The poem of Æmilius Macer is only known through two verses in the Tristia of Ovid,[[731]] which state that it treated of birds, serpents, and medicinal herbs:
Sæpe suas volucres legit mihi grandior ævo
Quæque necet serpens; quæ juvet herba Macer.
He was born at Verona, and died in Asia, A. D. 16; and the passage already quoted proves that he was older than Ovid.
His poem was a paraphrase or imitation of the Theriaca of Nicander—a physician-poet, who flourished in Ætolia during the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes. Quintilian couples his name with that of Lucretius; and awards him the praise of elegance, but adds that his style is deficient in dignity.
CHAPTER VIII.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF OVID—HIS RHETORICAL POWERS—ANECDOTE RELATED BY SENECA—HIS POETICAL GENIUS—SELF-INDULGENT LIFE—POPULARITY—BANISHMENT—PLACE OF HIS EXILE—EPISTLES AND OTHER WORKS—GRATIUS FALISCUS—PEDO ALBINOVANUS—AULUS SABINUS—MARCUS MANILIUS.
Ovidius Naso (BORN B. C. 43.)
Ovid, as he himself states,[[732]] was born at Sulmo (Sulmone,) a town of the Peligni (Abruzzi,) ninety miles distant from Rome. The year of his birth was that in which the consuls Hirtius and Pansa fell in the field of Mutina (Modena.) His family was equestrian, and had been so for some generations. His father lived to the age of ninety; and, as his mother was then alive, it is probable that she also attained an advanced age. He had a brother exactly twelve months older than himself. Their common birthday was the first of the Quinquatria, or festival of Minerva (March 20th.)
Whilst still of tender age the two boys were sent to Rome for education, and placed under the care of eminent instructors. The elder studied eloquence, and was brought up to the bar: but he died at the early age of twenty. Ovid himself also, for a time, studied rhetoric under Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, and the results of his study are visible in his poems;[[733]] for example, in the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses.[[734]]
Seneca has left an interesting account of his rhetorical powers.[[735]] “I remember,” he says, “hearing Naso declaim, in the presence of Arellius Fuscus, of whom he was a pupil; for he was an admirer of Latro, although his style was different from his own. The style of Ovid could at that time be termed nothing else but poetry in prose: still he was so diligent as to transfer many of his sentiments into his verses. Latro had said—