In the verdant heart of ancient Latium, where rolling hills cradled modest estates and the echoes of civil strife still lingered in the air, Albius Tibullus entered the world around 55 BCE. He would depart it far too soon, in 19 BCE, leaving behind a slender but radiant corpus of elegiac poetry that has captivated readers for over two millennia. Tibullus was no bombastic chronicler of empire or grand epic hero; inste…
“Glory is a shadow that follows virtue, now preceding it, now following behind, but always accompanying it.”
Neighbourhood:
Ancient & Classical Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Peace
Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was born on 20 March 43 BC at Sulmo, a prosperous town in the Apennine country east of Rome, now Sulmona in the Abruzzo region of Italy. He died in exile at Tomis on the western shore of the Black Sea, probably in AD 17 or 18. Few ancient poets have left so vivid a record of their public voice, artistic ambitions, pleasures, fears, and humiliations; yet Ovid remains, in…
“We are slow to believe what hurts to believe.”
Neighbourhood:
Ancient & Classical Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
