The Principate system of imperial rule established by Augustus lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta, in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict aside from expansionary wars and the Year of the Four Emperors. Common sense dictates he would not have thrown away what was probably his best work for the sake of pouting.Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire he reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He was unable to continue working on it during exile because he was cut off from his research material. The only thing that stands in the way of this interpretation is that Ovid was extremely keen on gaining the status of imperial poet, and thus keen on finishing his magnum opus, the Fasti. We can't physically prove that it did happen. There is even speculation that the exile never actually happened, and that Ovid petulantly described it in Tristia and letters as a way of pouting. As you can imagine, the historians had their hands full documenting more important events, so they would only mention something like this in passing. All we have are basically his surviving writings, and some third-party accounts, many times removed, from a couple of historians of the period. You have to understand that the whole thing is based on very little evidence. He did refer to it many times in his writings but only indirectly, and sometimes making contradictory statements. The royal family never said, and neither did Ovid. Ars Amatoria or The Art of Love is likely the poem, and people more familiar with his biography than myself have weighed in on the possible mistake. You're absolutely right that no official reason was provided, but Ovid blames his exile on "carmen et error" - a poem and a mistake. Readers are instead cast adrift amongst a sea of pseudo-protagonists who may or may not invite basic empathy, let alone inspire monologues about their honor and destiny.Īlso just wanted to chime in about his exile. Even if the god and human in question are on good terms (rarely the case and such a relationship tends to be temporary), nowhere in the Metamorphoses do we see a righteous champion of the gods enacting some kind of deific master plan as Aeneas does.Įven more pointedly, there's no single epic hero to anchor Ovids story. Gods are capricious, and the human actors that encounter them often pay the price for the pantheon's unpredictable and often violent desires. It reads like stream of consciousness almost, twisting from one myth into the next, dropping the thread for strange asides to the audience, losing steam and picking it back up. Where an overarching design seems to exist in the Aeneid - both in the world that Aeneas inhabits and in the actual form imposed by Virgil - chaos reigns instead in the Metamorphoses. That said, it is a specifically anti-Aenied project. It is a force unto itself and doesn't really have enough narrative/formal similarities to be called parody imo. Nah Metamorphoses is a collection of myths, reformulated from mostly Greek originals that have to do with changes in substance (as the title might suggest). Instructions and advice on how to best do an AMA. Want to do an AMA or know someone who does? Message the mods!
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