Banishment of Ovid

Luke Forrester
The Banishment of Ovid
Ancient Rome was filled with great poets. They filled tome after tome with now
legendary and much revered works. Ovid was one of these great and masterful Roman poets.
Ovid had a knack for writing famous and well enjoyed books. He wrote The Metamorphoses,
the book of Roman mythology dealing with stories of transformation. But Ovid also had a more
intimate side to his writing. He loved to write poems about affairs and the goings on of his
private life. And this is what got Ovid into trouble. All because Ovid wrote about how to seduce
married women. For this offense, he was banished by Caesar Augustus to the edge of the
empire. But was it just of Augustus to banish Ovid for one simple mistake? Ovid was wrongfully
banished and deserved a better, less severe, punishment.
The Golden Age of Rome is commonly known as the period when Emperor Augustus
ruled the empire. It was the “Pax Romana”, when all was good with the ancient world. So then
why would the greatest emperor of Rome banish a popular poet to the edge of oblivion? The
simplest answer is that Augustus banished Ovid because of his poems. Ovid had recently
released a new collection of woks that dealt with the matters of love and the heart.
Unfortunately Ovid’s love poems were notoriously risqué. And this particular volume was
centered on the seduction of married women. Normally this would not warrant banishment,
but the all powerful Emperor Augustus had been the victim of adultery. So, perhaps, Augustus
was not acting in the best interest of Rome. Instead, Augustus, still hurt from the wrongs of his
woman, decided to lash out at someone who had mistakenly hit a nerve. Augustus acted
unfairly toward Ovid and his poems because of his own troubled past. And although Ovid’s
poems were inappropriate they were still just an expression in writing. They were nothing more
than words on a page. The writings of one man make no difference; it’s how people interpret
those words and how they act upon them. Without an audience to act on his influence, there
would have been no reason for Ovid’s banishment. Thus Ovid had such a strong following that
even the emperor himself felt challenged and decided that the best way to handle Ovid was to
get rid of him. So Augustus threw him out of Rome to Romania out live out the rest of his days.
But was Ovid so guilty of this crime? Did he mean to cause such a stir and be disrespectful to
the emperor?
So, is Ovid really what he is made out to be by the emperor? Is he this sick, perverted
poet who has no concept of right or wrong and despises limits? This image of Ovid is
completely false. Ovid was a great poet, an incredibly learned poet, who was just expressing his
love of women. He was a man, and that is what many men are passionate about. But even Ovid
himself apologized for the poems. He hated himself for publishing those works and upsetting
the emperor. He was always in love with city living and Rome suited him well. He professed
greatly that the poems he had written were wrongful and that it was a mistake. All he wanted
to do was make up for the wrong that he had committed, in the eyes of Rome. Ovid was
humble enough to declare his sinful deeds and wrongs to the empire, so why was he still
banished? His banishment because of the poems haunted Ovid for the rest of his natural life. It
seems unjust that one so repentant would be ignored and snubbed by the very place he most
loved. Ovid was no saint, that’s a fact, but he was still man enough to want to make his
relationship with Rome a happy one again.
Before his banishment, Ovid was one of the most beloved poets in all of Rome. His
books were kept in all of its libraries and his connection with the city was unrivaled. But upon
the publication of his adulteress love poem he became one of the most hated men in Rome.
How could a city that loved Ovid like a son, be his enemy after a simple mistake? Rome became
a backstabbing enemy to Ovid. The city that he felt at home in suddenly wanted him erased. His
books were thrown out of the libraries and discredited. But Ovid never stopped loving Rome. In
his “Tristia 3.1” he goes on and on about the city and its temples. It is Ovid’s poem of praise and
gratitude he feels toward the city that banished him to the edge of the Roman world. But even
that was turned away by the great libraries. It was Ovid’s final attempt to regain his glory,
unfortunately he failed.
Ovid’s fall from grace shows the true face of the Roman people and their emperor.
Augustus had Ovid banished because of personal history and the Romans who once loved Ovid,
rejected him. It is given that Ovid made a gross mistake. His poems on the seduction of married
women were inappropriate and were the direct cause of his banishment. But the people are
also to lame. They were followers of Ovid and greatly influenced by his work. Augustus was
afraid of this and so put a stop to Ovid himself. Perhaps Ovid’s banishment was good for him. It
took him away from the place he loved most, showing him what was truly important in life. But
he did not deserve the punishment. Those poems were but a minor infraction and caused no
harm to the city of Rome. The banishment of Ovid was a mistake by Emperor Augustus and was an undeserved sentence.