The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
intended him for the bar; and after passing him through the usual course
of instruction at Rome, he was sent to Athens, the emporium of learning,
to complete his education. On his return to Rome, in obedience to the
desire of his father, he entered upon the offices of public life in the
forum, and declaimed with great applause. But this was the effect of
paternal authority, not of choice: for, from his earliest years, he
discovered an extreme attachment to poetry; and no sooner was his father
dead, than, renouncing the bar, he devoted himself entirely to the
cultivation of that fascinating art, his propensity to which was
invincible. His productions, all written either in heroic or pentameter
verse, are numerous, and on various subjects. It will be sufficient to
mention them briefly.
(178) The Heroides consist of twenty-one Epistles, all which, except
three, are feigned to be written from celebrated women of antiquity, to
their husbands or lovers, such as Penelope to Ulysses, Dido to Aeneas,
Sappho to Phaon, etc. These compositions are nervous, animated and
elegant: they discover a high degree of poetic enthusiasm, but blended
with that lascivious turn of thought, which pervades all the amorous
productions of this celebrated author.
The elegies on subjects of love, particularly the Ars Amandi, or Ars
Amatoria, though not all uniform in versification, possess the same
general character, of warmth of passion, and luscious description, as the
epistles.
The Fasti were divided into twelve books, of which only the first six now
remain. The design of them was to deliver an account of the Roman
festivals in every month of the year, with a description of the rites and
ceremonies, as well as the sacrifices on those occasions. It is to be
regretted, that, on a subject so interesting, this valuable work should
not have been transmitted entire: but in the part which remains, we are
furnished with a beautiful description of the ceremonial transactions in
the Roman calendar, from the first of January to the end of June. The
versification, as in all the compositions of this author, is easy and
harmonious.
The most popular production of this poet is his Metamorphoses, not less
extraordinary for the nature of the subject, than for the admirable art
with which the whole is conducted. The work is founded upon the
traditions and theogony of the ancients, which consisted of various
detached fables. Those Ovid has not only so happily arranged, that they
form a coherent series of narratives, one rising out of another; but he
describes the different changes with such an imposing plausibility, as to
give a natural appearance to the most incredible fictions. This
ingenious production, however perfect it may appear, we are told by
himself, had not received his last corrections when he was ordered into
banishment.
In the Ibis, the author imitates a poem of the same name, written by
Callimachus. It is an invective against some person who publicly
traduced his character at Rome, after his banishment. A strong
sensibility, indignation, and implacable resentment, are conspicuous
through the whole.
The Tristia were composed in his exile, in which, though his vivacity
forsook him, he still retained a genius prolific in versification. In
these poems, as well as in many epistles to different persons, he bewails
his unhappy situation, and deprecates in the strongest terms the
inexorable displeasure of Augustus.
Several other productions written by Ovid are now lost, and (179) amongst
them a tragedy called Medea, of which Quintilian expresses a high
opinion. Ovidii Medea videtur mihi ostendere quantum vir ille praestare
potuerit, si ingenio suo temperare quam indulgere maluisset [277]. Lib.
x. c. 1.
It is a peculiarity in the productions of this author, that, on whatever
he employs his pen, he exhausts the subject; not with any prolixity that
fatigues the attention, but by a quick succession of new ideas, equally
brilliant and apposite, often expressed in antitheses. Void of obscenity
in expression, but lascivious in sentiment, he may be said rather to
stimulate immorally the natural passions, than to corrupt the
imagination. No poet is more guided in versification by the nature of
his subject than Ovid. In common narrative, his ideas are expressed with
almost colloquial simplicity; but when his fancy glows with sentiment, or
is animated by objects of grandeur, his style is proportionably elevated,
and he rises to a pitch of sublimity.
No point in ancient history has excited more variety of conjectures than
the banishment of Ovid; but after all the efforts of different writers to
elucidate the subject, the cause of this extraordinary transaction
remains involved in obscurity. It may therefore not be improper, in this
place, to examine the foundation of the several conjectures which have
been formed, and if they appear to be utterly imadmissible, to attempt a
solution of the question upon principles more conformable to probability,
and countenanced by historical evidence.
The ostensible reason assigned by Augustus for banishing Ovid, was his
corrupting the Roman youth by lascivious publications; but it is evident,
from various passages in the poet’s productions after this period, that
there was, besides, some secret reason, which would not admit of being
divulged. He says in his Tristia, Lib. ii. 1--
Perdiderent cum me duo crimina, carmen et errors. [278]
It appears from another passage in the same work, that this inviolable
arcanum was something which Ovid had seen, and, as he insinuates, through
his own ignorance and mistake.
Cur aliquid vidi? cur conscia lumina feci?
Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?--Ibid.
* * * * * *
(180) Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector:
Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum. [279] De Trist. iii. 5.
It seems, therefore, to be a fact sufficiently established, that Ovid had
seen something of a very indecent nature, in which Augustus was
concerned. What this was, is the question. Some authors, conceiving it
to have been of a kind extremely atrocious, have gone so far as to
suppose, that it must have been an act of criminality between Augustus
and his own daughter Julia, who, notwithstanding the strict attention
paid to her education by her father, became a woman of the most infamous
character; suspected of incontinence during her marriage with Agrippa,
and openly profligate after her union with her next husband, Tiberius.
This supposition, however, rests entirely upon conjecture, and is not
only discredited by its own improbability, but by a yet more forcible
argument. It is certain that Julia was at this time in banishment for
her scandalous life. She was about the same age with Tiberius, who was
now forty seven, and they had not cohabited for many years. We know not
exactly the year in which Augustus sent her into exile, but we may
conclude with confidence, that it happened soon after her separation from
Tiberius; whose own interest with the emperor, as well as that of his
mother Livia, could not fail of being exerted, if any such application
was necessary, towards removing from the capital a woman, who, by the
notoriety of her prostitution, reflected disgrace upon all with whom she
was connected, either by blood or alliance. But no application from
Tiberius or his mother could be necessary, when we are assured that
Augustus even presented to the senate a narrative respecting the infamous
behaviour of his daughter, which was read by the quaestor. He was so
much ashamed of her profligacy, that he for a long time declined all
company, and had thoughts of putting her to death. She was banished to
an island on the coast of Campania for five years; at the expiration of
which period, she was removed to the continent, and the severity of her
treatment a little mitigated; but though frequent applications were made
in her behalf by the people, Augustus never could be prevailed upon to
permit her return.
(181) Other writers have conjectured, that, instead of Julia, the
daughter of Augustus, the person seen with him by Ovid may have been
Julia his grand-daughter, who inherited the vicious disposition of her
mother, and was on that account likewise banished by Augustus. The epoch
of this lady’s banishment it is impossible to ascertain; and therefore no
argument can be drawn from that source to invalidate the present
conjecture. But Augustus had shown the same solicitude for her being
trained up in virtuous habits, as he had done in respect of her mother,
though in both cases unsuccessfully; and this consideration, joined to
the enormity of the supposed crime, and the great sensibility which
Augustus had discovered with regard to the infamy of his daughter, seems
sufficient to exonerate his memory from so odious a charge. Besides, is
it possible that he could have sent her into banishment for the infamy of
her prostitution, while (upon the supposition of incest) she was mistress
of so important a secret, as that he himself had been more criminal with
her than any other man in the empire?
Some writers, giving a wider scope to conjecture, have supposed the
transaction to be of a nature still more detestable, and have even
dragged Mecaenas, the minister, into a participation of the crime.
Fortunately, however, for the reputation of the illustrious patron of
polite learning, as well as for that of the emperor, this crude
conjecture may be refuted upon the evidence of chronology. The
commencement of Ovid’s exile happened in the ninth year of the Christian
aera, and the death of Mecaenas, eight years before that period. Between
this and other calculations, we find a difference of three or four years;
but allowing the utmost latitude of variation, there intervened, from the
death of Mecaenas to the banishment of Ovid, a period of eleven years; an
observation which fully invalidates the conjecture above-mentioned.
Having now refuted, as it is presumed, the opinions of the different
commentators on this subject, we shall proceed to offer a new conjecture,
which seems to have a greater claim to probability than any that has
hitherto been suggested.
Suetonius informs us, that Augustus, in the latter part of his life,
contracted a vicious inclination for the enjoyment of young virgins, who
were procured for him from all parts, not only with the connivance, but
by the clandestine management of his consort Livia. It was therefore
probably with one of those victims that he was discovered by Ovid.
Augustus had for many years affected a decency of behaviour, and he
would, therefore, naturally be not a little disconcerted at the
unseasonable intrusion of the poet. That Ovid knew not of Augustus’s
being in the place, is beyond all doubt: and Augustus’s consciousness
(182) of this circumstance, together with the character of Ovid, would
suggest an unfavourable suspicion of the motive which had brought the
latter thither. Abstracted from the immorality of the emperor’s own
conduct, the incident might be regarded as ludicrous, and certainly was
more fit to excite the shame than the indignation of Augustus. But the
purpose of Ovid’s visit appears, from his own acknowledgment, to have
been not entirely free from blame, though of what nature we know not:
Non equidem totam possum defendere culpam:
Sed partem nostri criminis error habet.
De Trist. Lib. iii. Eleg. 5.
I know I cannot wholly be defended,
Yet plead ‘twas chance, no ill was then intended.--Catlin.
Ovid was at this time turned of fifty, and though by a much younger man
he would not have been regarded as any object of jealousy in love, yet by