LAT
Ovidius
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Proper name
- P. OVI′DIUS NASO was born at Sulmo, a town about ninety miles from Rome, in the country of the Peligni. He marks the exact date of his birth in his Tristia (iv. 10. 5, &c.); from which it appears that the year was that in which the two consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, fell in the campaign of Mutina, and the day, the first of the festival of the Quinquatria, on which gladiatorial combats were exhibited. This means that he was born on the 13th Kal. April, A. U. C. 711, or the 20th March, B. C. 43. He was descended from an ancient equestrian family (Trist. iv. 10. 7), but possessing only moderate wealth. He, as well as his brother Lucius, who was exactly a year older than himself, was destined to be a pleader, and received a careful education to qualify him for that calling. After acquiring the usual rudiments of knowledge, he studied rhetoric under Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, and attained to considerable proficiency in the art of declamation. But the bent of his genius showed itself very early. The hours which should have been spent in the study of jurisprudence were employed in cultivating his poetical talent; and when he sat down to write a speech he produced a poem instead. (Trist. iv. 10. 24.) The elder Seneca, too, who had heard him declaim, and who has preserved a portion of one of his rhetorical compositions, tells us that his oratory resembled a solutum carmen, and that any thing in the way of argument was irksome to him. (Controv. ii. 10.) His father, an economical, painstaking man, denounced his favourite pursuit as leading to inevitable poverty; but, though Ovid listened to this advice, all his attempts to master the ruling passion proved fruitless. The death of his brother, at the early age of twenty, probably served in some degree to mitigate his father's opposition, for the patrimony which would have been scanty for two might amply suffice for one. Ovid's education was completed at Athens, where he made himself thoroughly master of the Greek language. Afterwards he travelled with the poet Macer, in Asia and Sicily; in which latter country he appears to have spent the greater part of a year. It is a disputed point whether he ever actually practised as an advocate after his return to Rome. Bayle asserts the affirmative from Tristia, ii. 93. But that verse seems rather to refer to the functions of a judge than of a counsel. The picture Ovid himself draws of his weak constitution and indolent temper prevents us from thinking that he ever followed his profession with ardour and perseverance, if indeed at all; and the latter conclusion seems justified by a passage in the Amores, i. 15. 6. The same causes deterred him from entering the senate, though he had put on the latus clavus when he assumed the toga virilis, as being by birth entitled to aspire to the senatorial dignity. (Trist. iv. 10. 29.) He became, however, one of the Triumviri Capitales, a sort of magistrates somewhat akin to our sheriffs, whose office it was to decide petty causes between slaves and persons of inferior rank, and to superintend the prisons, and the execution of criminals. Subsequently he was made one of the Centumviri, or judges who tried testamentary and even criminal causes. In due time he was promoted to be one of the Decemviri, who assembled and presided over the court of the Centumviri; an office which entitled him to a seat in the theatre distinguished above that of the other Equites (Fasti, iv. 383). Such is all the account that can be given of Ovid's business life. As in the case of other writers, however, we are more interested to know the circumstances which fostered and developed his poetical genius, than whether he was a sound lawyer and able judge. Ovid appears to have shown at an early age a marked inclination towards gallantry. It was probably some symptoms of this temperament that induced his parents to provide him with a wife when he was yet a mere boy. The choice, however, was a bad one. She was quite unsuitable to him, and apparently not unimpeachable in character; so that the union was but of short duration. The facility of divorce which then prevailed at Rome rendered the nature of such engagements very different from the solemn one which they possess in modern days. A second wife was soon wedded, and as speedily dismissed, though Ovid himself bears witness to her purity. The secret of this matrimonial fickleness is explained by the fact that Ovid had a mistress. Filial duty dictated his marriages; inclination threw him into the arms of Corinna. This cause may even have been divided with another. Ovid was a poet, and to a poet in those days a mistress was indispensable. What Roman of the Augustan age would have ventured to inscribe an elegy to his wife! The thing was utterly impossible. But elegiac poetry was then all the vogue at Rome, from its comparative novelty. Catullus, who introduced it from the Greek, had left a few rude specimens; but Gallus and Tibullus were the first who brought it to any perfection, and appropriated it more exclusively to the theme of licentious love. Gallus was followed by Tibullus, and he by Propertius; so that Ovid claimed to be the fourth who succeeded to the elegiac lyre. In this enumeration Catullus is entirely omitted. In Propertius, who was some years older than himself, Ovid not only found a μουσαγέτης, but also a hierophant very capable of initiating him in all the mysteries of Roman dissipation. (Saepe suos solitus recitare Propertius ignes, Trist. iv. 10.) Ovid was an apt scholar; but his views were more ambitious than his master's, whom he was destined to surpass in the quality, not only of the Muse, but of the mistress, that he courted. The Cynthia of Propertius seems to have been merely one of that higher class of accomplished courtezans with which Rome then abounded. If we may believe the testimony of Sidonius Apollinaris, in the following lines, Corinna was no less a personage than Julia, the clever and accomplished, but abandoned daughter of Augustus:— Et te carmina per libidinosa Notum, Naso tener, Tomosque missum: Quondam Caesareae nimis puellae Ficto nomine subditum Corinnae. (Carm. xxiii. 18.) (Wikisource | public domain)
- OVI′DIUS JUVENTI′NUS. [Juventinus.] (Wikisource | public domain)
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (ed. William Smith 1870), Wikisource | public domain
Lewis Short
Ovĭdĭus (noun M) :
* Ovid, the name of a Roman gens.—So esp.: P. Ovidius Naso,a celebrated Latin poet,Quint. 10, 1, 88; Sen. Ep. 79, 5; Ov. Tr. 2, 119.—A contemporary of Martial, Mart. 7, 44, 1; 7, 45, 6.
* Ovid, the name of a Roman gens.—So esp.: P. Ovidius Naso,a celebrated Latin poet,Quint. 10, 1, 88; Sen. Ep. 79, 5; Ov. Tr. 2, 119.—A contemporary of Martial, Mart. 7, 44, 1; 7, 45, 6.
Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary
PIR
Male Personal name
Confirmed occurences in the Roman Empire:
Confirmed occurences in the Roman Empire:
- Q. Ovidius (Masc), ref: PIR O 0178 | PIR ID9964
- Ovidius Naso (Masc), ref: PIR O 0179 | PIR ID9965
- P. Ovidius Naso (Masc), ref: PIR O 0180 | PIR ID9966
Prosopographia Imperii Romani
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