Ovid’s prominent career as Rome’s leading poet was suddenly interrupted in year 8 CE, when the emperor Augustus ordered the poet’s banishment to Tomis on the coast of Black Sea (modern Constanţa), a former Greek colony, populated at the time by the local tribe of the Getae. The exact reasons behind this banishment remain unknown. In his highly autobiographical Trist. 2.207 Ovid mentions as possible grounds two offences, “carmen et error” [a poem and an indiscretion], the first of which he is quick to identify with his Ars amatoria [The Art of Love], a witty mock-didactic work addressing both men and women on the techniques of courtship and the secrets of erotic affairs. It is not unlikely for such …
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Citation: Michalopoulos, Charilaos N.. "Tristia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 June 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8464, accessed 24 April 2024.]
