Roy K. Gibson

Ovid

A full-scale commentary emphasising the poem's didactic elements and its treatment of women.

Ovid: Ars Amatoria

A Commentary on Ovid's Ars Amatoria, III, 499-812

Ovid's Ars Amatoria has long had a reputation for 'excess', both moral and stylistic. Augustus' banishment of the poet to Romania in 8 AD - for teaching 'foul adultery' in the Ars - is partly responsible for this reputation, along with Roman love elegy's well-known predilection for immoderate attitudes and alienation from the values of conventional society. The Ars is undoubtedly a work of subversive tendencies, but its larger reputation has made it difficult for readers to appreciate one of the most striking, yet characteristic, features of the poem. In the pursuit of erotic ends, Ovid recommends to his pupils stratagems of moderation and self-restraint. Ovid's (hedonistic) middle way is both a novelty for elegy, which is more accustomed to thinking in terms of binary polarities or to pursuing extremes, and it is a witty attempt to wrest the theme of the moderate and the middle from the Augustan poet with whom it is most closely associated - Horace. Excess and restraint's re-introduction of Horace into the criticism of Roman love elegy is accompanied by a novel attempt to use works by Cicero and Aristotle to engage with the Ars Amatoria, particularly the de Officiis and Nicomachean Ethics which both offer influential treatments of the 'middle way'.

Propertius, Horace and Ovid's Ars Amatoria

Excess and Restraint

Tristan Power

The biographer Suetonius is one of the most fascinating writers of ancient Rome, but he is rarely afforded serious critical attention. This volume of new essays focuses on the various aspects of Suetonius' work, from his lost biographical writing on Roman courtesans to his imperial portraits of the Caesars. Beginning with an introduction that assesses the originality of Suetonius as a writer and situates the essays within the context of debates and controversies over his biographical form, the collection addresses the issues surrounding his style, themes, and early influence on literature in three parts. The first part discusses formal features of Suetonian biography, such as his literary techniques, manners of citation and quotation, and devices of allusion and closure. The middle section is devoted to readings of the individual Lives, treating several topics - from Suetonius' decision to begin his collection with Julius Caesar, to fictional elements in his death scene of the emperor Caligula, and to the theme of solitude in his Life of Domitian. The last part examines the ways in which Suetonius transgresses the boundaries of ancient biography by looking at his influence on epistolographers, antiquarians, commentators, and later biographers. This volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to know why Suetonius' Lives are such a unique and powerful medium for the stories of ancient Rome, and how they became the primary model for later biography.

Studies in Roman Lives

Suetonius the Biographer

Ruth Morello

Situates Pliny's Letters within the letter-writing tradition, offers new readings of favourite letters, and emphasises the importance of understanding letters within the context of original books or informal 'cycles'. For advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars interested in the study of ancient letters and imperial Latin literature.

Roy K. Gibson

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