temperament;
but claims the credit of never having given occasion to any scandal. He
was three times married. His first wife was unsuitable, and proved
unworthy of him, and accordingly he divorced her. His second he divorced
also, although no imputation rested on her virtue. From his third, whom,
notwithstanding his fickleness and infidelity, he sincerely loved, he
was only separated by exile. She was one of the Fabian family, and bore
him one daughter.
Epicurean in his tastes, and a skeptic, if not a disbeliever in a future
state, he lived a life of continual self-indulgence and intrigue. He was
a universal admirer and as universal a favourite among the female sex in
the voluptuous capital; for the tone of female morals was in that age
low and depraved, and the women encouraged the licentiousness of the
men. Although his favourite mistress, whom he celebrated under the
fictitious name of Corinna, is unknown, and all the conjectures
concerning her identity are groundless, there is no doubt that she was a
lady of rank and fortune.
Ovid was popular as a poet, successful in society, and possessed all the
enjoyments which wealth can bestow. He had a villa and estate in his
native Sulmo, a house on the Capitoline hill, and suburban gardens,
celebrated for their beauty. At some period of his life he travelled
with Macer into Asia and Sicily; and, in his exile, recalls to mind with
sorrowful pleasure the magnificent cities of the former, and the sublime
scenery and classic haunts of the latter.[738] This sunny life at length
came to an end. The last ray of happiness, which he speaks of as beaming
on him, was the intelligence that his beloved daughter Perilla, who was
twice married, made him a grandfather a second time. When his hair
became tinged with white, and he had reached his fiftieth year, he
incurred, by some fault or indiscretion, the anger of Augustus, and was
banished to Tomi (Tomoswar or Baba.)
The cause of his banishment is involved in obscurity. It was not unknown
at Rome; but in his exile he refrains from alluding to it, except in
dark allusions, out of fear of giving additional offence to the
emperor.[739] He speaks of it as an indiscretion (_error_,) not a crime
(_scelus_, _facinus_;[740]) as something which he had accidentally
witnessed,[741] perhaps had indiscreetly told—a circumstance which
deeply and personally affected Augustus, and inflicted a wound which he
was unwilling to tear open afresh. He hints also that he fell a victim
to the treachery of friends and domestics,[742] who enriched themselves
by his ruin.
There have been many conjectures[743] on this difficult point. Some have
imagined an intrigue with the elder Julia, the profligate daughter of
Augustus; but this is scarcely consistent with the manner in which Ovid
himself speaks of his fault; and besides this, Julia was banished to
Pandataria eight years before. The banishment of the younger Julia to
Trimerus, about the same time with that of Ovid, would make it far more
probable that his fall was connected with that of this equally
profligate princess. Tiraboschi supposed that he had surprised one of
the royal family in some disgraceful act; and some have even imagined
that he might have witnessed such conduct on the part of the Emperor
himself. Dryden believed that he accidentally saw Livia in the bath; and
the author of the article in the Biographie Universelle, as well as
Schoell,[744] surmise that he was in some way implicated in the fortunes
of Agrippa Posthumus, and thus incurred the hatred of Livia and
Tiberius.
Whatever the cause may have been, the punishment was a cruel one, except
for a crime of the deepest dye, and would never have been inflicted by
the gentle Augustus so long as he was under the salutary influence of
Mæcenas and his party. But in his old age he submitted to the baneful
rule of the dark Tiberius and the implacable Livia. Any pretext,
therefore, sufficed to remove one, who, from some cause or other, had
excited their enmity. The alleged reason was the immorality of his
writings; but they are not more immoral than those of Horace; and,
besides, the worst of them had been published ten years before. Nor was
the morality of the Emperor himself of such a character as to lead him
to punish so severely a licentious poet in a licentious age. The
exclusion of his works from the Palatine[745] library was a merited and
more appropriate visitation. Nevertheless, this was made the pretext for
a banishment, the misery of which was solaced by the empty mockery of
the reservation of his civil rights.
Tomi was on the very frontiers of the Roman empire, inhabited by the
Getæ, who were rude and uncivilized. The country itself, a barren and
treeless waste, cold, damp, and marshy, producing naturally scarcely
anything but wormwood, and yielding scanty crops to the unskilled toil
of ignorant cultivators, was rendered still more desolate by frequent
incursions of the neighbouring savage tribes, who used poisoned arrows,
and offered up as sacrifices their prisoners of war.[746] Ovid, who,
with all his faults, was affectionate and tender-hearted, was torn from
all the voluptuous blandishments of the capital, from the sympathies of
congenial spirits, who could appreciate his talents, and from the arms
of his weeping wife,[747] amidst the voice of wailing and of prayer,
which filled every corner of his desolate dwelling. The blow fell
suddenly upon him like a thunder-clap,[748] and so stupefied him that he
could make no preparations for his voyage. The season of his departure
was the depth of winter, and he was exposed to some peril by a tempest
in the Ionian Gulf. The climate of his new abode was as inclement as
that of Scythia. Not only the Danube, but even the sea near its mouth,
was for some extent covered with ice: even the wine froze into blocks,
and was broken in pieces before it could be used. He lived in exile only
ten years; constant anxiety preyed upon his bodily health; he suffered
languor, but no pain; he loathed all food; the little that he ate would
not digest; sleep failed him; his body became pale and emaciated, and so
he died. The Tomitæ showed their respect by erecting a tomb to his
memory.
In the midst of such a contrast between the present and the past, no
wonder that his complainings appear almost pitiful and unmanly, and his
urgent petitions to Augustus couched in too fulsome a strain of
adulation. No wonder that he painted in the most glowing colours the
story of his woes and privations. Yet he was destitute neither of
patience nor fortitude: he relied on the independence and immortality of
genius; and although the enervating effect of a luxurious and easy life
and a delicate constitution, rendered him a prey to grief, and he
gradually pined away, still he had strength of mind to relieve his
sorrows by devotion to the Muse, and he suffered with tranquillity and
resignation. Poetry was his resource during his stormy voyage. Poetry
gained him the affection and esteem of his new fellow-citizens,
notwithstanding their barbarism,[749] and procured him the honour of a
tomb.
All the extant poems of Ovid, with the exception of the Metamorphoses,
are elegiac. It was the metre then most in vogue. All the minor poets,
his contemporaries, wrote in it. One of his earliest works is the
“Amores,” a collection of elegies, most of which are addressed to his
favourite mistress Corinna. Some of them, however, were composed
subsequently to his Epistles and Art of Love.[750] An epigram, which is
prefixed, states that there were originally five books, but that the
author subsequently reduced them to the present number, three.
Licentiousness disfigures these annals of his amours; but they teem with
the freshness and buoyancy of youth, and sparkle with grace and
ingenuity.
The twenty-one _Epistolæ Heroidum_, i. e. Epistles to and from Women of
the Heroic Age, are a series of love-letters: their characteristic
feature is passion; the ardour of which is sometimes interfered with by
too laboured conceits and excessive refinement. They are, in fact, the
most polished efforts of one whose natural indolence often disinclined
him from expending that time and pains on the work of amending and
correcting which distinguished Virgil. Their great merit consists in the
remarkable neatness with which the sentiments are expressed, and the
sweetness of the versification; their great defect is want of variety.
The subject necessarily limited the topics. The range of them is
confined to laments for the absence of the beloved object, the pangs of
jealousy, apprehensions of inconstancy, expressions of warm affection,
and descriptions of the joys and sorrows of love.
With the exception of the Metamorphoses, the Epistles have been greater
favourites than any of the works of Ovid. Some were translated by
Drayton and Lord Hervey. The beautiful translation, by Pope, of the
epistle from Sappho to Phaon, is familiar to all; and his touching
picture of the struggle between passion and principle, in the letter of
Eloisa to Abelard, owes a portion of its inspiration to the Epistles of
Ovid.
Love in the days of Ovid had nothing in it chivalrous or pure—it was
carnal, sensual. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he
was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries. Great and noble as
was the character of the Roman matron, the charms of an accomplished
female education were almost as rare as at Athens. She had sterling
worth; but she had not often the power to fascinate those numbers who
considered woman the minister to the pleasures of man. She was wise,
self-sacrificing, patriotic, courageous—a devoted mother, an
affectionate wife—and a man of heroic mould valued as she deserved such
a partner of his fortunes. But those who sought merely the allurements
of passion looked only for meretricious pleasure and sensual enjoyment.
Hence grossness is the characteristic of Ovid’s Art of Love. The
instructions contained in the first two books, which are addressed to
men, are fit only for the seducer. The blandishments in the third are
suited only to the abandoned of the other sex.
The Art of Love was followed by the Remedies of Love, in one book: “Let
him,” he says, “who taught you to love, teach you also the cure; one
hand shall inflict the wound and minister the balm. The earth produces
noxious and healthful herbs; the rose is often nearest neighbour to the
nettle.”[751]
His Metamorphoses were just finished, and not yet corrected,[752] when
his fall took place. When in his despair he burnt it, fortunately for
the world some copies transpired. Afterwards he prayed that they might
be preserved to remind the readers of the unhappy author. The
Metamorphoses consist of fifteen books, and contain a series of
mythological narratives from the earliest times to the translation of
the soul of Julius Cæsar from earth to heaven, and his metamorphosis
into a star. This poem is Ovid’s noblest effort: it approaches as near
to the epic form as is possible with so many naturally unconnected
episodes. In many parts, especially his descriptions, we do not merely
admire his natural facility in making verses, but picturesque
truthfulness and force—the richest fancy combined with grandeur and
dignity. Amongst the most beautiful portions may be enumerated the story
of Phaeton, including the splendid description of the Palace of the
Sun;[753] the golden age;[754] the story of Pyramus and Thisbe;[755] the
cottage home and the rustic habits of Baucis and Philemon,[756]
Narcissus at the fountain;[757] the powerfully sketched picture of the
Cave of Sleep,[758] Dædalus and Icarus,[759] Cephalus and Procris,[760]
and the soliloquy of Medea.[761] In this poem, especially, may be traced
that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures
of Greek literature their own. In fact, a more extensive knowledge of
Greek mythology may be derived from it than from the Greeks themselves,
because the books which were the sources of his information are
unfortunately no longer extant.
The “Fasti” is an antiquarian poem on the Roman calendar. Originally it
was intended to have formed twelve books, one for each month of the
year, but only the first six were completed:[762]——
Sex ego Fastorum scripsi totidemque libellos
Cumque suo finem mense volumen habet.
It is a beautiful specimen of simple narrative in verse, and displays
more than any of his works, his power of telling a story, without the
slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. As a profound study of
Greek mythology and poetry had furnished the materials for his
Metamorphoses and other poems, so in this he drew principally from the
legends which had been preserved by the old poets and annalists of his
own country.
The five books of the Tristia and the four books of the Epistles from
Pontus were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy
evening of his days. Without the brilliancy, the wit, and the genius,
which beamed forth from his joyous spirit in the time of his prosperity,
without the graceful and inspired querulousness of the ancient models,
they are, nevertheless, conceived in the spirit of the Greek elegy—they
utter the voice of complaining, and deserve the Horatian epithet of
_miserabiles_.[763] It was natural to him to give utterance to his hope
and despair in song: he had sported like a gay insect in the sunshine of
prosperity. He was too fragile, delicate, and effeminate to bear the
storm of adversity—his butterfly spirit was broken; but, with all his
faults, that broken heart was capable of the tenderest emotions, and his
letter to his daughter Perilla[764] is full of purity and sweetness. The
carelessness of one who would not take the trouble to correct, and who
was conscious of his dangerous facility, is compensated for by the
commiseration which his natural complaints excite, and for the powerful
descriptions which occasionally enliven the monotony inseparable from
grief.
His minor poems consist of an elegiac poem, “Nux,” in which a nut-tree
bewails its hard fate and the ill treatment which it receives; a long
and bitter satire, entitled Ibis, on some enemy, or, perhaps, some
faithless friend; a poem on Cosmetics (Medicamina facici;[765]) another
on Fishing (Halieutica;[766]) and an address of condolence to Livia
Augusta. None, however, of these last three are universally admitted to
be genuine. Other works which were the offspring of his prolific genius
have perished. During his exile he acquired sufficient knowledge of the
Getan language to write some poems in it; and these were as popular with
the barbarians as his Latin works were at Rome. Lastly, he was the
author of the Medea; a tragedy of which Quintilian says, that it shows
of what grand works he was capable, if he had been willing to curb
instead of giving reins to the luxuriance of his genius.[767] Two lines
only are extant; but we can judge of the conception which he formed of
the character of Medea from the epistle in the “Heroides,” and her
eminently tragic soliloquy in the Metamorphoses.
Ovid was a voluptuary, but not a heartless one. The age in which he
lived was as immoral as himself, and far more gross; he was, therefore,
neither a corrupter nor a seducer. His poetry was popular, not only
because of its beauty, but because it was in exact accordance with the
spirit of the times. His wit was sometimes contrary to good taste, but
it was not forced and unnatural. He was betrayed into the appearance,
not the reality of affectation, by a luxuriance which required pruning,
for which he had neither patience nor inclination. He stored himself
with the learning of the ancients, and caught their inspiration; but
their severe taste was to him a trammel to which he was too self-willed
and self-complacent to submit. The prevalent taste for elegiac poetry
pointed out the style which was suited to his caliber; for one cannot
help feeling that his genius was incapable of mastering the gigantic
proportions of a true epic, and, notwithstanding the favourable
criticism of Quintilian, of soaring to the sublimity of tragedy.
GRATIUS FALISCUS.
The Cynegetica of Gratius, commonly, though without any reason, surnamed
Faliscus, may claim a place beside the Halieutica of Ovid, on account of
its subject, but not on the score of genius, poetry, or language.
Nothing is known respecting this author, except that Ovid speaks of him
as a contemporary.[768] The poem is heroic, and consists of 536 lines:
its style is hard and prosaic; it describes the weapons and arts of the
chase, horses and hounds; but the science is rather Greek than Italian,
and the information contained in it is principally derived from
Xenophon.[769]
PEDO ALBINOVANUS.
Another poet of the Ovidian age was his trusty friend, C. Pedo
Albinovanus. He was of equestrian rank,[770] and, unlike most of his
contemporaries, an epic poet.[771] Ovid in his Epistles from
Pontus,[772] which are addressed to him, applies to him the epithet,
“Sidereus,” either because he had written an astronomical poem, or
because his sublime language soared into the starry heavens. Martial
speaks of him as having written epigrams which extend to the length of
two pages.[773] A fragment of an epic poem, describing the voyage of
Germanicus related by Tacitus, is preserved by Seneca.[774] Three
elegies are usually ascribed to him; but their style is that of more
modern times, and the authority for their genuineness very suspicious.
A. SABINUS.
Another contemporary of Ovid was A. Sabinus; and all that is known
respecting him is derived from two passages in the works of the former
poet.[775] In one of these,[776] he tells us that Sabinus wrote answers
to six of the epistles of the Heroides. None of these, however, are
extant. The three which profess to be written by him, entitled Ulysses
to Penelope, Demophoon to Phyllis, and Paris to Œnone, are the work of
Angelus Sabinus,[777] a philologer and poet of the fifteenth century.
Two other works are attributed to him by Ovid in a passage in which he
speaks of his death.[778] One of these, entitled Trœzen, was probably an
epic poem, of which Theseus was the hero;[779] the other, _Dierum Opus_,
was a continuation of Ovid’s Fasti. Other elegiac poets flourished at
this period, such as Proculus and Montanus; but their poetical talents
were of too commonplace a character to deserve special mention. They
confer no obligation on literature, and contribute nothing towards the
illustration of the literary character of their times.
M. MANILIUS.
The astronomical and astrological poem of Manilius furnishes a series of
those historical problems which have never yet been satisfactorily
solved. The author has been in turn confounded with every one whom Roman
records mention as bearing that name, and in all cases with equally
little reason. No one knows when he flourished, where he lived, and of
what place he was a native. Bentley determined that he was an Asiatic;
Huet that he was a Carthaginian. Internal evidence renders it most
probable that he lived in the reign of Tiberius;[780] and yet neither he
nor his poem are ever mentioned by any ancient author. His work was
never discovered until the beginning of the fifteenth century; probably
it had never been published, but only a few copies had been made, some
of which have been marvellously preserved.
The philosophical principles of the poem are those of a Stoical
Pantheism. As one principle of life pervades the whole universe, there
is a close connexion between things celestial and things terrestrial. In
consequence of this relation, the astrologer can determine the course of
the latter by observation of the heavenly bodies. Together with all the
assumptions and absurdities of astrology are mingled extensive knowledge
of the state of astronomical science in his day: gleams of truth shoot
like meteors athwart the darkness. The subject which he has chosen is as
unpromising for poetical effect and embellishment as that of Lucretius;
but he does not handle it so successfully: he has neither the boldness
of thought, the dignity of language, nor the imaginative grandeur which
marked the old poet philosopher. The poem is incomplete; and probably
owes some of its roughness and obscurity to its never having been
corrected for publication.