In the year 8 AD, at the age of 50, Publius Ovidius Naso stood at the height of poetic ambition. Fêted and continuously successful for almost thirty years, Ovid had been without a rival since the death of Horace 15 years before. Surrounded by second-raters and nonentities, he was unquestionably the most famous poet in the empire. Rome was his oyster, and his poetry took the metropolis as inspiration and subject. His love poetry brought a cool passion to bear on the sophisticated life of the city, with its classy courtesans and new imperial pomp; his Metamorphoses, almost finished, made Rome the magnet that tugged all Greek mythology and art towards itself as the new centre of the world; and he was even now at work on an unparalleled creation, a poem on the Roman calendar that would make the ancient festival cycle the occasion for an inquiry into the city's religion and identity.

LRB 17 August 2006 | PDF Download