Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), a Roman poet, born at Sulmo in the country of the Pc-ligni, March 20, 43 B. C, died at Tomi on the Euxine, S. of the mouth of the Danube, A. D. 18, He was of an ancient equestrian family, and was educated for the forum; but his taste for poetry interfered so seriously with his professional studies, that the elder Seneca, who had seen one of his rhetorical exercises, describes it as solutum carmen rather than an argumentative discourse. His father endeavored in vain to wean him from these tastes, but subsequently allowed him to follow his inclinations. He accordingly finished his education in Athens, travelled in Asia and Sicily, and returned to Rome, where, though it is doubtful if he ever practised the law, he discharged the functions of judge in several of the minor courts, and was finally promoted to be one of the decemviri who presided over the court of the centumviri. The poets Macer, Propertius, Ponticus, and Bassus were among his intimate friends, and he had frequent opportunities of hearing Horace recite his compositions.

He was thrice married, his first wife being quickly put aside for unfaithfulness, and his second because she was irksome to the poet, who was then enamored of a mistress celebrated by him under the name of Corinna. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, this was Julia, the profligate daughter of the emperor Augustus. She was undoubtedly a married woman of high rank, and may be said to have incited Ovid to his first successful attempts at writing in elegiac verse - the series called the Amorcs, published by him in a second edition under the title of Amorum Libri III At about the age of 30 he married his third wife, with whom he appears to have lived happily, and by whom he had one child, a daughter. His poetical reputation was enhanced by his Epistoloe He-rodium, his Ars Amatoria or De Arte Amandi and Remedia Amoris, and his tragedy of Medea, now lost. In A. D. 8 an imperial edict banished him for life to Tomi, in the country of the Getae. No reason for this banishment was assigned, beyond his having published his poem on the art of love; but it has been justly supposed that so severe a punishment would not have been inflicted for an offence of this nature, committed ten years before, unless it had been accompanied by another of greater heinousness.

The poet himself hints at some " error," which however he never mentions, as the real cause of his punishment. His alleged intrigue with the emperor's daughter Julia has been presumed to be the "error " in question; but she was exiled more than ten years before Ovid. Others have maintained that it was the younger Julia with whom he had an amour; and notwithstanding the disparity in their years, the coincidence of his banishment with hers gives ground for the idea. In the latter part of December Ovid left Pome, and after a journey of nearly a year reached the inhospitable spot to which he was banished. The people among whom his lot was cast were scarcely less rude than their climate; and he never ceased to offer affecting but unavailing supplications for the imperial clemency. Besides applying the finishing touches to his Fasti, he wrote during his exile the Tristia, a record of his sufferings and appeals for pardon; the letters to his wife and friends Ex Ponto, very similar in style and substance to the Tristia; and the Ibis, a satire. His modest bearing and affable manners won upon the simple inhabitants of Tomi, among whom ho rendered himself exceedingly popular by publicly reciting some poems composed in the Getic language, which he had succeeded in mastering.

He died in the 10th year of his exile. His chief work, both in bulk and pretensions, was his Metamorphoses, in 15 books, composed previous to his exile, and burned by him during the hurry of his departure from Pome, but of which copies had been previously taken by his friends. It is written in heroic verse, and, as the title denotes, includes such legends of mythology as involved a transformation. - Of the numerous complete editions of Ovid, the more remarkable are the editio princess by Azoguidi (2 vols, fob, Bologna, 1471), the Aldine edition (3 vols. 8vo, Venice, 1502), the Elzevir edition by Heinsius (3 vols. 12mo, Ley den, 1629), the Delphin edition (4 vols. 4to, Lyons, 1689), Burmann's, esteemed the best (4 vols. 4to, Amsterdam, 1727), and Burmann's text with Bentley's MS. emendations (5 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1825). Among editions of his separate works is P. Otidii Na-sonis Heroides XIV, edited with a commentary by Arthur Palmer (London, 1873). Of translations of his works nearly every Euro-pean language possesses an abundance. The most esteemed metrical version of the Metamorphoses in English is that "translated by the most eminent bands," including Dryden, Addison, Oongreve, Rowe, Gay, Ambrose Phillips, and others (fob, London, 1717), of which many editions have appeared.

The version of George Sandys (fob, London, 1626), translated on the banks of James river in Virginia, deserves mention as the first work of any note composed in America. The Ars Amatoria and Heroides have in like manner been versified by several translators. Sir Thomas Overbury paraphrased the Remedia Amoris, and a translation of the Fasti by J. Gower was published at Cambridge in 1640. A literal prose translation of all the poems, by II. T. Riley, forms 3 vols, of Bohn's "Classical Library".