John Davie pays homage to the great Roman poet Ovid who died in exile 2000 years ago this year.
It was 2000 years ago that a famous Roman poet died at the age of 60 in exile at a town on the Black Sea called Tomis, now Constanta in Romania. By this time Publius Ovidius Naso, better known as Ovid, had become the leading poet of Rome, admired for the wit and sensuality of his verse. The question why he annoyed the emperor Augustus and found himself in this backwater, subject to attacks from the savage surrounding tribes and a miserable climate, isolated spiritually and culturally, is answered enigmatically by the poet himself: ‘a poem and a mistake’.
The poem was his first published work, Amores, a selection of elegiac love-poetry that stunned and captivated the Roman public by its subversive treatment of the genre, poking fun at serious treatments by earlier love poets. Further poems followed, all treating the subject of love with irony and wit, laced with self-mockery.
One example is his poem about a day at the chariot races with a woman he wants to sleep with, full of amusing advice to young men in a similar situation and frame of mind; or his poem to his mistress, who has been asked together with her husband to the same dinner-party as Ovid, suggesting ways in which they can still have fun as lovers without giving the game away.
For the emperor, concerned about Roman morals deteriorating, and constantly promoting the sanctity of marriage, Ovid was a menace and ripe for a fall. The ‘mistake’ is generally taken to refer to some sexual scandal in which Ovid was implicated, possibly involving Augustus’ daughter, Julia, unhappily married to the emperor’s stepson and determined to have fun outside her marriage, which would explain the cruelty of Ovid’s place of banishment, tantamount to sending someone like Oscar Wilde to spend the rest of his life on the Outer Hebrides.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5-Ausgabe von Minerva.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5-Ausgabe von Minerva.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582