‘Non peto quas quondam petii studiosus Athenas.’
Sen. Contr. ii. 10, 8, ‘Hanc controversiam memini ab Ovidio Nasone declamari apud rhetorem Arellium Fuscum, cuius auditor fuit, nam Latronis admirator erat, cum diversum sequeretur dicendi genus.’ Seneca says that Met. xiii. 121, and Am. i. 2, 11, were borrowed from Latro.
But, in spite of his father’s remonstrances, Ovid preferred poetry to public life. Tr. iv. 10, 19,
‘At mihi iam parvo caelestia sacra placebant,
inque suum furtim Musa trahebat opus.
Saepe pater dixit, “studium quid inutile temptas?
Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.”
Motus eram dictis totoque Helicone relicto
scribere conabar verba soluta modis:
sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos;
quicquid temptabam dicere, versus erat.’
In due time he assumed the toga virilis, and with it the broad purple stripe worn by prospective senators. He also held two of the minor offices of the vigintiviratus, the preliminary to a senatorial career, being (1) triumvir capitalis or else triumvir monetalis, (2) decemvir stlitibus iudicandis. Tr. iv. 10, 28,
‘Liberior fratri sumpta mihique toga est,
induiturque umeris cum lato purpura clavo’;
l. 33,
‘Cepimus et tenerae primos aetatis honores,
deque viris quondam pars tribus una fui.’
Fast. iv. 384,
‘Inter bis quinos usus honore viros.’