Book description
Written after he had been banished to the Black Sea city of Tomis by
Emperor Augustus, the Fasti is Ovid's last major poetic work. Both a
calendar of daily rituals and a witty sequence of stories recounted in a
variety of styles, it weaves together tales of gods and citizens
together to explore Rome's history, religious beliefs and traditions. It
may also be read as a subtle but powerful political manifesto which
derides Augustus' attempts to control his subjects by imposing his own
mythology upon them: after celebrating the emperor as a
Jupiter-on-earth, for example, Ovid deliberately juxtaposes a story
showing the king of the gods as a savage rapist. Endlessly playful, this
is also a work of integrity and courage, and a superb climax to the life
of one of Rome's greatest writers.
Ovid (43 BC - AD 18) was a Roman writer who mastered a wide range of
literary forms from elegies of nostalgia and love to 'collective'
narratives relating disconnected stories, such as Metamorphoses. He
died in exile by the Black Sea. Ovid's influence has extended through
Chaucer's age to Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, and to poets such as
Ted Hughes in the twentieth century.
Anthony Boyle is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern
California in Los Angeles. He is the editor of the classical literary
journal Ramus and his publications include Ancient Pastoral, The
Imperial Muse and Roman Literature and Ideology.
Roger Woodard is Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA. His
publications include Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer and The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.
