A few miles from Ostia we
entered upon a wilderness indeed.
entered upon a wilderness indeed.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
The consequence, therefore, would seem to
have been, that these two systems, the Orphic and the
popular one, came at last into direct collision, and the
former was made to succumb. In the figurative lan-
guage of poetry, Aristmus (the type of the popular sys-
tem) pursues Eurydice (Eupv-oVin;, the darling insti-
tutions of Orpheus), and the venom of the serpent (the
gross license connected with the popular orgies) occa-
sions her death. Orpheus, say the poets, lamenting
the loss of his beloved Eurydice, descended in quest
of her to the shades. The meaning of the legend
evidently is, that, afflicted at the overthrow of the fa-
vorite system which he had so ardently promulgated,
and the corruption which had succeeded to his purer
precepts of moral duty, he endeavoured to reclaim men
from the sensual indulgences to which they had be-
came attached, by holding up to their view the terrors
of future punishment in another world. Indeed, that
he was the first who introduced among the Greeks the
idea of a future state of rewards and punishments, is
expressly asserted by ancient authorities. {Diod. Sic. ,
1, 96. -- Wesseling, ad Diod. , I. c. --Banter's Mythol-
ogy, vol. 4, p. 159. ) The awful threatenings that
were thus unfolded to their view, and the blissful en-
joyments of an Elysium which were at the same time
promised to the faithful, succeoded for a time in bring-
ing back men to the purer path of moral rectitude, and
to a fairer and brighter state of things; but cither the
impatience of their instructer to see his efforts realized,
or some act of heedlessness and inattention on his
part, frustrated all his hopes, and mankind relapsed
once more into moral darkness. In the fanciful phra-
seology of the poet, the doctrins of a future state of
punishment, as taught by Orpheus, was converted into
his descent to the shades. His endeavour to re-es-
tablish by these means the moral system which he had
originally promulgated, became, to the eye of the ear-
lier bard, an impassioned search, even amid the dark-
ness of the lower world, for the lost object of conjugal
affection ; and by the tones of the lyre, which bent even
? ? Pluto and Proserpina to his will, appear to be indicated
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? ORPHICA.
ORT
tho gods; probably by Onomocritus. --As late as the
17th century, no one doubted but that the different
works which bear the name of Orpheus, or, at least, the
greater part of them, were either the productions of
Orpheus himself, or of Onomacritus, who was regard-
ed as the restorer of these ancient poems. The learn-
ed Huct was the first who, believing that he had dis-
covered in them traces of Christianity, expressed the
suspicion that they might be the work of some pious
impostor. In 1751, when Kuhnken published his sec-
ond critical letter, he attacked the opinion of Huet,
and placed the composition of the works in question
in the tenth century before the Christian era. Gesner
went still farther, and in hiB Prolegomena Orphiea,
which were read in 1759 at the University of Gottin-
gen, and subsequently placed in Hamberger's edition
of Orpheus, published after Gesner" s death, he declared
that he had found nothing in these poems which pre-
vented the belief that they were composed before the
period of the Trojan war. He allowed, however, at
the same time, that they might have been retouched
by Onomacritus. Gesner found an opponent in the
celebrated Valckenacr, who believed the author of the
poems in question to have belonged to the Alexandre-
an school. (Valck. ad Herod. , ed. Wcsseling. ) In
1777, Schneider revised and adopted the theory of
Huet. (Schneider, de dubia Carm. Orphic, auctoritale
el vetustate. --Analecl. Crit. , fasc. 1. ) The same
poems, in which Kuhnken had found a diction almost
Homeric, and Gesner the simple style of remote an-
tiquity, appeared, to the German professor, the work
of a later Platonist, initiated into the tenets of Judaism
and the mysteries of Christianity. His arguments,
deduced entirely from the style of these productions,
were strengthened by Thunmann (Neue philolog. Bib-
liothek, vol. 4, p. 298), who discovered in these poems
historical and geographical errors such as could only
have been committed by a writer subsequent to the
age of Ptolemy Euergctes. And yet it is singular
enough, that Mannert, arguing from the acquaintance
with geographical terms displayed by the author of
these poems, places him between Herodotus and Pyth-
ias. (Geogr. ,\o\. 4,p. 67. ) In 1782 Ruhnken pub-
lished a new edition of his critical letter, in which he
endeavoured to refute the opinion of Schneider, al-
lowing, at the same time, that the position assumed by
Valckenaer was not an improbable one. The discus-
sion rested here for twenty years, when Schneider, in
his edition of the Argonautics published in 1803, de-
fended the theory which he had supported in his
younger days, adding, at the same time, however,
some modifications; for he allowed that the author of
the Argonautics, although comparatively modem, had
appropriated to himself the style and manner of the
Alexandrean school. Two years after, Hermann, in
a memoir annexed to his edition of the Orphiea. and
subsequently in a separate dissertation, supported
with rare erudition the opinion of Huet, and that which
Schneider had advanced in 1777. After giving a brief
account of the state of the controversy, Hermann pro-
ceeds to examine the structure of the Orphic verse.
He first indicates the progressive modification of the
hexameter verse, through the series of the epic and
didactic hexameter writers, pointing out the gradual
changes which it underwent from the time of Homer
till it was wholly remodelled by Nonnus. He detects,
in the hexameters of the Orphic poems, those peculiar-
? ? ities which show, as he thinks, that their author must
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? osc
OSI
mainland of Sicily. Ortygia was famed for containing
the celebrated fount of Arcthusa. The earliest men-
tion of this island is found in Hesiod (Theog. , 1013).
On it is now situate the greater part of modern Syra-
cuse (Gbllcr, de Situ el Ong. Syracus. , p. 39. acq. )
--III. One of the early names of the island of Delos.
(Vtd. Dolos. )
Onus, an Egyptian deity, son of Osiris and Isia.
(Vid. Horus. )
Osca, a town of Hispania Betica, in the territory
of the Turdetani. According to Mannert, it corre-
sponds to the modern Huesca, in Aragon. (Gcogr. ,
vol. I, p. 410. ) Ukert, however, places its site to the
west of the city. It was in Osca that Sertorius col-
lected together, from the various nations of Spain, the
children of the nobility, and placed masters over them
to instruct them in Greek and Roman literature. Plu-
tarch states, that this had the appearance only of an
education, to prepare them for being admitted citizens
of Rome; but that the children were, in fact, so many
hostages. (Vit. Sertor. )
Osci or Opici, a people of ancient Italy, who seem
to have been identical with the Ausones or Aurunci,
and who inhabited the southern part of the peninsula.
Some ancient writers consider the Ausones to be a
branch of the Osci; others, as Polybius, have spoken
of them as distinct tribes, but this appears to be an
error. The names Opicus and Oscus are undoubtedly
the same. Aristotle (PoliL, 7, 10) calls the country
from the Tiber to the Silarus, Ausonia and Opicia;
and other ancient writers extended the name much
farther, to the Straits of Sicily; but the southern ex-
tremity of the peninsula appears to have been occu-
pied previously by the CEnotrians, a Pelasgic race,
who were conquered by the Lucanians and BruttU.
Cuius;, one of the earliest Greek colonies on the coast
of Italy, was in the country of the Opici. The early
immigrations of the Illyrians or Liburnians along the
eastern coast of Italy, drove the aboriginal inhabitants
from the lowlands into the fastnesses of the central
Apennines, whence they issued under the various
names of Sabini, Casci, or Latini veteres. There
was an ancient tradition in Italy, in the time of the
historian Dionysius, of a sudden irruption of strangers
from the opposite coast of the Adriatic, which caused
a general commotion and dispersion among the abo-
riginal tribes. Afterward came the Hellenic colonies,
which occupied the whole seacoast from Mount Gar-
ganus to the extremity of the peninsula, in the first
and second centuries of Rome; in consequence of
which, the population of the southern part of the Ital-
ian peninsula became divided into two races, the tribes
of Aboriginal or Oscan descent, such as the Sabini,
Samnitcs, Lucani, and Bruttii, who remained in pos-
session of the highlands, and the Greek colonists and
their descendants, who occupied the maritime districts,
but never gained possession of the upper or Apennine
regions. Such is the view taken by Micali and other
Italian writers. But Niebuhr describes the Sabini,
and their colonies the Samnites, Lucani, and other
tribes, which the Roman writers called by the general
name of Sabellians, as a people distinct from the Osci
or Opici. He says, after Cato and other ancient his-
torians, that the Sabini issued out of the highlands of
the central Apennines, near Amiternum, long before
the epoch of the Trojan war, and, driving before them
the Cascans or Prisci Latini, who were an OBcan
? ? tribe, settled themselves in the country which has to
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? OST
OSTIA.
tn council, and Hercules to command her troops.
Having collected a large army himself, he visited in
succession Ethiopia, Arabia, and India, and thence
marched through Central Asia into Europe, instruct-
ing the nations in agriculture, and in the arts and sci-
ences. He left his son Maccdon in Thrace and Ma-
cedonia, and committed the cultivation of the land of
Attica to Triptolemus. After visiting all parts of the
inhabited world, he returned to Egypt, where he was
murdered soon after his arrival by his brother Typhon,
who cut up his body irito twenty-six parts, and divided
it among the conspirators who had aided him in the
murder of his brother. These parts were afterward,
with one exception, discovered by Isis, who enclosed
each of them in a statue of wax, made to resemble
Osiris, and distributed them through different parts of
Egypt. --Other forms of the legend may be found in
Creuzer's elaborate work (Symboltk, vol. 1, p. 2S9,
scqq. --Symboltk, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 389,
scqq. ) >or some remarks explanatory of it, consult
the article Isis. --Herodotus informs us (2, 48), that
the festival of Osiris was celebrated in almost the
same manner as that of Bacchus. It appears, howev-
er, not improbable, that the worship of Osiris was in-
troduced into Egypt, in common with the arts and sci-
ences, from the Ethiopian Mcroe. We learn from
Herodotus (2, 29), that Amnion and Osiris were the
national deities of Meroe, and we are told by Diodorus
(3, 3) that Osiris led a colony from Ethiopia into
Egypt. --Osiris was venerated under the form of the
sacred bulls Apis and Mnovis (Diod. Sic. , 1, 21); and
as it is usual in the Egyptian symbolical language to
represent their deities with human forms, and with
the heads of the animals which were their representa-
tives, we find statues of Osiris with the horns of a
bull. (Egyptian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 295. ) Osiris,
in common with Isis, presided over the world below;
and it is not uncommon to find him represented on
rolls of papyrus, as sitting in judgment on departed
spirits. His usual attributes are the high cap, the
flail or whip, and the crosier. (Encycl. Us. Knowl. ,
vol. 17, p. 49. -- Cory, Horapollo Ntious, p. 164, pi. 2. )
Osismii, a people of Gallia Lugduncnsis Tertia, on
the coast of the Mare Britannicum, and at the south-
western extremity of the Tractus Armoricus. Their
country, according to some, answers to the modern
Leon and Treguier; but, according to D'Anville,
their chief city was Vorgannum, now Karhcz, in Basse
Hrctagnc. (Ctes. , B. G. , 2, 34-- Id. ib. , 3, 9, &c--
Lemairc, Intl. Gcogr. ad Cas. , s. v. )
Osrhoene, a district of Mesopotamia, in the north-
western section of the country. (Vtd. Mesopotamia. )
Ossa, I. a celebrated mountain, or, more correctly,
mountain-range of Thessaly, extending from the right
bank of the Peneus along the Magnesian coast to the
chain of Pclion. It was supposed that Ossa and
Olympus were once united, but that an earthquake
had rent them asunder (Herod. , 7, 132. --Mian, V.
H. , 3, 1), forming the vale of Tempe. (Vid. Tempe. )
Ossa was one of the mountains which the giants, in
their war with the gods, pilcu upon Olympus in order
to ascend to the heavens. (Horn. , Od. , 11, 312, scqq.
--Vtrg. , Georg. , 1, 282. ) The modern name is Kis-
sovo, or, according to Dodwcll, Kissabos (Kissavos).
"Mount Ossa," obBcrves Dodwell, ? ? which does not
appear so high as Pelion, is much lower than Olympus.
It rises gradually tc a point, which appears about 5000
? ? 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.
have been, that these two systems, the Orphic and the
popular one, came at last into direct collision, and the
former was made to succumb. In the figurative lan-
guage of poetry, Aristmus (the type of the popular sys-
tem) pursues Eurydice (Eupv-oVin;, the darling insti-
tutions of Orpheus), and the venom of the serpent (the
gross license connected with the popular orgies) occa-
sions her death. Orpheus, say the poets, lamenting
the loss of his beloved Eurydice, descended in quest
of her to the shades. The meaning of the legend
evidently is, that, afflicted at the overthrow of the fa-
vorite system which he had so ardently promulgated,
and the corruption which had succeeded to his purer
precepts of moral duty, he endeavoured to reclaim men
from the sensual indulgences to which they had be-
came attached, by holding up to their view the terrors
of future punishment in another world. Indeed, that
he was the first who introduced among the Greeks the
idea of a future state of rewards and punishments, is
expressly asserted by ancient authorities. {Diod. Sic. ,
1, 96. -- Wesseling, ad Diod. , I. c. --Banter's Mythol-
ogy, vol. 4, p. 159. ) The awful threatenings that
were thus unfolded to their view, and the blissful en-
joyments of an Elysium which were at the same time
promised to the faithful, succeoded for a time in bring-
ing back men to the purer path of moral rectitude, and
to a fairer and brighter state of things; but cither the
impatience of their instructer to see his efforts realized,
or some act of heedlessness and inattention on his
part, frustrated all his hopes, and mankind relapsed
once more into moral darkness. In the fanciful phra-
seology of the poet, the doctrins of a future state of
punishment, as taught by Orpheus, was converted into
his descent to the shades. His endeavour to re-es-
tablish by these means the moral system which he had
originally promulgated, became, to the eye of the ear-
lier bard, an impassioned search, even amid the dark-
ness of the lower world, for the lost object of conjugal
affection ; and by the tones of the lyre, which bent even
? ? Pluto and Proserpina to his will, appear to be indicated
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? ORPHICA.
ORT
tho gods; probably by Onomocritus. --As late as the
17th century, no one doubted but that the different
works which bear the name of Orpheus, or, at least, the
greater part of them, were either the productions of
Orpheus himself, or of Onomacritus, who was regard-
ed as the restorer of these ancient poems. The learn-
ed Huct was the first who, believing that he had dis-
covered in them traces of Christianity, expressed the
suspicion that they might be the work of some pious
impostor. In 1751, when Kuhnken published his sec-
ond critical letter, he attacked the opinion of Huet,
and placed the composition of the works in question
in the tenth century before the Christian era. Gesner
went still farther, and in hiB Prolegomena Orphiea,
which were read in 1759 at the University of Gottin-
gen, and subsequently placed in Hamberger's edition
of Orpheus, published after Gesner" s death, he declared
that he had found nothing in these poems which pre-
vented the belief that they were composed before the
period of the Trojan war. He allowed, however, at
the same time, that they might have been retouched
by Onomacritus. Gesner found an opponent in the
celebrated Valckenacr, who believed the author of the
poems in question to have belonged to the Alexandre-
an school. (Valck. ad Herod. , ed. Wcsseling. ) In
1777, Schneider revised and adopted the theory of
Huet. (Schneider, de dubia Carm. Orphic, auctoritale
el vetustate. --Analecl. Crit. , fasc. 1. ) The same
poems, in which Kuhnken had found a diction almost
Homeric, and Gesner the simple style of remote an-
tiquity, appeared, to the German professor, the work
of a later Platonist, initiated into the tenets of Judaism
and the mysteries of Christianity. His arguments,
deduced entirely from the style of these productions,
were strengthened by Thunmann (Neue philolog. Bib-
liothek, vol. 4, p. 298), who discovered in these poems
historical and geographical errors such as could only
have been committed by a writer subsequent to the
age of Ptolemy Euergctes. And yet it is singular
enough, that Mannert, arguing from the acquaintance
with geographical terms displayed by the author of
these poems, places him between Herodotus and Pyth-
ias. (Geogr. ,\o\. 4,p. 67. ) In 1782 Ruhnken pub-
lished a new edition of his critical letter, in which he
endeavoured to refute the opinion of Schneider, al-
lowing, at the same time, that the position assumed by
Valckenaer was not an improbable one. The discus-
sion rested here for twenty years, when Schneider, in
his edition of the Argonautics published in 1803, de-
fended the theory which he had supported in his
younger days, adding, at the same time, however,
some modifications; for he allowed that the author of
the Argonautics, although comparatively modem, had
appropriated to himself the style and manner of the
Alexandrean school. Two years after, Hermann, in
a memoir annexed to his edition of the Orphiea. and
subsequently in a separate dissertation, supported
with rare erudition the opinion of Huet, and that which
Schneider had advanced in 1777. After giving a brief
account of the state of the controversy, Hermann pro-
ceeds to examine the structure of the Orphic verse.
He first indicates the progressive modification of the
hexameter verse, through the series of the epic and
didactic hexameter writers, pointing out the gradual
changes which it underwent from the time of Homer
till it was wholly remodelled by Nonnus. He detects,
in the hexameters of the Orphic poems, those peculiar-
? ? ities which show, as he thinks, that their author must
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? osc
OSI
mainland of Sicily. Ortygia was famed for containing
the celebrated fount of Arcthusa. The earliest men-
tion of this island is found in Hesiod (Theog. , 1013).
On it is now situate the greater part of modern Syra-
cuse (Gbllcr, de Situ el Ong. Syracus. , p. 39. acq. )
--III. One of the early names of the island of Delos.
(Vtd. Dolos. )
Onus, an Egyptian deity, son of Osiris and Isia.
(Vid. Horus. )
Osca, a town of Hispania Betica, in the territory
of the Turdetani. According to Mannert, it corre-
sponds to the modern Huesca, in Aragon. (Gcogr. ,
vol. I, p. 410. ) Ukert, however, places its site to the
west of the city. It was in Osca that Sertorius col-
lected together, from the various nations of Spain, the
children of the nobility, and placed masters over them
to instruct them in Greek and Roman literature. Plu-
tarch states, that this had the appearance only of an
education, to prepare them for being admitted citizens
of Rome; but that the children were, in fact, so many
hostages. (Vit. Sertor. )
Osci or Opici, a people of ancient Italy, who seem
to have been identical with the Ausones or Aurunci,
and who inhabited the southern part of the peninsula.
Some ancient writers consider the Ausones to be a
branch of the Osci; others, as Polybius, have spoken
of them as distinct tribes, but this appears to be an
error. The names Opicus and Oscus are undoubtedly
the same. Aristotle (PoliL, 7, 10) calls the country
from the Tiber to the Silarus, Ausonia and Opicia;
and other ancient writers extended the name much
farther, to the Straits of Sicily; but the southern ex-
tremity of the peninsula appears to have been occu-
pied previously by the CEnotrians, a Pelasgic race,
who were conquered by the Lucanians and BruttU.
Cuius;, one of the earliest Greek colonies on the coast
of Italy, was in the country of the Opici. The early
immigrations of the Illyrians or Liburnians along the
eastern coast of Italy, drove the aboriginal inhabitants
from the lowlands into the fastnesses of the central
Apennines, whence they issued under the various
names of Sabini, Casci, or Latini veteres. There
was an ancient tradition in Italy, in the time of the
historian Dionysius, of a sudden irruption of strangers
from the opposite coast of the Adriatic, which caused
a general commotion and dispersion among the abo-
riginal tribes. Afterward came the Hellenic colonies,
which occupied the whole seacoast from Mount Gar-
ganus to the extremity of the peninsula, in the first
and second centuries of Rome; in consequence of
which, the population of the southern part of the Ital-
ian peninsula became divided into two races, the tribes
of Aboriginal or Oscan descent, such as the Sabini,
Samnitcs, Lucani, and Bruttii, who remained in pos-
session of the highlands, and the Greek colonists and
their descendants, who occupied the maritime districts,
but never gained possession of the upper or Apennine
regions. Such is the view taken by Micali and other
Italian writers. But Niebuhr describes the Sabini,
and their colonies the Samnites, Lucani, and other
tribes, which the Roman writers called by the general
name of Sabellians, as a people distinct from the Osci
or Opici. He says, after Cato and other ancient his-
torians, that the Sabini issued out of the highlands of
the central Apennines, near Amiternum, long before
the epoch of the Trojan war, and, driving before them
the Cascans or Prisci Latini, who were an OBcan
? ? tribe, settled themselves in the country which has to
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? OST
OSTIA.
tn council, and Hercules to command her troops.
Having collected a large army himself, he visited in
succession Ethiopia, Arabia, and India, and thence
marched through Central Asia into Europe, instruct-
ing the nations in agriculture, and in the arts and sci-
ences. He left his son Maccdon in Thrace and Ma-
cedonia, and committed the cultivation of the land of
Attica to Triptolemus. After visiting all parts of the
inhabited world, he returned to Egypt, where he was
murdered soon after his arrival by his brother Typhon,
who cut up his body irito twenty-six parts, and divided
it among the conspirators who had aided him in the
murder of his brother. These parts were afterward,
with one exception, discovered by Isis, who enclosed
each of them in a statue of wax, made to resemble
Osiris, and distributed them through different parts of
Egypt. --Other forms of the legend may be found in
Creuzer's elaborate work (Symboltk, vol. 1, p. 2S9,
scqq. --Symboltk, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 389,
scqq. ) >or some remarks explanatory of it, consult
the article Isis. --Herodotus informs us (2, 48), that
the festival of Osiris was celebrated in almost the
same manner as that of Bacchus. It appears, howev-
er, not improbable, that the worship of Osiris was in-
troduced into Egypt, in common with the arts and sci-
ences, from the Ethiopian Mcroe. We learn from
Herodotus (2, 29), that Amnion and Osiris were the
national deities of Meroe, and we are told by Diodorus
(3, 3) that Osiris led a colony from Ethiopia into
Egypt. --Osiris was venerated under the form of the
sacred bulls Apis and Mnovis (Diod. Sic. , 1, 21); and
as it is usual in the Egyptian symbolical language to
represent their deities with human forms, and with
the heads of the animals which were their representa-
tives, we find statues of Osiris with the horns of a
bull. (Egyptian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 295. ) Osiris,
in common with Isis, presided over the world below;
and it is not uncommon to find him represented on
rolls of papyrus, as sitting in judgment on departed
spirits. His usual attributes are the high cap, the
flail or whip, and the crosier. (Encycl. Us. Knowl. ,
vol. 17, p. 49. -- Cory, Horapollo Ntious, p. 164, pi. 2. )
Osismii, a people of Gallia Lugduncnsis Tertia, on
the coast of the Mare Britannicum, and at the south-
western extremity of the Tractus Armoricus. Their
country, according to some, answers to the modern
Leon and Treguier; but, according to D'Anville,
their chief city was Vorgannum, now Karhcz, in Basse
Hrctagnc. (Ctes. , B. G. , 2, 34-- Id. ib. , 3, 9, &c--
Lemairc, Intl. Gcogr. ad Cas. , s. v. )
Osrhoene, a district of Mesopotamia, in the north-
western section of the country. (Vtd. Mesopotamia. )
Ossa, I. a celebrated mountain, or, more correctly,
mountain-range of Thessaly, extending from the right
bank of the Peneus along the Magnesian coast to the
chain of Pclion. It was supposed that Ossa and
Olympus were once united, but that an earthquake
had rent them asunder (Herod. , 7, 132. --Mian, V.
H. , 3, 1), forming the vale of Tempe. (Vid. Tempe. )
Ossa was one of the mountains which the giants, in
their war with the gods, pilcu upon Olympus in order
to ascend to the heavens. (Horn. , Od. , 11, 312, scqq.
--Vtrg. , Georg. , 1, 282. ) The modern name is Kis-
sovo, or, according to Dodwcll, Kissabos (Kissavos).
"Mount Ossa," obBcrves Dodwell, ? ? which does not
appear so high as Pelion, is much lower than Olympus.
It rises gradually tc a point, which appears about 5000
? ? 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.
