LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE STATUE OF THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS. (Found in the ruins of the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta). Frontispiece ROMAN BOOK. (From Pompeian wall-paintings). THE FALL OF PHAETHON. (From a bas-relief) 13 DAEDALUS FINDS THE DEAD ICARUS. (From a Pompeian wall-painting) 14 SCRINIUM CONTAINING BOOKS. (From a Pompeian wall painting) 16 PALLAS ATHENE. (From a gem) 17 POSEIDON. (From a mosaic found at Palermo, and bas-reliefs) 18 BOREAS. (From the Tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes) 19 Trajan's Column) 21 JUPITER. (From an antique cameo) 24 25 FOCUS OR HEARTH, AND HOUSE CHAPEL WITH FAMILY 26 A ROMAN SHIP. (From Pompeian wall-paintings and the Vatican Vergil) 30 4 ORESTES AND THE FURIES. (Froin a vase-painting) FUNERAL PYRE. (From a vase-painting and the tabula PENELOPE AND TELEMACHUs. (From a vase-painting from Chiusi, and bas-relief in British Museum) POET CROWNED WITH IVY LEAVES. (From a painting at Herculaneum) PAGE 32 33 35 37 39 AUGUSTUS CAESAR AND JULIUS CAESAR. (From antique gems) 40 ALTHAEA BURNING THE LOG. (From a sarcophagus in the Louvre) 41 ROMAN PIGEON HOUSE. (From descriptions) 45 AUGURY BY INSPECTION OF THE ENTRAILS OF A VICTIM TUTELA ON STERN AND INSIGNE ON BOW OF A ROMAN 47 49 'DEUS RURICOLA,' (From a statue) CASTOR AND POLLUX. (From a silver coin) 50 52 SACRIFICING A LAMB TO MINERVA. (From a bas-relief in the British Museum and a Pompeian wallpainting) 53 ROMAN VILLA AND GARDEN. (From wall-paintings from Herculaneum) 54 MAP OF OVID'S JOURNEY TO TOMI 107 OVID has himself furnished us with most of the information which we possess concerning him. He was born at Sulmo, a town situated in the country of the Peligni about ninety miles from Rome, on March 20, 43 B. c., the year which may be regarded as the last year of the Roman Republic. He thus stands at the close of the great era of Republican literature, known as The Augustan Age. Parentage. He belonged to an equestrian or knightly family who could trace the distinction 'through an endless line of ancestry.' Education.. His father was anxious that he should follow the profession of an advocate, and with this end in view he was sent to Rome to study under the most eminent rhetoricians, among them, Porcius Latro and Arellius Fuscus. He was afterwards sent to Athens, the University of the Roman Empire, and there he must have OVID, TR. I. B considerably improved his knowledge of Greek. His stay at Athens was followed by a tour with his friend Macer, the poet of the Trojan war, to Asia and Sicily. Return to Rome. On his return to Rome, a public career was open to him. He filled two judicial offices leading to a senatorial position, but he had neither the strength nor the inclination to become a senator. His bent lay in the direction of poetry, and he therefore gave up all idea of a public life. Like Pope he 'lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.' His Literary Friends. His whole life was steeped in poetry. He had already written some of the Amores, and gained considerable notoriety by his artistic genius. He was now the centre round whom gathered a large literary circle. Vergil he had only seen, Horace he had heard recite, while he was on intimate terms of friendship with Tibullus, Propertius, and others, such as Ponticus and Bassus, whose names alone have come down to us. His Banishment--The Cause. When he was in the hey-day of his poetic fame, in A. D. 8, there came 'a bolt from the blue,' and he was banished by imperial edict to Tomi, a town on the western shore of the Black Sea, near the mouth of the Danube. The cause of his banishment is a matter of uncertainty. The immorality of his Ars Amatoria was made the ostensible ground of his punishment: but as it was nearly ten years since the publication of this poem we must seek the immediate cause elsewhere. |