Carmen et Error: The Life of Ovid

by Thomas Yates

The Life and Works of Ovid

In a twist of historical irony, it would be on the island of Ebla, the location of Napoleon’s first exile some two millennia later, Ovid would discover his fate. Born 43 BCE in Sulmo, Italy, to a well-established equestrian family, Publius Ovidius Naso was expected to become a man of law and politics. Instead, much to his father’s behest, after his education in Rome, he opted for a change in path. 

Possibly influenced by his early tutors, the orator Arellius Fuscus and the rhetorician Porcius Latro, or by his travels in Greece, a historic hub of the art, the man destined for administration decided on a career in poetry. Compared to the well-respected traditions of oration and rhetoric, poetry was a much more recent addition to the pantheon of upper-class artistry. These traditional subjects were funded for their ability to preserve the memory of rulers and regimes and it would not be until after the Neoteric movement around the second century BCE that poetry too would be recognised for similar purposes. 

This new style of poetry reached its apogee with Virgil’s Aeneid which details the history of the Romans’ journey to Italy as refugees fleeing the destruction of Troy. In stark contrast, the style of Ovid’s writing is often described in different terms to those of his contemporaries, the all-round more serious and patriotic Vergil and Horace. Rather, his works sported a more jocular and libertine fashion and were particularly interested in love and women. 

His first publication in 16 BCE, the Amores, was met with immediate success and details a first-person account of a love affair with a girl by the name of Corinna. The Heroides begins instead from the perspective of several Greco-Roman heroines writing elegiac couplets to their respective partners before ending with the response of their lovers. In his most famous work, the Metamorphoses, women are also displayed in an interesting manner, often making them victims of the immortals rather than hubristic or culpable in their own downfall. Such a shift is most recognisable in the story of the traditionally monstrous Medusa who was instead a victim of a harsh punishment by Minerva for the actions of Neptune.

18th century engraving of Ovid /Wikimedia Commons

Carmen et Error

With such great success in his early life, the poet's sudden ‘relegation’, a form of exile, must have come as a surprise. Without a trial, public or otherwise, he was sent to the ‘wasteland’ city of Tomis on the Black Sea for what he famously termed ‘carmen et error’ – a poem and an error. What exactly this means, however, is not made clear, and despite writing further pieces in Tomis; the Ibis, Tristia, and Epistulae ex Ponto, Ovid himself provides little additional information. Few others provide context either; other than his brief mention by Pliny five decades later, it appears that efforts were made to scrub Ovid from the history of Rome.

Eugène Delacroix's 1859 painting, Ovid among the Scythians /Wikimedia Commons

The Reasons for Relegation

So, why was Ovid relegated? Born in the late republic, Ovid’s rise to fame took place in the context of Augustus’ own rise to power. After his victory in the civil war, the first emperor was anxious to maintain his position and, acknowledging the failures of his stepfather Julius Ceasar, struck a careful balance between himself, the Senate, and the people. 

As part of this policy, Augustus sought to repair the moral fibres of traditional Roman society and implemented the lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis in 18 BCE, which made women’s adultery a criminal offence. 

For an emperor concerned with image, the affairs of his daughter Julia the Elder in 2 BCE and of his granddaughter Julia Minor in 8 BCE was a PR nightmare and the writing of Ovid’s Ars amatoria, ‘The Art of Love’, in 2 CE, which was seen to publicly advocate for adultery, likely added insult to injury. This explains the poem, but the ‘error’ remains more complex. In his ‘Tristia’, Ovid provides two clues; that the act fell below the requirements for criminal culpability and that it was something that he had seen. Traditionally, the act has been linked to the exile of Julia, suggesting he had direct involvement in her adultery. More recently, political indiscretions have been attributed to the poet, including involvement in the Varian Disaster and insults to the emperor’s wife Livia. 

Whatever the reason, Augustus clearly saw fit to avoid any public attention on the slight which is demonstrative of his careful approach to administration and the delicate balance of the early empire.

Vincenzo Camuccini's 1806 painting, The Death of Julius Caesar - a reason for caution /Wikimedia Commons

About the author 

My formal background is in law, in which I hold an LLB and LLM from the University of York and York St. John University, respectively. Outside of this, I have a particular interest in ancient history and am writing a book that provides an overview of the empires and peoples of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Classical Age.