You can compare ovid to other authors whose attention to female characters is simplya largely absent. Ovid does write, towards the end of the poem a very long disquisition in the mouth of pythagoras about transformation and people returning indifferent bodily forms. But it'su the disturbing world that he's talking about is one that's asor of uni directional translater transformation. And this isn't always the case, an not with the pagmalian story, but it tends to be humans who are transformed into some lower level status,. usually as a punishment from a guard.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43BC-17/18AD) who, as he described it, was destroyed by 'carmen et error', a poem and a mistake. His works have been preserved in greater number than any of the poets of his age, even Virgil, and have been among the most influential. The versions of many of the Greek and Roman myths we know today were his work, as told in his epic Metamorphoses and, together with his works on Love and the Art of Love, have inspired and disturbed readers from the time they were created. Despite being the most prominent poet in Augustan Rome at the time, he was exiled from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea Coast where he remained until he died. It is thought that the 'carmen' that led to his exile was the Art of Love, Ars Amatoria, supposedly scandalising Augustus, but the 'error' was not disclosed.
With
Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College London
Gail Trimble
Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College at the University of Oxford
And
Dunstan Lowe
Senior Lecturer in Latin Literature at the University of Kent
Producer: Simon Tillotson