Customer Reviews

Heroides (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in 43 B.C. and died in 18 A.D.
Emperor Augustus banished him - for unknown reasons - to Tomi ( a barren place near the coast of the Black Sea ). A few scholars believe that this was a literary hoax created by Ovidius himself.
With 'Heroides' ( Legendary Women ) Ovidius goes against the tradition where only men were allowed to complain in literary fiction about their ill fortune and human cruelty.
These women are all characters from the greek mythology like Briseis (Trojan war), Hermione the daughter of Helen and even Sappho as heroine in the legend where she commits suicide by jumping from a cliff into the sea.

Ovidius turned these women from rather abstract mythological characters into 'real' persons who could be recognized as such by the audience or the readers of Ovidius' work

I recommend this interesting book for everyone who is intersted in the "classical Greek & Roman world". However, I prefer to read it in the original Latin texts. And if you don't read the ancient Latin language well, I suggest you to read a volume(no.225) of the Loeb Classical Library.