Ovid

Metamorphoses

From the world's beginning to Caesar's deification: no work supplied European art with more material.

💡 Did you know? The “Metamorphoses” span from the creation of the world to Caesar: a compendium of ancient myth.

Ars amatoria

Lessons in flirting, winning and keeping a lover: in elegant verse; probably one reason for his banishment.

💡 Did you know? The risqué “Ars amatoria” may have earned Ovid the anger of the morally strict Augustus.

a laurel

Bernini's famous sculpture captures the moment of transformation: the laurel became Apollo's sacred plant.

💡 Did you know? From the laurel into which Daphne transforms comes the laurel wreath of poets and victors.

his own reflection

The tale gave us 'narcissism', while the nymph Echo pines for him in vain.

💡 Did you know? Ovid's tale gave us the term “narcissism”: pathological self-love.

He flies too close to the sun

His father Daedalus had built the wings of feathers and wax: Icarus ignored the warning.

💡 Did you know? His father Daedalus had warned him not to fly too high: the sun melted the wax of his wings.

Tomis

The end of the world, from a Roman point of view: Ovid never saw Rome again.

💡 Did you know? Tomis lay on the Black Sea, at the edge of the known world, for the city-loving Ovid, a punishment of loneliness.

a poem and a mistake

The poem was probably the 'Art of Love': what the 'mistake' was puzzles scholars to this day.

💡 Did you know? “A poem and a mistake”: exactly what Ovid meant is still debated by scholars.

Tristia

Letters full of homesickness from the Black Sea: followed by the 'Epistulae ex Ponto'.

💡 Did you know? From exile Ovid wrote his “Tristia”: haunting laments to Rome that never brought him back.

It turns to gold

The rash wish becomes a curse: even food and drink turn to gold.

💡 Did you know? Midas's “golden touch” becomes a curse: even his food turns to gold.

Sulmo

East of Rome in the Abruzzi: the town still carries his initials 'SMPE' in its coat of arms.

💡 Did you know? Only in 2017 did the city of Rome symbolically revoke Ovid's banishment: about 2,000 years too late.

official

'Whatever I tried to write became a poem': Ovid abandoned the career early.

💡 Did you know? The closing word of the Metamorphoses proved right: 'Vivam': I shall live.

Ovid

Ovid (43 BC: AD 17) was a Roman poet. His “Metamorphoses” became the chief source of ancient mythology for European art and literature.

💡 Did you know? Emperor Augustus banished Ovid to the Black Sea, where he died in loneliness: the exact reason remained an ancient mystery.