Salvete, readers! I am a footsore and weary traveler to Rome, a poem sent to this great city by my father, Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). You may remember him--a very talented and witty poet whose verses used to be the talk of the town, especially his poetry about love, the Amores ("Loves"), Ars Amatoria ("Art of Love"), and the Remedia Amoris ("Cures for Love"); in fact, he liked to bill himself as the praeceptor amoris ("teacher of love."). Of course, he also wrote more serious poetry, and the Metamorphoses, an amazing epic compendium of mythological tales structured around the theme of transformations, is certainly a masterpiece (though I must admit that many of the tales deal with erotic relationships, some of them a bit kinky).
Disaster struck my father in 8 CE, when the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a bleak barbarian town on the Black Sea, at the very margins of the Roman Empire--about the worst place in the world for such a refined and sophisticated city dweller!
He never told me why, except for a mysterious comment about a carmen et error ("a poem and a mistake"). I soon figured out that the poem was the Ars Amatoria, which some prudes call "The Art of Adultery"; it's not hard to see why Augustus (who had to banish both his daughter and his granddaughter for adultery) didn't like it, though why he waited more than eight years after it was published to punish my father is beyond me! As for the mistake, it must have had something to do with imperial politics, though we'll never know for sure.
Anyway, I am a poem on a mission; my father wants me to find a home here, since his previous poems, my older brothers, have been kicked out of the great libraries. If I can find some acceptance and sympathy here, maybe that will help to melt Augustus's cold heart so he will pardon my father. I'm sure you have noticed (though you are too polite to say anything) that one of my legs is shorter than the other; that is because my poetic meter is elegiac, meaning that every second line is one foot shorter. I don't see this as a defect; in fact, I think it makes my rhythm more interesting!
I was born in Tomis, of course, and so everything at Rome is new and strange to me. Maybe this is your first time here too? If you follow me on my journey, you will be able to see many parts of central Rome through the eyes of my poem.
Here's a preview of the itinerary we will follow (watch the blue dots!). At each stop on our journey you will find directions and a map showing the next stop. When you arrive at each new location, take some time to look around, read the information, and look at the images there before you invoke me by clicking on my icon. If you do this, you will gain a much better understanding of what I say about each place. At the end of our journey you will find the whole poem, in the elegant and clever Latin of my father. Are you ready for an adventure? Take my hand (click on me) and let's begin!