Written after he had been banished to the Black Sea city of Tomis by Emperor Augustus, the Fasti is Ovid's last major poetic work. Both a calendar of daily rituals and a witty sequence of stories recounted in a variety of styles, it weaves together tales of gods and citizens together to explore Rome's history, religious beliefs and traditions. It may also be read as a subtle but powerful political manifesto which derides Augustus' attempts to control his subjects by imposing his own mythology upon them: after celebrating the emperor as a Jupiter-on-earth, for example, Ovid deliberately juxtaposes a story showing the king of the gods as a savage rapist. Endlessly playful, this is also a work of integrity and courage, and a superb climax to the life of one of Rome's greatest writers.

Author Biography

Ovid (43 BC - AD 18) was a Roman writer who mastered a wide range of literary forms from elegies of nostalgia and love to 'collective' narratives relating disconnected stories, such as Metamorphoses. He died in exile by the Black Sea. Ovid's influence has extended through Chaucer's age to Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, and to poets such as Ted Hughes in the twentieth century. Anthony Boyle is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is the editor of the classical literary journal Ramus and his publications include Ancient Pastoral, The Imperial Muse and Roman Literature and Ideology. Roger Woodard is Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA. His publications include Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.