Villenave, in a life of Ovid prefixed
to a French translation of the Metarr.
to a French translation of the Metarr.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
feet above the level of the plain; but I speak only
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? OS!
OTfl
ac by Ancus Murcius, at the first foundition of Ostia
[Liv. , 1, 33), still subsist near the site now called
Catone del Sale. (Cramer'* Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p.
! 1, seqq )--"Nothing," obsc. es a modern traveller,
"can be more dreary than the ride from Rome to
this once magnificent seaport. You issue out of the
Porta San Paola, and proceed through a continued
scene of dismal and heart-sinking desolation; no
fields, no dwellings, no trees, no landmarks, no marks
of cultivation, except a few scanty patches of corn,
thinly scattered over the waste; and huts, like wig-
wams, to shelter the wretched and half-starved people
that are doomed to live on this field of death. The
Tiber, rolling turbidly along in its solitary course,
seems sullenly to behold the altered scenes that have
withered around him. A few miles from Ostia we
entered upon a wilderness indeed. A dreary swamp
extended all around, intermingled with thickets, through
which roamed wild buffaloes, the only inhabitants of
the waste. A considerable part of the way was upon
the ancient pavement of the Via Ostiensis, in some
places in good preservation, in others broken up and
destroyed. When this failed us, the road was exe-
crable. The modern fortifications of Ostia appeared
oefore us long before we reached them. At length
we entered its gate, guarded by no sentinel; on its
bastions appeared no soldier; no children ran from
its houses to gaze at the rare splendour of a carriage;
no passenger was seen in the grass-grown street. It
presented the strange spectacle of a town without in-
habitants. After some beating and hallooing, on the
part of the coachman and lackey, at the shut-up door
of one of the houses, a woman, unclosing the shutter
of an upper window, presented her ghastly face; and,
having first carefully reconnoitred us, slowly and reluc-
tantly admitted us into her wretched hovel. 'Where
are all the people of the town! ' we inquired. 'Dead,'
was the brief reply. The fever of the malaria annually
carries off almost all whom necessity confines to this
pestilential region. But this was the month of April,
the season of comparative health, and we learned, on
more strict inquiry, that the population of Ostia, at
present, nominally consisted of twelve men, four wom-
en, no children, and two priests. --The ruins of old
Ostia are farther in the wilderness. Tho sea is now
two miles, or nearly, from the ancient port. The
cause of this, in a great measure, seems to be, that
the extreme flatness of the land does not allow the
Tiber to carry off the immense quantity of earth and
mud its turbid waters bring down; and the more that
is deposited, the more sluggishly it flows, and thus the
shore rises, the sea recedes, and the marshes extend.
The marshy insula sacra, in the middle of the river,
is now inhabited by wild buffaloes. We had intended
to cross to the sacred island, and from thence to the
Tillage of Fiumecino, on the other side, where there
are said to be still some noble remains of ancient
Porto, particularly of the mole, but a sudden storm
prevented us. " (Rome in the Nineteenth Century,
vol. 3, p. 449. )
OstorIus Scapula, a governor of Britain in the
reign of Claudius, who defeated and took prisoner the
famous Caractacus. He died A. D. f>>5. (Tacit. , Ann. ,
12, 06. )
Ostrogoth. *, or Eastern Goths, a division of the
great Gothic nation, who settled in Pannonia in the
fifth century of our era, whence they extended their
? ? dominion over Noricum, RhaHia, and Illyricum. About
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? OVI
OVILIOS
Joet noi appear, however, to have been deficient in
bravery, had been persuaded, for lie security of his
person, to retire before the battle to Brixellum; a
step which tended, as Tacitus has observed. >o occa-
sion his defeat. When he was informed of the result
of the conflict, he refused to make any farther effort
for the empire, but put an end to his own life by fall-
ing upon nis sword, at the age of 37 according to
Tacitus (Hist. , 2, SO), or of 38 according to Sucto-
sius (Vit. Olh. , c. 11), after reigning 95 days. Plu-
tarch, in his life of Olho, relates that the soldiers im-
mediately buried his body, that it might not be exposed
to indignity by falling into the hands of his enemies,
and erected a plain monument over his grave, with the
limple inscription, "To the memory of Marcus Otho. "
The early debaucheries of Otho threw a stain upon his
reputation, which his good conduct in Lusitania and his
mildness as emperor did not altogether remove. The
lreatmc. it which he received from Nero might in some
degree justify his rebellion against that prince; but no
palliation can be fond for the treason aud cruelty with
which he was chargeable towards Galba. In all things
his actions were marked by a culpable extreme; and
perhaps both the good and the evil which appeared in
his life were the result of circumstances rather than of
virtuous principles or of fixed and incurable depravity.
(Tacit. , Hist. , lib. 1 et i. -- Sucton. , Vit. Otkon --
Plut. , Vit. Otkon. --Dio C<<<<. ,ltb. 64-- Eneyd. Us.
Knowl. , vol. 17, p. 59. --Encycl. Mttropol, div. 3,
vol. 2, p. 497, scqq. )--II. L. Roscius, a tribune of the
commons, who, in the year that Cicero was consul,
proposed and caused to be passed the well-known law
which allowed the equestrian osder particular seats in
the theatre. The equites, previous to this, sat promis-
cuously with the commons. By this new regulation
of Oiho's, the commons considered themselves dishon-
oured, and hissed and insulted Otho when he appeared
in the theatre: the equites, on Uie other hand, receiv-
ed him with loud plaudits. The commons repeated
their hiasings and the knights their applause, until at
last they came to mutual reproaches, and the whole
hiatre presented a scene of the greatest disorder.
Cicero, being informed of the disturbance, came and
summoned the people to the tenapleof Bellona, where,
partly by his reproofs and partly by his persuasive elo-
quence, he so wrought upon them that they return-
ed to the theatre, loudly testified their approbation of
Otho. and strove with the equites which should show
him the most honour. The speech delivered on this
occasion was afterward reduced to writing. It is now
lost, but, having been delivered extempore, it affords
a strong example of the persuasive nature of his elo-
quence. One topic which he touched on in this ora-
tion, and the only one of which we have any hint from
antiquity, was his reproaching the rioters for their want
of taste, in creating a tumult while Roscius was per-
forming on the stage. (Liny, Epit. , 99. - - Horat. ,
Epist. , I, 1, 62. --Juv. , Sat. , 3, 159. -- Veil Patcrc,
2,32. --Fuss,Rom. Amtiq. , p. 147. )
Othkys, a mountain-range of Thesealy, which,
branching out of Tymphrestue, one of the highest
points in the chain of Pindns, closed the great basin
of Thessaly to the south, and served at the same time
to divide the waters which Bowed northward into the
Peneus front those received by the Sperchius. This
mountain is often celebrated by the poets of antiquity.
(Eurip. , Attest. , 683. --Tkeocr. , Idyll, 3,43. --Yirg. ,
? ? Ain , 7,674. --Luean, 6,337. ) At present it is known
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
gardens, which lay a little beyond the city, at the junc-
tion of the Clodian and Flaminian Ways, near the
Pons Milvius, where he composed many of his verses.
He waa fond, indeed, of the rural pleasures of flowers
and trees, but he chiefly delighted to sow and plant
them in these suburban gardens. (Ep. e Ponto, 1,8. )
Far from hiding himself amid his groves, like the mel-
ancholy Tibullus, ho courted society, and never was
Lappier than amid the bustle of the capital. One day,
when Augustus, in his capacity of censor, according
to ancient custom, made the whole body of Roman
knights pass before him in review, he presented our
poet with a beautifnl steed. {Trittia, 2, 89. ) The
? ift was accounted a peculiar mark of favour, and
shows that, at the time when it was bestowed, he had
incurred no moral stain which merited the disapproba-
tion of his prince. While frequenting the court of
Augustus, Ovid was well received by the politest of
the courtiers. The titles of many of the epistles writ-
ten during his banishment, show that they were ad-
dressed to persons well known to us, even at this dis-
tance of time, as distinguished statesmen and imperial
favourites. Messala, to whose house he much resort-
ed, had early encouraged the rising genius, and>>direct-
ed the studies of Ovid; and the friendship which the
father had extended to our poet was continued to him
by the sons. But his chief patron was Q. Fabius Max-
irous, long the friend of Augustus, and, in the closing
scenes of that prince's life, the chief confidant of his
weaknesses and domestic sorrows. (Tacit, Ann. , 1,
5. ) Nor was Ovid's acquaintance less with the cele-
brated poets of his age than with its courtiers and sen-
ators. Virgil, indeed, he had merely seen, and pre-
mature death cut off* the society of Tibullus; but Hor-
ace, Macer, and Propertius were long his familiar
friends, and often communicated to him their writings
previous to publication. While blessed with so many
friends, he seems to have been undisturbed, at least
during this period of his life, by the malice of a sin-
gle foe: neither the court favour he enjoyed nor his
poetical renown procured him enemies; and he was
never assailed by that spirit of envy and detraction by
which Horace had been persecuted. His poetry was
universally popular (Tristia, 1, 1,61): like the stanzas
of Tasso, it was often sung in the streets or at enter-
tainments; and his verses were frequently recited in the
theatre amid the applause of the multitude. Among
his other distinctions, Oviif was a favourite of the
fair, with whom his engagements were numerous and
his intercourse unrestrained. (Am. , 2, 4. -- Tristia,
4, 10, 65. ) He was extremely susceptible of love,
and his love was ever changing. His first wife, whom
he married when almost a boy, was unworthy of his
affections, and possessed them but a short while.
The second, who came from the country of the an-
cient Falisci, led a blameless life, but was soon repu-
diated. After parting with her, Ovid was united to a
thirj, who was of the Fabian family. In her youth
she had been the companion of Marcia, the wife of
Fabius Maximus, and a favourite of Marcia's mother,
who was the maternal aunt of Augustus. She was a
widow at the time of her marriage with Ovid, and had
a daughter by her former husband, who was married to
Siillius, the friend of Germanicus. (Ep. t Ponto, 4,
8 ) But these successive legitimate connexions did
Dot crevent him from forming others of a different de-
scription. Corinna, a wanton, enticing beauty, whose
? ? real name and family the commentators and biogra-
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? OVIDIUS.
CS IDIUS.
a tue time of Manutius, various other theories have
Men devised to account for the exile of Ovid. Dry-
len, in the Preface to his translation oT Ovid's Epis-
tles, thinks it probable that" he had stumbled by some
inadvertency on the privacies of Li via, and had seen
. er in a bath; for the words ' sine teste Dianam? he
remarks, agree better with Livia, who had the fame
of chastity, than with either of the Julias. " It would
co doubt appear that our poet had a practice of break-
ing in unseasonably on such occasions (A. A. , 3, 245).
But it is not probable that Augustus would have pun-
ished such an offence so severely, or that it would
have affected him so deeply. Livia, at the time of
Ovid's banishment, had reached the age of sixty-four,
and was doubtless the only person in the empire who
would consider such an intrusion as intentional. --Ti-
raboschi has maintained, at great length, that he had
been the involuntary and accidental witness of some
moral turpitude committed by one of the imperial
family, most probably Julia, the granddaughter of Au-
gustus, who had inherited the licentious disposition of
her mother, and was banished from Rome on account
of her misconduct, nearly at the same time that the
sentence cf exile was pronounced on Ovid. This
theory, on the whole, seems the most plausible, and
most consistent with the hints dropped by the poet
himself. He repeatedly says, that the offence for
which he had been banished was a folly, an error, an
imprudence rather than a crime: using the words
stuititia and error in opposition to crimen and /aci-
nus. (Tristia, 1,2, 100, et passim. ) He invariably
tatko of what he had seen as the cause of his misfor-
tunes (Tristia, 2, 103, scat/. ). and he admits that what
be had seen was a fault. But he farther signifies, that
the fault he had witnessed was of a description which
offended modesty, and which, therefore, ought to be
covered with the veil or night. (Tristia, 3, 6. ) It is
by no means improbable that he should have detected
the granddaughter of the emperor in some disgraceful
intrigue. Neither of the Julias confined their amours
to the recesses of their palaces, so that the most dis-
tolute frequenter of the lowest scenes of debauchery
may have became the witness of her turpitude. Far-
ther, it is evident that it was something of a private
nature, and which wounded the most tender feelings
of Augustus, who, we know from history, was pecu-
liarly sensitive with regard to the honour of his family.
Lastly, it appears, that, after being a witness of the
shameful transgression of Julia, Ovid had fallen into
some indiscretion through timidity (Ep. e Ponto, 2, 2),
vhich might have been avoided, had he enjoyed the
benefit of good advice (Tristia, 3, 6, 13); and it
seems extremely probable, that the imprudence he
committed was in revealing to others the discovery he
nad made, and concealing it from Augustus. --It is
not likely that any bettor guess will now be formed on
the subject. Another, however, has been recently at-
tempted by M.
Villenave, in a life of Ovid prefixed
to a French translation of the Metarr. orphoses. His
opinion, which has also been adopted by Scholl (Hilt.
Lit. Rom, vol. 1, p. 240),is, that Ovid, from accident
or indiscretion, bad become possessed of some state
secret concerning Agrippa Posthumus, the son of
Agrippa and Julia, and grandson of Augustus. The
existence of the family of Julia long formed the great
obstacle to the ambition of Livia and her son Tiberius.
Agrippa Posthumus, the last surviver of the race, was
? ? banished from Rome to the island of Planasia, near
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
His wife, w ho had wished to accompany him, hut was
not permittrd, fainted the moment he left the house.
--After his departure from Rome, Ovid proceeded to
Brundisium, where he had an interview with Fabius
Maximus. He recommended his wife to the care of
bis friend, and received repeated assurances of his
support. --The destined spot of his perpetual exile was
Tomi, the modern Tcmisvar, on the shore of the Eux-
ine, a few miles to the south of the spot where the
Host southern branch of the Danube unites with that
sea. (Vid. Tomi. ) The place had been originally an
Athenian colony, and was still inhabited by a few
remnins of the Greeks, but it was chiefly filled with
rude and savage barbarians, of whose manners and
habits the poet draws a most vivid description. The
town was defended by but feeble ramparts from the
incursions of the neighbouring Gets, or still more
formidable tribes to the north of the Danube. Alarms
from the foe were constant, and the poet himself had ?
sometimes to grasp a sword and buckler, and place a
helmet on his gray head, on a signal given by the sen-
tinel (Tristia, 4, 1, 73), when squadrons of barbarians
covered the desert which Tumi overlooked, or sur-
rounded the town in order to surprise and pillage it. --
Without books or society, Ovid often wished for a
field (Ep. e Ponlo, 1, 8) to remind him of the garden
near the Flaminian Way, in which, in his happier
days, he had breathed his love-sighs and composed his
amorous verses. Some of the barbarian inhabitants
were along with our poet in the small and inconvenient
house which he inhabited (Tristia, 2, 200), and kept
him in a state of constant alarm by their ferocious ap-
pearance. They neither cut their beards nor hair,
which, hanging dishevelled over the face, gave a pecu-
Ear horror to their aspect. The whole race were
clothed in the shaggy skins of various animals (Tristia,
3, 10), and each barbarian carried with him constantly
i bow, and a quiver containing poisoned arrows.
[Tristia, 5, 7. ) They daily filled the streets with tu-
mult and uproar, and even the litigants sometimes de-
cided their cause before the tribunals by the sword.
{Tristia, 5, 10. ) But if there was danger within the
walls of Tomi, destruction lay beyond them. Tribes,
who foraged from a distance, carried off the flocks and
burned the cottages. From the insecurity of property
and severity of climate, the fields were without grain,
the hills without vines, the mountains without oaks,
and the banks without willows. (Tristia, 3, 10, 71. )
Absinthium, or wormwood, alone grew up and covered
the plaTns. (Ep. e Ponlo, 4, 8. ) Spring brought
with it neither birds nor flowers. In summer the sun
rarely broke through the cloudy and foggy atmosphere.
The autumn shed no fruits; but, through every season
of the year, wintry winds blew with prodigious vio-
lence 'Tristia, 3, 10, 17), and lashed the waves of the
boisterous Euxine on its desert shore. (Tristia, 4,
4, 57. ) The only animated object was the wild Sar-
matian driving his car, yoked with oxen, across the
snows, or the frozen depths of the Euxine (Tristia, 3,
10, 32), clad in his fur cloak, his countenance alone
uncovered, his beard glistening sr. d sparkling with the
boar-frost and flakes of snow. (Tristia, 3, 10, 21. )
--Such was the spot for which Ovid was compelled
U> exchange the theatres, the baths, the porticoes, and
gardens of Rome, the court of Augustus, the banks of
the Tiber, and the sun and soil of Italy. --While thus
driving him to the most remote and savage extremity
? ? jf his empire, Aigustus softened the sentence he had
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? OVIDIUS.
UVIDItlS
iooku have been suppressed. These elegit'? , with a
very f&vv exceptions, are of an amatory description. --
As an elegiac writer, Ovid has more resemblance to
Propertius than to Tibullus. Hi* images and ideas
ate for the most part drawn from the real world. He
dwells not amid the visionary scenes of Tibullus, he
indulges not in his melancholy dreams, nor pours forth
such tenderness of feeling as the lover of Delia. The
Amores of Ovid have all the brilliancy and freshness
of tho period of life in which they were written. They
ue full of ingenious conceptions, graceful images, and
agreeable details. These are the chief excellences of
the elegies of Ovid. Their faults consist in an abuse
of the facility of invention, a repetition of the same
ideas, in occasional affectation and antithesis in the
language of love, and (as in the elegies of Propertius)
the too frequent, and sometimes not very happy or ap-
propriate, allusion to mythological fables. --Before fin-
ishing the elegies styled Amores, Ovid had already
commenced the composition of the Heroides (An. , 2,
18), which are likewise written in the elegiac measure.
They are epistles supposed to be addressed chiefly
from queens and princesses who figured in the heroic
ages, to the objects of their vehement affections, and
are in number not fewer than twenty-one; but there
is some doubt with regard to the authenticity of six of
them, namely, Paris to Helen, Helen to Paris; Lean-
der to Hero, Hero to Leander; Acontius to Cydippe,
Cydippe to Acontius. These six, though they appear
n the most ancient MSS. under the name of Ovid,
along with the others, are of doubtful authenticity,
and have been generally ascribed by commentators to
Aulus Sabinus, a friend of Ovid's, who was also the
? author of several answers to the epistles of our poet,
as Ulysses to Penelope, and . -Eneas to Dido. --The
Heroides present us with some of the finest and most
pop alar fictions of an amorous antiquity, resounding
Kith the names of Helen, Ariadne, and Phredra. Ju-
lius Scaligcr pronounces them to be the most polish-
ad of all the productions of Ovid. (Poet. , 6, 7. ) But
I'. ere is a tiresome uniformity in the situations and
characters of the heroines. The injudicious length to
which each epistle is extended has occasioned a repe-
uion in it of the same ideas; while the ceaseless tone
iif complaints uttered by these forsaken damsels has
/reduced a monotony, which renders a perusal, at
least of the whole series of epistles, insupportably fa-
tiguing. There u also a neglect of a due observ-
ance of the mannars and customs of the heroic ages:
and in none of the works of Ovid is his indulgence in
exuberance of fancy so remarkable to the reader, be-
cause many of the epistles, as those of Penelope, Bri-
tei's, Medea, Ariadne, and Dido, lead us to a compar-
ison of the Latin author with Homer, the Greek tra-
gedians, Catullus, and Virgil, those poets of true sim-
plicity and unaffected tenderness. The work of Ovid
entitled De Arte Amandi, or, more properly, Arlis
Amatorix Liber, is written, like the Amores and
Htroidts, in the elegiac measure. There is no-
thing, however, elegiac in its subject, as it merely
communicates, in a light and often sportive manner,
those lessons in the Art of Love which were the fruits
of the author's experience, and had been acquired in
the course of the multifarious intrigues recorded in
the Amores. This poem was not written earlier than
the year 763; for the author mentions in the first
boo* tie representation of a sea-fight between the
? ? Greek and Persian fleets, which was exhibited at that
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
aputneojis of Julius Cassar, is of his own contrivance.
They are all fictions of the Greeks and Oriental na-
tions, interspersed, perhaps, with a few Latin or Etrus-
can fable*. In fact, a book of Metamorphoses which
were feigned by the poet himself, would have pos-
sessed no charm, beinF unauthorized by public belief,
or even that species of popular credulity which be-
stows interest and probability on the most extravagant
fictions. And, indeed, Ovid had little motive for in-
vention, since, in the relations of those who had gone
before him in this subject, he could enter the most ex-
tensive field ever opened to the career of a poet. --
The Metamorphoses of Ovid are introduced by a de-
scription of the primeval world, and the early changes
it underwent. All that he writes of Chaos is merely
a paraphrase of what he had found in the works of the
ancient Greeks, and is more remarkablo for poetic
beauty than philosophic truth and consistency. The
account of the creation, which is described with im-
pressive brevity, is followed by a history of the four
ages of the world, the war with the giants, Deucalion's
deluge, and the self-production of various monsters in
those early periods by the teeming and yet unexhaust-
ed earth. This last subject leads to the destruction
of the serpent Python by Apollo, and the institution of
the Pythian games in honour of his victory: at their
first celebration, the conquerors were crowned with
oak, the laurel being unknown till the transformation
of Daphne, when it became the prize of honour and
renown. Our poet thus glides into the series of his
metamorphoses, which are extended to fifteen books,
and amount in all to not less than two hundred and
fifty. The stories of this description related by Ovid's
predecessors were generally insulated, and did not
hang together by any association or thread of dis-
course. But the Roman poet continues as he had
commenced, anl, lace the Cyclic writers of Greece,
who comprehended, in one book, a whole circle of fa-
bles, he proceeds from link to link in the golden chain
of fiction, leading us, as it were, through a labyrinth
of adventures, and passing imperceptibly from one talc
to another, so that the whole poem forms an uninter-
rupted recital. In themselves, however, the events
have frequently no relation to each other, and the con-
nexion between the preceding and succeeding fable
often consists in nothing more than that the transfor-
mation occurred at the same place or at the same
time, or had reference, perhaps, to the same amorous
doity. --In tuch an infinite number, the merit of the
stories must be widely different; the following, how-
ever, may be mentioned as among the best: the fables
of Cephalus and Procris, of Philemon and Baucis, of
Hippomanes and Atalanta, the flight of Daedalus and
Icarus, the loves of Pyramus and Thisbe. But of the
whole, the story of Phaethon is. perhaps, the most splen-
did and highly poetical. --It has been objected, how-
ever, Io the Metamorphoses, that, however great may
be the merit of each individual tale, there is too much
uniformity in the work as a whole, since all the stories
are of one sort, and end in some metamorphosis or
other. (Kaimes's Elements of Criticism, vol. 1, c. 9 )
But this objection, if it be one, can lie only against
the choice of the subject; for if a poet announces that
he is to sing of bodies changed and converted into
new forms, what else than metamorphoses can be ex-
pected \ Besides, in the incidents that lead to these
transformations, there is infinite variety of feeling ex-
? ? cited, and the poet intermingles the noble with the fa-
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? OVIDIUS.
lutTi course in the zodiac, and with the rising or set-
ting of the stars. A book is assigned to each month,
but the work concludes with June. The six other
books, which would have completed the Roman calen-
dar, may have perished during the middle ages; but
it seems more probable that they never were written.
No ancient author or grammarian quote* a single phrase
or word from any of the last six books of the Fasti;
and, in some lines of the Tristia (2, 549, scqq. ), the
luthor himself informs us that the composition had
been interrupted. This subject itself does not afford
much scope for the display of poetic genius. Its ar-
rangement was prescribed by the series of the festi-
vals, while the proper names, which required to be so
often introduced, and the chronological researches,
wer<< alike unfavourable to the harmony of versifica-
tion. The Fasti, however, is a work highly esteem-
ed by the learned on account of the antiquarian knowl-
edge which may be derived from it. The author has
poured a rich and copious erudition over the steril in-
dications of th3 calendar, he has traced mythological
worship to its source, and explained many of the mys-
teries of that theology which peopled all nature with
divinities. Even Scaliger, whose opinions are gen-
prAlly so unfavourable to Ovid, admits the ancient and
extensive erudition displayed in the Fasti. {Poet. , 6,
7. ) In particular, much mythological information may
be obtained from it as to the points in which the su-
perstitions and rites of the Romans differed from those
of the Greeks, and also the manner in which they were
blended. "The account," says Gibbon, "of the dif-
ferent etymologies of the month of May, is curious and
well expressed. Wo may distinguish in it an Oriental
allogory, a Greek fable, and a Roman tradition. " Some
truths concerning the ancient history of Rome may be
also elicited from the Fasti. It may appear absurd to
appeal to a poet in preference or contradiction to an-
nalists and chroniclers; hut it must be recollected, that
these annalists themselves originally obtained many of
their facts from poetical tradition. Ovid, besides, had
atudicd the Registers of the Ponlifcx Maximus, which
are now lost, and which recorded, along with religious
observances, many historical events. Occasional light
may therefore bo thrown by the Fasti of Ovid on
some of the most ancient and dubious points of Ro-
man story. For example, our poet completely vindi-
cates Romulus from the charge of having slain his
brother in a momentary transport of passion. Remus
was legally sentenced to death, in consequence of hav-
ing violated a salutary law enacted by the founder of
Rome, and which, in an infant state, it was requisite
to maintain inviolably. --The circumstance of the mel-
ancholy exile of Ovid gave occasion to the last of his
works, the Tristia, and the Epistola; e Ponto. The
first book of the Tristia, containing ten elegies, was
written by Ovid at sea, during his perilous voyage from
Rome to Ponlus. (Tristia, 1, I, 42. --Ibid. , I, 10. )
It may be doubted, however, whether this, which is
the generally received opinion, will hold good with
respect to all the elegies of the first book. He speaks
in the sixth of copies of his Metamorphoses being cir-
culated at Rome, and it is not likely that he could re-
ceive this intelligence while on his way to Pontus.
The first book is chiefly occupied with detailing the
occurrences at his departure from the capital, the
storms he encountered, and the places he saw in the
course of his navigation. The remaining four books
? vera composed during the first three years of his
? ? gloomy residence at Tomi. In the second book, ad-
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? oXV
ozo
tutiron: and we find in Pliny the names of several
tithes which are not mentioned by any other author,
but perhaps were natives of the sea on the shore of
which Ovid commenced this poem towards the close
of his life. Notwithstanding this authority, Werns-
dorffis cf opinion that it was not written by Ovid, as
it is not found in sny MS. of his works; and he as-
signs it to Grarius Faliscus. Ovid also wrote a poem
Dc Medicamine faciei, as we learn from two lines in
his Art of Lo\e (3, 205). It is doubted, however,
if the fragment remaining under this title be the gen-
uine work of our poet. --During his residence at Tomi,
Ovid acquired a perfect knowledge of the language
which was there spoken. The town had been origi-
nally founded by a Greek colony, but the Greek lan-
guage had been gradually corrupted, from the influx of
the Gets, and its elements could hardly be discovered
in the jargon now employed. Ovid, however, com-
posed a poem in this barbarous dialect, which, if ex-
tant, would be a great philological curiosity. The sub-
ject he chose was the praises of the imperial family at
Koine. When completed, he read it aloud in an as-
sembly of the Gelre; and he paints with much spirit
and animation the effect it produced on his audience.
--After what has been already said of the different
works of Ovid in succession, it is . unnecessary to in-
dulge in many general remarks on his defects or merits.
Suffice it to say, that the brilliancy of his imagination,
the liveliness of his wit, his wonderful art in bringing
every scene or image distinctly, as it were, before the
view, and the fluent, unlaboured ease of his versifica-
tion, have been universally admired. But his wit was
tec profuse and his fancy too exuberant. The natural
ir. dolence of his temper, and his high self-esteem, did
not permit him to become, like Virgil or Horace, a
finished model of harmony and proportion. (Dunlop's
Roman Literature, vol. 3, p. 349, seqq. )-- The best
(diiions of Ovid aie, that of Burmann, Amst. , 1727,
4 vols. 4to, and that of Lemairc, Paris, 1820-24, 10
vols. 8vo. The edition of N Heinsius, Amst. , 1661,
3 vols. 12mo, is also a valuable one.
Oxijt, small pointed islands, near the Ech nades,
off the coast of Acarnania. Their ancient name has
reference to their form ('Oljclai). Strabo reports,
that these are the same which Homer calls Thorc.
(Od. . 15, 299. -- Strabo, 458. ) Stephanus supposes
the Oxess to be Dulichium (j. v. AovMxtov). This
group is now commonly known by the name of Cur-
tolari, but the most considerable among them retains
the appellation of Oxia. (Gell's Ilin.
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? OS!
OTfl
ac by Ancus Murcius, at the first foundition of Ostia
[Liv. , 1, 33), still subsist near the site now called
Catone del Sale. (Cramer'* Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p.
! 1, seqq )--"Nothing," obsc. es a modern traveller,
"can be more dreary than the ride from Rome to
this once magnificent seaport. You issue out of the
Porta San Paola, and proceed through a continued
scene of dismal and heart-sinking desolation; no
fields, no dwellings, no trees, no landmarks, no marks
of cultivation, except a few scanty patches of corn,
thinly scattered over the waste; and huts, like wig-
wams, to shelter the wretched and half-starved people
that are doomed to live on this field of death. The
Tiber, rolling turbidly along in its solitary course,
seems sullenly to behold the altered scenes that have
withered around him. A few miles from Ostia we
entered upon a wilderness indeed. A dreary swamp
extended all around, intermingled with thickets, through
which roamed wild buffaloes, the only inhabitants of
the waste. A considerable part of the way was upon
the ancient pavement of the Via Ostiensis, in some
places in good preservation, in others broken up and
destroyed. When this failed us, the road was exe-
crable. The modern fortifications of Ostia appeared
oefore us long before we reached them. At length
we entered its gate, guarded by no sentinel; on its
bastions appeared no soldier; no children ran from
its houses to gaze at the rare splendour of a carriage;
no passenger was seen in the grass-grown street. It
presented the strange spectacle of a town without in-
habitants. After some beating and hallooing, on the
part of the coachman and lackey, at the shut-up door
of one of the houses, a woman, unclosing the shutter
of an upper window, presented her ghastly face; and,
having first carefully reconnoitred us, slowly and reluc-
tantly admitted us into her wretched hovel. 'Where
are all the people of the town! ' we inquired. 'Dead,'
was the brief reply. The fever of the malaria annually
carries off almost all whom necessity confines to this
pestilential region. But this was the month of April,
the season of comparative health, and we learned, on
more strict inquiry, that the population of Ostia, at
present, nominally consisted of twelve men, four wom-
en, no children, and two priests. --The ruins of old
Ostia are farther in the wilderness. Tho sea is now
two miles, or nearly, from the ancient port. The
cause of this, in a great measure, seems to be, that
the extreme flatness of the land does not allow the
Tiber to carry off the immense quantity of earth and
mud its turbid waters bring down; and the more that
is deposited, the more sluggishly it flows, and thus the
shore rises, the sea recedes, and the marshes extend.
The marshy insula sacra, in the middle of the river,
is now inhabited by wild buffaloes. We had intended
to cross to the sacred island, and from thence to the
Tillage of Fiumecino, on the other side, where there
are said to be still some noble remains of ancient
Porto, particularly of the mole, but a sudden storm
prevented us. " (Rome in the Nineteenth Century,
vol. 3, p. 449. )
OstorIus Scapula, a governor of Britain in the
reign of Claudius, who defeated and took prisoner the
famous Caractacus. He died A. D. f>>5. (Tacit. , Ann. ,
12, 06. )
Ostrogoth. *, or Eastern Goths, a division of the
great Gothic nation, who settled in Pannonia in the
fifth century of our era, whence they extended their
? ? dominion over Noricum, RhaHia, and Illyricum. About
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? OVI
OVILIOS
Joet noi appear, however, to have been deficient in
bravery, had been persuaded, for lie security of his
person, to retire before the battle to Brixellum; a
step which tended, as Tacitus has observed. >o occa-
sion his defeat. When he was informed of the result
of the conflict, he refused to make any farther effort
for the empire, but put an end to his own life by fall-
ing upon nis sword, at the age of 37 according to
Tacitus (Hist. , 2, SO), or of 38 according to Sucto-
sius (Vit. Olh. , c. 11), after reigning 95 days. Plu-
tarch, in his life of Olho, relates that the soldiers im-
mediately buried his body, that it might not be exposed
to indignity by falling into the hands of his enemies,
and erected a plain monument over his grave, with the
limple inscription, "To the memory of Marcus Otho. "
The early debaucheries of Otho threw a stain upon his
reputation, which his good conduct in Lusitania and his
mildness as emperor did not altogether remove. The
lreatmc. it which he received from Nero might in some
degree justify his rebellion against that prince; but no
palliation can be fond for the treason aud cruelty with
which he was chargeable towards Galba. In all things
his actions were marked by a culpable extreme; and
perhaps both the good and the evil which appeared in
his life were the result of circumstances rather than of
virtuous principles or of fixed and incurable depravity.
(Tacit. , Hist. , lib. 1 et i. -- Sucton. , Vit. Otkon --
Plut. , Vit. Otkon. --Dio C<<<<. ,ltb. 64-- Eneyd. Us.
Knowl. , vol. 17, p. 59. --Encycl. Mttropol, div. 3,
vol. 2, p. 497, scqq. )--II. L. Roscius, a tribune of the
commons, who, in the year that Cicero was consul,
proposed and caused to be passed the well-known law
which allowed the equestrian osder particular seats in
the theatre. The equites, previous to this, sat promis-
cuously with the commons. By this new regulation
of Oiho's, the commons considered themselves dishon-
oured, and hissed and insulted Otho when he appeared
in the theatre: the equites, on Uie other hand, receiv-
ed him with loud plaudits. The commons repeated
their hiasings and the knights their applause, until at
last they came to mutual reproaches, and the whole
hiatre presented a scene of the greatest disorder.
Cicero, being informed of the disturbance, came and
summoned the people to the tenapleof Bellona, where,
partly by his reproofs and partly by his persuasive elo-
quence, he so wrought upon them that they return-
ed to the theatre, loudly testified their approbation of
Otho. and strove with the equites which should show
him the most honour. The speech delivered on this
occasion was afterward reduced to writing. It is now
lost, but, having been delivered extempore, it affords
a strong example of the persuasive nature of his elo-
quence. One topic which he touched on in this ora-
tion, and the only one of which we have any hint from
antiquity, was his reproaching the rioters for their want
of taste, in creating a tumult while Roscius was per-
forming on the stage. (Liny, Epit. , 99. - - Horat. ,
Epist. , I, 1, 62. --Juv. , Sat. , 3, 159. -- Veil Patcrc,
2,32. --Fuss,Rom. Amtiq. , p. 147. )
Othkys, a mountain-range of Thesealy, which,
branching out of Tymphrestue, one of the highest
points in the chain of Pindns, closed the great basin
of Thessaly to the south, and served at the same time
to divide the waters which Bowed northward into the
Peneus front those received by the Sperchius. This
mountain is often celebrated by the poets of antiquity.
(Eurip. , Attest. , 683. --Tkeocr. , Idyll, 3,43. --Yirg. ,
? ? Ain , 7,674. --Luean, 6,337. ) At present it is known
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
gardens, which lay a little beyond the city, at the junc-
tion of the Clodian and Flaminian Ways, near the
Pons Milvius, where he composed many of his verses.
He waa fond, indeed, of the rural pleasures of flowers
and trees, but he chiefly delighted to sow and plant
them in these suburban gardens. (Ep. e Ponto, 1,8. )
Far from hiding himself amid his groves, like the mel-
ancholy Tibullus, ho courted society, and never was
Lappier than amid the bustle of the capital. One day,
when Augustus, in his capacity of censor, according
to ancient custom, made the whole body of Roman
knights pass before him in review, he presented our
poet with a beautifnl steed. {Trittia, 2, 89. ) The
? ift was accounted a peculiar mark of favour, and
shows that, at the time when it was bestowed, he had
incurred no moral stain which merited the disapproba-
tion of his prince. While frequenting the court of
Augustus, Ovid was well received by the politest of
the courtiers. The titles of many of the epistles writ-
ten during his banishment, show that they were ad-
dressed to persons well known to us, even at this dis-
tance of time, as distinguished statesmen and imperial
favourites. Messala, to whose house he much resort-
ed, had early encouraged the rising genius, and>>direct-
ed the studies of Ovid; and the friendship which the
father had extended to our poet was continued to him
by the sons. But his chief patron was Q. Fabius Max-
irous, long the friend of Augustus, and, in the closing
scenes of that prince's life, the chief confidant of his
weaknesses and domestic sorrows. (Tacit, Ann. , 1,
5. ) Nor was Ovid's acquaintance less with the cele-
brated poets of his age than with its courtiers and sen-
ators. Virgil, indeed, he had merely seen, and pre-
mature death cut off* the society of Tibullus; but Hor-
ace, Macer, and Propertius were long his familiar
friends, and often communicated to him their writings
previous to publication. While blessed with so many
friends, he seems to have been undisturbed, at least
during this period of his life, by the malice of a sin-
gle foe: neither the court favour he enjoyed nor his
poetical renown procured him enemies; and he was
never assailed by that spirit of envy and detraction by
which Horace had been persecuted. His poetry was
universally popular (Tristia, 1, 1,61): like the stanzas
of Tasso, it was often sung in the streets or at enter-
tainments; and his verses were frequently recited in the
theatre amid the applause of the multitude. Among
his other distinctions, Oviif was a favourite of the
fair, with whom his engagements were numerous and
his intercourse unrestrained. (Am. , 2, 4. -- Tristia,
4, 10, 65. ) He was extremely susceptible of love,
and his love was ever changing. His first wife, whom
he married when almost a boy, was unworthy of his
affections, and possessed them but a short while.
The second, who came from the country of the an-
cient Falisci, led a blameless life, but was soon repu-
diated. After parting with her, Ovid was united to a
thirj, who was of the Fabian family. In her youth
she had been the companion of Marcia, the wife of
Fabius Maximus, and a favourite of Marcia's mother,
who was the maternal aunt of Augustus. She was a
widow at the time of her marriage with Ovid, and had
a daughter by her former husband, who was married to
Siillius, the friend of Germanicus. (Ep. t Ponto, 4,
8 ) But these successive legitimate connexions did
Dot crevent him from forming others of a different de-
scription. Corinna, a wanton, enticing beauty, whose
? ? real name and family the commentators and biogra-
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? OVIDIUS.
CS IDIUS.
a tue time of Manutius, various other theories have
Men devised to account for the exile of Ovid. Dry-
len, in the Preface to his translation oT Ovid's Epis-
tles, thinks it probable that" he had stumbled by some
inadvertency on the privacies of Li via, and had seen
. er in a bath; for the words ' sine teste Dianam? he
remarks, agree better with Livia, who had the fame
of chastity, than with either of the Julias. " It would
co doubt appear that our poet had a practice of break-
ing in unseasonably on such occasions (A. A. , 3, 245).
But it is not probable that Augustus would have pun-
ished such an offence so severely, or that it would
have affected him so deeply. Livia, at the time of
Ovid's banishment, had reached the age of sixty-four,
and was doubtless the only person in the empire who
would consider such an intrusion as intentional. --Ti-
raboschi has maintained, at great length, that he had
been the involuntary and accidental witness of some
moral turpitude committed by one of the imperial
family, most probably Julia, the granddaughter of Au-
gustus, who had inherited the licentious disposition of
her mother, and was banished from Rome on account
of her misconduct, nearly at the same time that the
sentence cf exile was pronounced on Ovid. This
theory, on the whole, seems the most plausible, and
most consistent with the hints dropped by the poet
himself. He repeatedly says, that the offence for
which he had been banished was a folly, an error, an
imprudence rather than a crime: using the words
stuititia and error in opposition to crimen and /aci-
nus. (Tristia, 1,2, 100, et passim. ) He invariably
tatko of what he had seen as the cause of his misfor-
tunes (Tristia, 2, 103, scat/. ). and he admits that what
be had seen was a fault. But he farther signifies, that
the fault he had witnessed was of a description which
offended modesty, and which, therefore, ought to be
covered with the veil or night. (Tristia, 3, 6. ) It is
by no means improbable that he should have detected
the granddaughter of the emperor in some disgraceful
intrigue. Neither of the Julias confined their amours
to the recesses of their palaces, so that the most dis-
tolute frequenter of the lowest scenes of debauchery
may have became the witness of her turpitude. Far-
ther, it is evident that it was something of a private
nature, and which wounded the most tender feelings
of Augustus, who, we know from history, was pecu-
liarly sensitive with regard to the honour of his family.
Lastly, it appears, that, after being a witness of the
shameful transgression of Julia, Ovid had fallen into
some indiscretion through timidity (Ep. e Ponto, 2, 2),
vhich might have been avoided, had he enjoyed the
benefit of good advice (Tristia, 3, 6, 13); and it
seems extremely probable, that the imprudence he
committed was in revealing to others the discovery he
nad made, and concealing it from Augustus. --It is
not likely that any bettor guess will now be formed on
the subject. Another, however, has been recently at-
tempted by M.
Villenave, in a life of Ovid prefixed
to a French translation of the Metarr. orphoses. His
opinion, which has also been adopted by Scholl (Hilt.
Lit. Rom, vol. 1, p. 240),is, that Ovid, from accident
or indiscretion, bad become possessed of some state
secret concerning Agrippa Posthumus, the son of
Agrippa and Julia, and grandson of Augustus. The
existence of the family of Julia long formed the great
obstacle to the ambition of Livia and her son Tiberius.
Agrippa Posthumus, the last surviver of the race, was
? ? banished from Rome to the island of Planasia, near
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
His wife, w ho had wished to accompany him, hut was
not permittrd, fainted the moment he left the house.
--After his departure from Rome, Ovid proceeded to
Brundisium, where he had an interview with Fabius
Maximus. He recommended his wife to the care of
bis friend, and received repeated assurances of his
support. --The destined spot of his perpetual exile was
Tomi, the modern Tcmisvar, on the shore of the Eux-
ine, a few miles to the south of the spot where the
Host southern branch of the Danube unites with that
sea. (Vid. Tomi. ) The place had been originally an
Athenian colony, and was still inhabited by a few
remnins of the Greeks, but it was chiefly filled with
rude and savage barbarians, of whose manners and
habits the poet draws a most vivid description. The
town was defended by but feeble ramparts from the
incursions of the neighbouring Gets, or still more
formidable tribes to the north of the Danube. Alarms
from the foe were constant, and the poet himself had ?
sometimes to grasp a sword and buckler, and place a
helmet on his gray head, on a signal given by the sen-
tinel (Tristia, 4, 1, 73), when squadrons of barbarians
covered the desert which Tumi overlooked, or sur-
rounded the town in order to surprise and pillage it. --
Without books or society, Ovid often wished for a
field (Ep. e Ponlo, 1, 8) to remind him of the garden
near the Flaminian Way, in which, in his happier
days, he had breathed his love-sighs and composed his
amorous verses. Some of the barbarian inhabitants
were along with our poet in the small and inconvenient
house which he inhabited (Tristia, 2, 200), and kept
him in a state of constant alarm by their ferocious ap-
pearance. They neither cut their beards nor hair,
which, hanging dishevelled over the face, gave a pecu-
Ear horror to their aspect. The whole race were
clothed in the shaggy skins of various animals (Tristia,
3, 10), and each barbarian carried with him constantly
i bow, and a quiver containing poisoned arrows.
[Tristia, 5, 7. ) They daily filled the streets with tu-
mult and uproar, and even the litigants sometimes de-
cided their cause before the tribunals by the sword.
{Tristia, 5, 10. ) But if there was danger within the
walls of Tomi, destruction lay beyond them. Tribes,
who foraged from a distance, carried off the flocks and
burned the cottages. From the insecurity of property
and severity of climate, the fields were without grain,
the hills without vines, the mountains without oaks,
and the banks without willows. (Tristia, 3, 10, 71. )
Absinthium, or wormwood, alone grew up and covered
the plaTns. (Ep. e Ponlo, 4, 8. ) Spring brought
with it neither birds nor flowers. In summer the sun
rarely broke through the cloudy and foggy atmosphere.
The autumn shed no fruits; but, through every season
of the year, wintry winds blew with prodigious vio-
lence 'Tristia, 3, 10, 17), and lashed the waves of the
boisterous Euxine on its desert shore. (Tristia, 4,
4, 57. ) The only animated object was the wild Sar-
matian driving his car, yoked with oxen, across the
snows, or the frozen depths of the Euxine (Tristia, 3,
10, 32), clad in his fur cloak, his countenance alone
uncovered, his beard glistening sr. d sparkling with the
boar-frost and flakes of snow. (Tristia, 3, 10, 21. )
--Such was the spot for which Ovid was compelled
U> exchange the theatres, the baths, the porticoes, and
gardens of Rome, the court of Augustus, the banks of
the Tiber, and the sun and soil of Italy. --While thus
driving him to the most remote and savage extremity
? ? jf his empire, Aigustus softened the sentence he had
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? OVIDIUS.
UVIDItlS
iooku have been suppressed. These elegit'? , with a
very f&vv exceptions, are of an amatory description. --
As an elegiac writer, Ovid has more resemblance to
Propertius than to Tibullus. Hi* images and ideas
ate for the most part drawn from the real world. He
dwells not amid the visionary scenes of Tibullus, he
indulges not in his melancholy dreams, nor pours forth
such tenderness of feeling as the lover of Delia. The
Amores of Ovid have all the brilliancy and freshness
of tho period of life in which they were written. They
ue full of ingenious conceptions, graceful images, and
agreeable details. These are the chief excellences of
the elegies of Ovid. Their faults consist in an abuse
of the facility of invention, a repetition of the same
ideas, in occasional affectation and antithesis in the
language of love, and (as in the elegies of Propertius)
the too frequent, and sometimes not very happy or ap-
propriate, allusion to mythological fables. --Before fin-
ishing the elegies styled Amores, Ovid had already
commenced the composition of the Heroides (An. , 2,
18), which are likewise written in the elegiac measure.
They are epistles supposed to be addressed chiefly
from queens and princesses who figured in the heroic
ages, to the objects of their vehement affections, and
are in number not fewer than twenty-one; but there
is some doubt with regard to the authenticity of six of
them, namely, Paris to Helen, Helen to Paris; Lean-
der to Hero, Hero to Leander; Acontius to Cydippe,
Cydippe to Acontius. These six, though they appear
n the most ancient MSS. under the name of Ovid,
along with the others, are of doubtful authenticity,
and have been generally ascribed by commentators to
Aulus Sabinus, a friend of Ovid's, who was also the
? author of several answers to the epistles of our poet,
as Ulysses to Penelope, and . -Eneas to Dido. --The
Heroides present us with some of the finest and most
pop alar fictions of an amorous antiquity, resounding
Kith the names of Helen, Ariadne, and Phredra. Ju-
lius Scaligcr pronounces them to be the most polish-
ad of all the productions of Ovid. (Poet. , 6, 7. ) But
I'. ere is a tiresome uniformity in the situations and
characters of the heroines. The injudicious length to
which each epistle is extended has occasioned a repe-
uion in it of the same ideas; while the ceaseless tone
iif complaints uttered by these forsaken damsels has
/reduced a monotony, which renders a perusal, at
least of the whole series of epistles, insupportably fa-
tiguing. There u also a neglect of a due observ-
ance of the mannars and customs of the heroic ages:
and in none of the works of Ovid is his indulgence in
exuberance of fancy so remarkable to the reader, be-
cause many of the epistles, as those of Penelope, Bri-
tei's, Medea, Ariadne, and Dido, lead us to a compar-
ison of the Latin author with Homer, the Greek tra-
gedians, Catullus, and Virgil, those poets of true sim-
plicity and unaffected tenderness. The work of Ovid
entitled De Arte Amandi, or, more properly, Arlis
Amatorix Liber, is written, like the Amores and
Htroidts, in the elegiac measure. There is no-
thing, however, elegiac in its subject, as it merely
communicates, in a light and often sportive manner,
those lessons in the Art of Love which were the fruits
of the author's experience, and had been acquired in
the course of the multifarious intrigues recorded in
the Amores. This poem was not written earlier than
the year 763; for the author mentions in the first
boo* tie representation of a sea-fight between the
? ? Greek and Persian fleets, which was exhibited at that
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? OVIDIUS.
OVIDIUS.
aputneojis of Julius Cassar, is of his own contrivance.
They are all fictions of the Greeks and Oriental na-
tions, interspersed, perhaps, with a few Latin or Etrus-
can fable*. In fact, a book of Metamorphoses which
were feigned by the poet himself, would have pos-
sessed no charm, beinF unauthorized by public belief,
or even that species of popular credulity which be-
stows interest and probability on the most extravagant
fictions. And, indeed, Ovid had little motive for in-
vention, since, in the relations of those who had gone
before him in this subject, he could enter the most ex-
tensive field ever opened to the career of a poet. --
The Metamorphoses of Ovid are introduced by a de-
scription of the primeval world, and the early changes
it underwent. All that he writes of Chaos is merely
a paraphrase of what he had found in the works of the
ancient Greeks, and is more remarkablo for poetic
beauty than philosophic truth and consistency. The
account of the creation, which is described with im-
pressive brevity, is followed by a history of the four
ages of the world, the war with the giants, Deucalion's
deluge, and the self-production of various monsters in
those early periods by the teeming and yet unexhaust-
ed earth. This last subject leads to the destruction
of the serpent Python by Apollo, and the institution of
the Pythian games in honour of his victory: at their
first celebration, the conquerors were crowned with
oak, the laurel being unknown till the transformation
of Daphne, when it became the prize of honour and
renown. Our poet thus glides into the series of his
metamorphoses, which are extended to fifteen books,
and amount in all to not less than two hundred and
fifty. The stories of this description related by Ovid's
predecessors were generally insulated, and did not
hang together by any association or thread of dis-
course. But the Roman poet continues as he had
commenced, anl, lace the Cyclic writers of Greece,
who comprehended, in one book, a whole circle of fa-
bles, he proceeds from link to link in the golden chain
of fiction, leading us, as it were, through a labyrinth
of adventures, and passing imperceptibly from one talc
to another, so that the whole poem forms an uninter-
rupted recital. In themselves, however, the events
have frequently no relation to each other, and the con-
nexion between the preceding and succeeding fable
often consists in nothing more than that the transfor-
mation occurred at the same place or at the same
time, or had reference, perhaps, to the same amorous
doity. --In tuch an infinite number, the merit of the
stories must be widely different; the following, how-
ever, may be mentioned as among the best: the fables
of Cephalus and Procris, of Philemon and Baucis, of
Hippomanes and Atalanta, the flight of Daedalus and
Icarus, the loves of Pyramus and Thisbe. But of the
whole, the story of Phaethon is. perhaps, the most splen-
did and highly poetical. --It has been objected, how-
ever, Io the Metamorphoses, that, however great may
be the merit of each individual tale, there is too much
uniformity in the work as a whole, since all the stories
are of one sort, and end in some metamorphosis or
other. (Kaimes's Elements of Criticism, vol. 1, c. 9 )
But this objection, if it be one, can lie only against
the choice of the subject; for if a poet announces that
he is to sing of bodies changed and converted into
new forms, what else than metamorphoses can be ex-
pected \ Besides, in the incidents that lead to these
transformations, there is infinite variety of feeling ex-
? ? cited, and the poet intermingles the noble with the fa-
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? OVIDIUS.
lutTi course in the zodiac, and with the rising or set-
ting of the stars. A book is assigned to each month,
but the work concludes with June. The six other
books, which would have completed the Roman calen-
dar, may have perished during the middle ages; but
it seems more probable that they never were written.
No ancient author or grammarian quote* a single phrase
or word from any of the last six books of the Fasti;
and, in some lines of the Tristia (2, 549, scqq. ), the
luthor himself informs us that the composition had
been interrupted. This subject itself does not afford
much scope for the display of poetic genius. Its ar-
rangement was prescribed by the series of the festi-
vals, while the proper names, which required to be so
often introduced, and the chronological researches,
wer<< alike unfavourable to the harmony of versifica-
tion. The Fasti, however, is a work highly esteem-
ed by the learned on account of the antiquarian knowl-
edge which may be derived from it. The author has
poured a rich and copious erudition over the steril in-
dications of th3 calendar, he has traced mythological
worship to its source, and explained many of the mys-
teries of that theology which peopled all nature with
divinities. Even Scaliger, whose opinions are gen-
prAlly so unfavourable to Ovid, admits the ancient and
extensive erudition displayed in the Fasti. {Poet. , 6,
7. ) In particular, much mythological information may
be obtained from it as to the points in which the su-
perstitions and rites of the Romans differed from those
of the Greeks, and also the manner in which they were
blended. "The account," says Gibbon, "of the dif-
ferent etymologies of the month of May, is curious and
well expressed. Wo may distinguish in it an Oriental
allogory, a Greek fable, and a Roman tradition. " Some
truths concerning the ancient history of Rome may be
also elicited from the Fasti. It may appear absurd to
appeal to a poet in preference or contradiction to an-
nalists and chroniclers; hut it must be recollected, that
these annalists themselves originally obtained many of
their facts from poetical tradition. Ovid, besides, had
atudicd the Registers of the Ponlifcx Maximus, which
are now lost, and which recorded, along with religious
observances, many historical events. Occasional light
may therefore bo thrown by the Fasti of Ovid on
some of the most ancient and dubious points of Ro-
man story. For example, our poet completely vindi-
cates Romulus from the charge of having slain his
brother in a momentary transport of passion. Remus
was legally sentenced to death, in consequence of hav-
ing violated a salutary law enacted by the founder of
Rome, and which, in an infant state, it was requisite
to maintain inviolably. --The circumstance of the mel-
ancholy exile of Ovid gave occasion to the last of his
works, the Tristia, and the Epistola; e Ponto. The
first book of the Tristia, containing ten elegies, was
written by Ovid at sea, during his perilous voyage from
Rome to Ponlus. (Tristia, 1, I, 42. --Ibid. , I, 10. )
It may be doubted, however, whether this, which is
the generally received opinion, will hold good with
respect to all the elegies of the first book. He speaks
in the sixth of copies of his Metamorphoses being cir-
culated at Rome, and it is not likely that he could re-
ceive this intelligence while on his way to Pontus.
The first book is chiefly occupied with detailing the
occurrences at his departure from the capital, the
storms he encountered, and the places he saw in the
course of his navigation. The remaining four books
? vera composed during the first three years of his
? ? gloomy residence at Tomi. In the second book, ad-
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? oXV
ozo
tutiron: and we find in Pliny the names of several
tithes which are not mentioned by any other author,
but perhaps were natives of the sea on the shore of
which Ovid commenced this poem towards the close
of his life. Notwithstanding this authority, Werns-
dorffis cf opinion that it was not written by Ovid, as
it is not found in sny MS. of his works; and he as-
signs it to Grarius Faliscus. Ovid also wrote a poem
Dc Medicamine faciei, as we learn from two lines in
his Art of Lo\e (3, 205). It is doubted, however,
if the fragment remaining under this title be the gen-
uine work of our poet. --During his residence at Tomi,
Ovid acquired a perfect knowledge of the language
which was there spoken. The town had been origi-
nally founded by a Greek colony, but the Greek lan-
guage had been gradually corrupted, from the influx of
the Gets, and its elements could hardly be discovered
in the jargon now employed. Ovid, however, com-
posed a poem in this barbarous dialect, which, if ex-
tant, would be a great philological curiosity. The sub-
ject he chose was the praises of the imperial family at
Koine. When completed, he read it aloud in an as-
sembly of the Gelre; and he paints with much spirit
and animation the effect it produced on his audience.
--After what has been already said of the different
works of Ovid in succession, it is . unnecessary to in-
dulge in many general remarks on his defects or merits.
Suffice it to say, that the brilliancy of his imagination,
the liveliness of his wit, his wonderful art in bringing
every scene or image distinctly, as it were, before the
view, and the fluent, unlaboured ease of his versifica-
tion, have been universally admired. But his wit was
tec profuse and his fancy too exuberant. The natural
ir. dolence of his temper, and his high self-esteem, did
not permit him to become, like Virgil or Horace, a
finished model of harmony and proportion. (Dunlop's
Roman Literature, vol. 3, p. 349, seqq. )-- The best
(diiions of Ovid aie, that of Burmann, Amst. , 1727,
4 vols. 4to, and that of Lemairc, Paris, 1820-24, 10
vols. 8vo. The edition of N Heinsius, Amst. , 1661,
3 vols. 12mo, is also a valuable one.
Oxijt, small pointed islands, near the Ech nades,
off the coast of Acarnania. Their ancient name has
reference to their form ('Oljclai). Strabo reports,
that these are the same which Homer calls Thorc.
(Od. . 15, 299. -- Strabo, 458. ) Stephanus supposes
the Oxess to be Dulichium (j. v. AovMxtov). This
group is now commonly known by the name of Cur-
tolari, but the most considerable among them retains
the appellation of Oxia. (Gell's Ilin.
