Ovid
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, a Roman poet of the Augustan age, of the equestrian order; born in Sulmo, 43 в. c.
He studied the law, but his decided predilection for polite literature, and particularly poetry, led him to neglect severer studies and on succeeding to the paternal estate, he quitted the bar for poetry and pleasure. Horace and Propertius were his friends, and Augustus was a liberal patron to him; but he at length fell under the displeasure of the emperor, who, for some cause never explained, banished him from Rome, and sent him to live among the Getæ, or Goths, on the Euxine. His chief works are "The Loves," "The Art of Loving," and the "Metamorphoses." He in vain solicited his recall to Rome, and died in Tomi A. D. 18. Ovid possessed high poetical genius. His judgment and taste, however, are sometimes at fault, but no poet, either ancient or modern, has expressed beautiful thought in more appropriate language.