No More Learning

Of the 'Art of Love' the less, perhaps, that is said
the better. The poet himself warns respectable per-
sons to have nothing to do with his pages, and the
'warning is amply justified by their contents. It has,
however, some of the brilliant episodes which Ovid
introduces with such effect. His own taste, and the
taste, we may hope, of his readers, demanded that the
base level of sensuality should sometimes be left for a
higher flight of fancy. The description of Ariadne in
yaxos is as brilliant as Titian! s. pjcture; equally vivid
is the story of the flight of Dsedalus and his son Icarus
on the wings which the matchless craftsman had made,
aiuTdTth'e fate which followed the over-daring flight of
the youth through regions too near to the sun. Then,-
agairi, we find ever and anon pictures of Eoman man-
ners which may amuse without offence. Among such
are Ovid's instructions to his fair readers how they
may most becomingly take their part in the games of
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? 38 OVID.
chance and skill which were popular in the polite
circles of Eome. Among these games he mentions
the cubical dice, called tesserm, resembling our own
in shape, and similarly marked. Three of these were
used together; and it was customary to throw them
from cups of a conical shape. The luckiest throw was
"treble sixes," and was honoured by the name of
Aphrodite or Venus. The worst was "treble aces :"
this was stigmatised as " the dog. " There were other
dice made out of the knuckle-bones of animals. They
were called tali. (Our own popular name for them is
"dibs. ") These were used either in the same way as
the cubical dice, though they were not numbered in
the same way, or in a game of manual skill which still
survives among us, where the player throws them
and catches them again, or performs other feats of
dexterity with them. Besides these there was the
game of the "Eobbers" (Ludus Latrunculorum),
played with pieces made of glass or ivory, which has
been compared with chess, but was probably not so
complicated, and more nearly resembling our games
of "Fox and Geese" and "Military Tactics. " The
game of the "Fifteen Lines" must have been very
like our " Backgammon," as the moves of the men were
determined by previous throws of dice. Ovid, after
recommending his readers to practise a graceful play-
ing at the games, wisely warns them that it is still
more important that they should learn to keep their
temper. The suitor he advises to allow his fair an-
tagonist to win, a counsel doubtless often followed by
those who have never had the advantage--or, we should
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? THE LOVE-POEMS. S9
rather say, the disadvantage--of studying Ovid's pre-
cepts. Equally familiar will be the device of a present
of fruit brought by a slave-boy in a rustic basket,
which the lover will declare has been conveyed from
a country garden, though he will probably have bought
it in the neighbouring street. A certain sagacity must
be allowed to the counsel that the lover, when his lady
is sick, must not take upon himself the odious office of
forbidding her a favourite dish; and will, if possible,
hand over to a rival the office, equally odious, of ad-
ministering a nauseous. medicine. The recommenda-
tion not to be too particular in inquiring about age is
equally sagacious. It is curious to observe that Lord
Byron's expressed aversion to seeing women eat was
not unknown to the Eoman youth. Ovid, who, to do
him justice, never praises wine, hints that drinking
was not equally distasteful.
The 'Eemedies ofr Lovef may be dismissed with
a still briefer notice. Like the 'Art of Love,' it
is relieved by some beautiful digressions. "When it
keeps close to its subject, it is, to say the least, not
edifying. The "Eemedies," indeed, are for the most
part as bad as the disease, though we must except that
most respectable maxim that "idleness is the parent
of love," with the poet's practical application of it.
One specimen of these two books shall suffice. It is
of the episodical kind, -- a brilliant panegyric oa
the young Csesar, Caius, son of Augustus's daughter
Julia, who was then preparing to take the command
of an expedition against the Parthians. Gross as is
the flattery, it is perhaps less offensive than usual.
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? 40 0 V1D.
The young Caius died before his abilities could be
proved; but the precocious genius of the family was
a fact. Caius was then of the very same age at which
his grandfather had first commanded an army.
"Once more our Prince prepares to make us glad,
And the remaining East to Eome will add.
Rejoice, ye Eoman soldiers, in your urn; \
Your ensigns from the Parthians shall return; /
And the slain Crassi shall no longer mourn! ;
A youth is sent those trophies to demand,
And bears his father's thunder in his hand:
Doubt not th' imperial boy in wars unseen;
In childhood all of Csesar's race are men. >>
Celestial seeds shoot out before their day,
Prevent their years, and brook no dull delay.
Thus infant Hercules the snakes did press,
And in his cradle did his sire confess.
Bacchus, a boy, yet like a hero fought,
And early spoils from conquered India brought.
Thus you your father's troops shall lead to fight,
And thus shall vanquish in your father's sight.
These rudiments you to your lineage owe;
Born to increase your titles as you grow.
Brethren you lead, avenge your brethren slain;
You have a father, and his right maintain.
Armed by your country's parent and your own,
Redeem your country and restore his throne. "--D.
The date of the poem is fixed by this passage for the
year B. C. 1, as that of the 'Eemedies of Love' is
eettled for a. d. 1 by an allusion to the actual war in
Parthia, which was at its height in that year, and was
finished by a peace in the year following.
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? CHAPTEE III.
DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT.
About Ovid's private life between his twentieth and
fiftieth years there is little to be recorded. Two mar-
riages have already been spoken of. He had pro-
bably reached middle life when he married for the
third time. The probability, indeed, consists in the
difficulty we have in believing that the husband of a
wife whom he really respected and loved should have
published so disreputable a book as the 'Art of Love,'
for even to the lax judgment of Soman society it
seemed disreputable. A feeling, perhaps a hint from
high quarters, that he had gone too far -- a con-
sciousness, we may hope, that he was capable of better
things--had made him turn to work of a more elevated
kind. A good marriage may have been part of his
plan for restoring himself to a reputable place in
society. It is even possible to imagine that a genuine
and worthy affection may have been one of the causes
that operated in bringing about a change. A much
earlier date, indeed, must be fixed, if we suppose that
the daughter of whom Ovid speaks in the brief sketch
of his life was a child of this marriage. This daughter
/
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? 42 OVID.
had been twice married at the time of his banishment,
when he was in his fifty-second year, and had borne a
child to each husband. Eoman women married early,
and changed their husbands quickly; but, in any case,
it is not likely that the young lady could have been
less than twenty. It seems, however, more probable
that she was the offspring of the second marriage. In
the many affectionate letters which Ovid addressed to
his wife after his banishment, no mention is made of
a child and grandchildren in whom both had a com-
mon interest. It is impossible to suppose that a
husband who anxiously appeals to every motive in a
wife which could help to keep their mutual affection
unimpaired by absence, should have neglected to make
use of what was obviously the most powerful of all.
There is, it is true, a letter addressed to one Perilla,
written by Ovid in exile. Dr Dyer, the learned
author of the article "Ovidius" in the 'Dictionary of
Biography and Mythology,' takes it for granted that
this Perilla was Ovid's daughter by his third wife.
The letter does not bear out the supposition. It will
be found described in its place. Meanwhile it is
sufficient to say, that while the writer enlarges on the
fact that he had instructed Perilla in the art of poetry,
he does not say a word which indicates a closer rela-
tionship than that of master and pupil. Had the
poetess been his daughter, we may say with confidence
that Ovid would have expressed in at least a dozen
ways that he was the source at once of her life and of
her song. The poet's wife was a lady of good position
at Borne. In early years she had been what may be
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? DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT. 43
\
called a lady-in-waiting to the aunt of Augustus, and
at the same time an intimate friend of Marcia, a
lady belonging to that branch of the Maician house
which bore the surname of Philippus. On Marcia's
marriage with Fabius Maximus, representative of the
great patrician- family of the Fabii, one of the few
ancient houses which had survived to the days of the
empire, this friend accompanied her to her new home.
From there Ovid married her. The union lasted till \
his death, with much mutual affection. "When it has
been added that Ovid's town mansion was close to the
Capitol, and that he had a suburban residence, where
he amused himself with the pleasures of gardening,
nothing remains to be told about this portion of his
life.
Some time after his third marriage, and not long
before the great catastrophe which we are about to
relate, Ovid's father died. He had completed his
ninetieth year. His mother died shortly afterwards.
"All! happy they and timely passed away
Ere on their offspring came that fatal day!
Ah! happy I amidst my grief to know
That they are all unconscious of my woe! "
It is the catastrophe which he here mentions that has |
now to be discussed. The cause of the banishment
of Ovid, like the personality of the Man in the Iron
Mask and the authorship of 'Junius,' is one of the
unsolved problems of history. The facts absolutely
known are very soon related. Ovid was in his fifty-J
second year. His fame as a poet was at its height. /
f
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? 44 0 VID.
Any scandal that may have arisen from some of his
publications had gradually passed away. Suddenly
there fell on him "a bolt from the blue. " A rescript
in the emperor's hand was delivered to him, ordering
him to leave Home within a certain time, and to
repair to Tomi, a desolate settlement on the western
shore of the Black Sea, near the very outskirts of
the empire. ISo decree of the senate had been passed
to authorise the infliction of the banishment. It was
simply an act of arbitrary power on the part of the
emperor. The cause alleged was the publication of
works corrupting to public morals, and the 'Art of
Love ' was specified. The punishment was not of the
severest kind. The place of exile, hateful as it was
to the banished man, was at least preferable to that
which many offenders had to endure--some desolate
rock in the iEgean, where the victim was kept from
starvation only by the charity of his friends. Ovid
was also permitted to retain and enjoy his property.
That the cause alleged was not the actual cause
of the banishment may be considered certain. It
/ is sufficient to say that the guilty work had been
I published at least ten years before. The offence was
such as to afford a pretext of the barest kind to an
absolute ruler who felt the force of public opinion
just enough to make him shrink from a wholly arbi-
trary act, but was not careful to make any complete
justification. But it did not, we may be sure, wholly
sway his mind. We know, indeed, that there was
another cause. To such a cause Ovid frequently al-
ludes. And it is in this lies the mystery of the event.
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? DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT. 45
At the same time, we must not suppose that thei
alleged motive had not some real influence on the
emperor's action. His own life had not been by any I
means free from reproach. Even if we discredit much
of what that great scandalmonger, Suetonius, tells us
about him, there remains enough to convict him of
shameful disregard of morality. But he was now an
old man. And he had had some of those tremendous
lessons which teach even the most profligate, if the
light of intelligence be not wholly quenched in them,
that moral laws cannot be disregarded with impunity.
Men in their own lives quite Tegardless of purity feel
a genuine shock of disgust and horror when they find
unchastity in the women of their own family. And
Augustus had felt the unutterable shame of discover-
ing that his own daughter was the most profligate
woman in Eome. Nor was he, we may believe, with-
out some genuine feeling of concern for the future of
his country. The establishment of absolute power
may have been a necessity for the State,--all writers
seem to agree in saying so. It had certainly aggran-
dised himself. But he could not fail to perceive, and
to perceive more and more clearly as he came nearer
to the end of his long reign, that it was ruining the
old Eoman character, the traditionary virtues of his
country. An aristocracy, whose vast wealth furnished
them with all the means of procuring enjoyment, but
who were shut out from anything like the career of
public life, would inevitably become corrupt. Augustus
was not a man who would deny himself in order to set
a practical example to others; but he was a man cap-
<
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? 46 0 VID-
able of doing everything, short of such self-denial, to
stop the evil of which, both from public and private
causes, he was so acutely conscious. He had recourse
to severe legislation against immorality.
The more
he saw, as he must have seen, how ineffectual was this
method of reforming society, the greater must have
been his disgust with other agencies which he sup-
'posed to be at work. Ovid's poems may well have
i been a symptom rather than a cause of general iromor-
I ality; but it was quite possible that Augustus, his own
habits and tastes changed by advancing years, may
have sincerely regarded them as the author of mischief,
and deserving, accordingly, of the severest punishment
.
To arrive, however, at the truth, we must examine
closely another side of the emperor's life. His home
was divided between two conflicting interests--the
interest of his own descendants and the interest of the
step-children whom his wife Livia had brought into
his family. Livia, one of the ablest women of whom
history speaks, had steadfastly set her heart on secur-
ing for her son Tiberius the succession to the throne.
To gain this end she had to clear away from his path
the rivals who might be found among the blood-rela-
tions of her husband. How far the course of events
helped her in her undertaking, how far she assisted
the course of events by her own arts, will never be
known. The fate of Julia, the daughter of Augustus,
has been already related. She had borne to her second
husband Agrippa five children, three of them sons.
The eldest son Caius has been mentioned before. * He
* Page 39.
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? DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT. 47
was wounded, it was said by treachery, before the
town of Artagera, in Armenia, and died, some months
afterwards, at Limyra, on the south-western coast of
Asia Minor, whither he had gone to recruit his health
in a climate less inclement than that of Armenia.
The second son Lucius had died eighteen months be-
fore at Marseilles. The third, Agrippa Postumus, was
a youth whose irreclaimably savage temper bordered on
insanity. He had been adopted by Augustus at the
same time with Tiberius, but as his character revealed
itself, the hopes that the emperor might once have
entertained of finding a successor in a descendant of
his own died away. Livia had no difficulty in per-
suading him that if Agrippa was not to sit on the
throne, it would be better that he should be removed
from its neighbourhood. Though guiltless of any
crime, he was banished to Planasia, on the coast of
Corsica, and the emperor obtained a decree from the
senate which made this banishment life-long. But
the contest was not yet decided. The family of Julia,
whose beauty, wit, and varied accomplishments were
not forgotten, was greatly popular at Eome ; whilst the I
ambition of Livia, who was strongly suspected of hav-
ing hastened the death of the young Csesars, and the
craft and dissimulation of Tiberius, were objects of
dread. It was under these circumstances that she
discovered the younger Julia to be in her power. This
unhappy woman had inherited the vicious propensities
of her mother. One of many lovers was Decius Julius
Silanus, member of a family which had been distin-
guished in Eome since the second Punic war. The
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? 48 0 viD.
intrigue was too notorious to escape observation, and
Livia had the opportunity which she desired. Julia
was banished; her paramour went into voluntary
exile.
So far we are on firm historical ground. It may
be added also, that the same year which saw the dis-
grace of Julia, witnessed also the banishment of Ovid.
"Were the two events in any way connected 1 "We must
get our answer from considering the circumstances of
the political situation which has been described, from
the coincidence, and from the hints, which are indeed
sufficiently numerous, which Ovid himself gives us.
The fact that these hints do occur negative one sup-
position which has found some favour--namely, that
Ovid had become involuntarily acquainted with some
dark secret disgraceful to the character of Augustus
himself. Had there been such a secret, we can hardly
suppose that the poet would have alluded to it. Again
and again he makes his piteous supplications for the ter-
mination, or at least the mitigation, of his banishment.
But every mention of such a fact would have been an
additional offence. Indeed it is difficult to imagine
that the possessor of such dangerous knowledge should
have been suffered to live. Not a prolonged banish-
ment with unlimited opportunities for communication
with his friends, but the sword of the centurion, would
have been his doom. "We may be nearly sure that
the secret, as far at least as it concerned Augustus,
must have been known already. Ovid was not ban-
ished for the purpose of keeping something concealed.
That purpose could have been far more easily and efliec-
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? DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT. 49
tually secured, -and Eoman emperors were not accus-
tomed to be scrupulous about means. Let us see, then,
what Ovid actually says on the subject:--
I "Why did I see something? why did I make my eyes
guilty? why did I become, all unknowingly, acquainted
with guilt? "
"Two faults overthrew me--my verses and my wrong-
doing; but about the guilt of one of them I must keep
silence. " *J
"I am not worth so much as to renew thy wound, O
Csesar; it is far too much that you should once have felt
the pang. "
"You [Augustus] avenged on me, as is right, a quarrel of
your own. "
"? . " Because my eyes unknowingly beheld a crime, I am
punished. To have had the power of sight--this is my
sin. " "j
He protests that his fault had been an error rather
than a crime :--
0
<&-
"If mortal deeds never escape the knowledge of gods,
you know that there was no guilt in my fault. So it is--
you know it; it was my mistake that led me astray; my
purpose was foolish, but not wicked. "
"You would say that this fault which ruined me was not
a crime, did you know how things followed one another hi
this great trouble. It was either cowardice or fault of judg-
ment, but fault of judgment first of all, that damaged me. "
"Had not my part of the guilt admitted excuse, banish-
ment would have been a trifling punishment. " f
* Masson appropriately quotes the words used by Tiberius
in allowing Silanus to return from exile: "I myself still feel
against him as strongly as ever the quarrel of my father
Augustus. "
A. C. S. S. , voL ii. d
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? 50 0 VID.
That lie became acquainted with some crime which
touched nearly the honour of Augustus; that he con-
cealed it; that in some sense he made himself an
accomplice in it; that this crime was not an isolated
act, but a line of conduct pursued for some time; that
Ovid was afraid or thought it better not to reveal his
knowledge of it,--are, it seems, inferences that may
fairly be drawn from the language which he uses.
They harmonise with the supposition that Ovid be-
came involuntarily acquainted with the intrigue of the
younger Julia with Silanus,--that he helped to conceal
it, possibly assisted in its being carried on. It is pro-
bable, at the same time, that he was one of the party
which supported that side of the imperial house. It
is not difficult to imagine that the result should have
been such as we know to have happened. The em-
peror, for a second time, is struck to the heart by the
discovery of the darkest profligacy in one very near to
himself. In his capacity as ruler he is terrified by the
corruption which his laws are powerless to stay. The
poems which the severer moralists of his court had
possibly criticised--and Livia really felt, while Tiberius
at least affected, such severity--comes to his recollec-
tion, and he finds that the author has actually abetted
the guilty intrigues of his granddaughter. Livia and
Tiberius, anxious to get out of the way a partisan of
opposite interests who might possibly be dangerous,
encourage the impulse, and the poet is banished.
Another part of the story remains to be related. If
the tale which Tacitus tells be true, all the art and
persistency of Livia" had not succeeded in wholly
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? DOMESTIC LIFE--BANISHMENT. 51
alienating the affections of Augustus from his own
descendants. Even up to the last months of the old
man's life the interests of her son had to be jealously-
defended. Tacitus gives (Annals, i. 5), without say-
ing whether he. himself believed or disbelieved it, a
report which was current shortly after the death of
Augustus. "A rumour had gone abroad that a few
months before, he [Augustus] had sailed to Planasia
on a visit to Agrippa, with the knowledge of some
chosen friends, and with one companion, Fabius
Maximus; that many tears were shed on both sides,
with expressions of affection, and that thus there was
a hope of the young man being restored to the home
of his grandfather. This, it was said, Maximus had
divulged to his wife Marcia, she again to Livia. All
was known to Csesar; and when Maximus soon after-
wards died, by a death some thought to be self-
inflicted, there were heard at his funeral wailings from
Marcia, in which she reproached herself for having
been the cause of her husband's destruction. " *
To this Maximus Ovid addresses six of his 'Letters
from the Pontus. ' He evidently looked to him as
one who might exercise a powerful influence on his
behalf. He appeals to him again and again to exer-
* Plutarch has added to this narrative an interesting anec-
dote to the effect that Fabius (he calls him Fulvius by mistake),
when paying his respects as usual to the emperor in the morn-
ing, had his salutation returned with the ominous "Farewell,
Fulvius. " "But he, comprehending the matter, forthwith
retired to his house, and, summoning his wife, said, 'Csesar
has learnt that I have not been silent about his secrets; I
have therefore resolved to die. '"
l/'<<-
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? 52 oviD.
cisc it . And at one time he seems to have hoped
that it would not be exercised in vain. "Augustus
had begun," he writes in the sixth year of his exile,
"to grow more lenient to my fault of ignorance, and
lo! he leaves my hopes and all the world desolate at
once. " It is in the same letter that he significantly
deplores the death of Maximus. "I think, Maximus,
that I must have been the cause of your death. "
This may have been a commonplace,--the fear lest the
cause of so unlucky a man might be fatal to any who
undertook it. Viewed in connection with the whole
story, it assumes a different aspect. That Maximus
had perished in an attempt to befriend Ovid may
have been so far true that his death followed an un-
successful effort to restore to the favour of Augustus
and to the succession the family in whose fall the poet
himself had fallen.
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? CHAPTEE IV.
THE METAMORPHOSES OR TRANSFORMATIONS.
Ovid tells us that before he was banished he had!
written, but not corrected, the fifteen books of the
'Metamorphoses,' and had also composed twelve books
(only six have been preserved) of the 'Fasti' or Eoman
Calendar. These are his chief surviving poems, and
it will be convenient to describe them in this and the
following chapter.
In the 'Metamorphoses' we have the largest and
most important of Ovid's works; and, if we view
it as a whole, the greatest monument of his poeticaL
genius. The plan of the book is to collect together, \
out of the vast mass of Greek mythology and legend,
the various stories which turn on the change of
men and women from the human form into animals,
pJantsTof inanimate objects. ~ ITar-aro tho tatermerely
collected;--Such a collection would have been inevi-
tably monotonous and tiresome. With consummate
skill the poet arranges and connects them together.
The thread of connection is often indeed slight; some-
times it is broken altogether. But it is sufficiently
continuous to keep alive the reader's interest; which
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? 54 0 vi D.
is, indeed, often excited by the remarkable ingenuity
of the transition from one tale to another. But it did
not escape the author's perception, that to repeat over
and over again the story of a marvel which must have
been as incredible to his own contemporaries as it is
to us, would have been to insure failure. Hence the
metamorphoses themselves occupy but a small part
of the book, which finds its real charm and beauty in
the brilliant episodes, for the introduction of which
they supply the occasion.
How far the idea was Ovid's own it is impossible to
say. Two Greek poets are known to have written on
the same subject. One of them was Nicander, of Colo-
phon, in Asia Minor, an author of the second century
b. c, attached, it would seem, to the court of Per-
gamus, which, under the dynasty of the Attali, was a
famous centre of literary activity. Of his work, the
'Changes' (for so we may translate its Greek title),
only a few fragments are preserved, quite insufficient
to give us any idea of its merits or methods. Parthe-
nius, a native of the Bithynian Nicsea, so famous in
ecclesiastical history, may be credited with having
givea some hints to the Eoman poet, -- to whom,
indeed, as a contemporary,* and connected with
the great literary circle of Eome, he was probably
known. Parthenius, we know on good authority,
taught the Greek language to Virgil, who conde-
scended to borrow at least one line from his pre-
ceptor. His 'Metamorphoses' have entirely perished.
* Parthenius died at an advanced age, about the beginning
of the reign of Tiberius.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:21 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/njp. 32101074172253 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE METAMORPHOSES. 55
We have only the probability of the case to warrant
us in supposing that Ovid was under obligations to
him. Of these obligations, indeed, no ancient au-
thority speaks; and it is safe, probably, to conjecture
that they were inconsiderable -- nothing, certainly,
like what Virgil owed to Homer, Hesiod, and
Theocritus.
It would weary the reader, not to mention the space
which the execution of such a task would require, to
conduct him along the whole course of the metamor-
phoses--from the description of Chaos, with which the
poet begins, to the transformation of the murdered
Csesar into a comet, with which, not following the
customary adulation to the successor of the great
Dtetatpjy he concludes. Specimens must suffice; and
the book is one which, better than any other great
poem that can be mentioned, specimens may ade-
quately represent.
The first book begins, as has been said, with a de-
scription of Chaos. "Nothing," says Bayle, in his
satirical fashion, "could be clearer and more intel-
ligible than this description, if we consider only the
poetical phrases; but if we examine its philosophy,
we find it confused and contradictory--a chaos, in fact,
more hideous than that which he has described. " Bayle,
however, looked for what the poet never pretended to
give. His cosmogony is, at least, as intelligible as
any other; and it is expressed with marvellous force
of language, culminating in one of the noblest of the
poet's efforts, the description of the creation of man,
the crown and masterpiece of the newly-made world.
r
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:21 GMT / http://hdl. handle.