Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) lived from 43 B.C.E. to 17 or 18 C. E.. He was born in Sulmo, a provincial Italian town, but came to Rome to study law and seek his fortune. He launched himself on a career of government service but was early seduced by the delights of poetry. He lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar, the great age of Latin literature. Among his compatriots were Vergil (The Aeneid) and Horace (Art of Poetry, Satires, Odes). Ovid stands out not only for his poetic gift, but for his sense of humor. He was banished in 8 C.E. by the emperor for reasons unknown and ended his life at the dreary provincial town of Tomis on the Black Sea coast. It was so cold there in the winter, he tells us, that he had to cut his wine with an axe to thaw it. His most famous work is the Metamorphoses. He is also known for his love poems and the treatise, The Art of Love. Metamorphoses opens with an account of the origin of Nature in Chaos and its transformation into an ordered Universe. “Then God,” he says, “whichever god it was, created the universe we know, he made of earth a turning sphere so delicately poised that water flowed in waves beneath the wind and Ocean’s arms encircled the rough globe.” Human beings, once created, proceeded to make a mess of things, and the population was thinned by a Biblical-type flood.
