Fasti

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE–17 CE), born at Sulmo, studied rhetoric and law at Rome. Later he performed considerable public service there and devoted himself to poetry and society. Famous at first, he offended the emperor Augustus with his Ars Amatoria and was banished because of this work and an unknown reason, dwelling in the cold and primitive town of Tomis on the Black Sea. He continued writing poetry, living a kindly and temperate life. He died in exile.

Ovid's main surviving works include the Metamorphoses, a rich source of inspiration for artists and poets like Chaucer and Shakespeare; the Fasti, a poetic treatment of the Roman year of which he finished only half; the Amores, love poems; the Ars Amatoria, not moral but clever and in parts beautiful; Heroides, fictitious love letters by legendary women to absent husbands; and the sombre works written in exile: the Tristia, appeals to individuals including his wife and the emperor, and similar Epistulae ex Ponto. Poetry came naturally to Ovid, who at his best is lively, graphic, and lucid.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ovid is available in six volumes.