The mythical Athenian architect who built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete, laid out the ‘dancing floor’ of Cnossos, and created the artifical wooden cow with which Pasiphae wooed the Bull from the Sea. (See Michael Ayrton’s extended series of sculptures, bronzes, and artefacts celebrating Daedalus, Icarus and the Minotaur). He made wings of bee’s-wax and feathers to escape from Crete. Warning Icarus, his son, to follow him in a middle course, they flew towards Ionia. Between Samos and Lebinthos Icarus flew too high, the wax melted, and he drowned in the Icarian Sea and was buried on the island of Icaria. He had previously caused the death of Talos, his nephew, the son of his sister Perdix, through jealousy throwing him from the Athenian citadel, but Pallas Athene changed the boy into the partridge, perdix perdix. He found sanctuary in Sicily (after reaching Cumae, where he built the temple of Apollo), at the court of King Cocalus who defended him from Minos. (He threaded the spiral shell for King Cocalus, a test devised by Minos, and made the golden honeycomb for the goddess at Eryx. See Vincent Cronin’s book on Sicily – The Golden Honeycomb.). His name was synonymous with ingenuity, invention and technical skill. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VIII.
Book TIII.IV:1-46 Book TIII.VIII:1-42 Made the wings of wax and feathers.
A Roman province bordering the eastern shore of the Adriatic.
Book EII.II:75-126 Separated out from Roman Illyricum after the Pannonian War.
Ibis:541-596 Possibly Damasicthon son of Kodros, the Ionian.
The mother of Perseus by Jupiter, and daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos. She was raped by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold, while imprisoned in a brazen tower by Acrisius, who had been warned by an oracle that he would have no sons but that his grandson would kill him. (See Titian’s painting, Museo del Prado, Madrid: See the pedestal of Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus bronze, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, depicting Danaë with the child Perseus: See Jan Gossaert called Mabuse’s panel – Danaë – in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich)
Book TII:361-420 Raped by Jupiter.
The fifty daughters of Danaüs, granddaughters of Belus, king of Egypt.
They were forced to marry their cousins, the fifty sons of Aegyptus, and, with one exception, Hypermnestra, who saved the life of Lynceus because he preserved her virginity, killed them on their wedding night. The others were punished in Hades by having to fill a bottomless cistern with water carried in leaking sieves.
Book TIII.I:47-82 The figures of Danaus and his daughters in the temple of Apollo built by Augustus on the Palatine, in which he also established a library.
Book EIII.1:105-166 Murderesses.
Ibis:163-208 Ibis:311-364 Their crime and punishment.
A term originally applied to the people of Argos but later a general term meaning Greek. BookEIV.VII:41 etc.
The great river of south-eastern Europe, running from Germany to its mouth on the west coast of the Black Sea some seventy miles north of Tomis. Ovid generally prefers the name Hister rather than Danuvius.
Book TII:155-206 Tomis (Constantza) is south of the Danube estuary.
A town, and region, on the Asian shore of the Hellespont. The Trojans are often referred to as Dardanians.
Book TI.X:1-50 Founded by Dardanus, Zeus’s son by the Pleiad Electra, a native of Arcadian Pheneus. He married Chryse the daughter of Pallas.
Book TIII.V:1-56 Priam, King of Troy is a Dardanian.
Darius III, King of Persia (d 330 BC). He was defeated by Alexander the Great at Issus. Alexander subsequently gave Darius rites of burial after he had been murdered by his own kin.
Book TIII.V:1-56 Alexander showed magnanimity in victory.
Ibis:311-364 Ovid may intend Darius III (not the second, who was not historically significant) Codomannus, defeated by Alexander at the Issus in 333BC and Gaugamela in 331BC, and subsequently murdered by the satrap Bessus. The incident referred to is unclear.
The daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydon, hence called Calydonis, and the sister of Meleager. She was wooed by Hercules and Acheloüs. She married Hercules, and was raped by Nessus, the Centaur. Trying to revive Hercules love for her she unwittingly gave him the shirt of Nessus soaked in the poison of the Hydra. (See Pollaiuolo’s painting – The Rape of Deianira – Yale University Art Gallery) Hyllus was her son by Hercules. (See Sophocles Trachiniae)
Book TII:361-420 Wife of Hercules, and in love with him.
The daughter of Lycomedes, King of the Dolopians, on Scyros. She was the mother of Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) by Achilles, after Achilles was hidden on the island to avoid his being drafted for Troy.
Book TII:361-420 Loved by Achilles.
The Greek island in the Aegean, one of the Cyclades, birthplace of, and sacred to, Apollo (Phoebus) and Diana (Phoebe, Artemis), hence the adjective Delian. Its ancient name was Ortygia. A wandering island it gave sanctuary to Latona (Leto). Having been hounded by jealous Juno (Hera), she gave birth there to the twins Apollo and Diana, between an olive tree and a date-palm on the north side of Mount Cynthus. (Pausanias VIII xlvii, mentions the sacred palm-tree, noted there in Homer’s Odyssey 6, 162, and the ancient olive.) Delos then became fixed in the sea. In a variant she gave birth to Artemis-Diana on the islet of Ortygia nearby.
Book EIV.XIV:1-62 Kind to Latona.
Ibis:465-540 Diana’s island. Possibly Ovid is referring obscurely to the Delian league and its sacking of the island of Thasos, which because of its gold mines was a source of riches.
The site of the oracle of Apollo in Phocis, on the lower slopes of Parnassus overlooking the Pleistos valley. Phoebus Apollo is therefore called Delphicus. The navel stone in the precinct at Delphi was taken as the central point of the known world. It continued as a shrine, diminishing in importance, until closed by Theodosius in 390AD.
Book TIV.VIII:1-52 The oracle.
Ibis:251-310 The blind Greek bard who entertains the guests in Alcinous’ palace in Phaeacia in Homer’s Odyssey VIII.
Ibis:365-412 King of Olenus. Hercules rescued his daughter Mnesimache from the Centaur Eurytion, the king’s son-in-law.
Ibis:465-540 The Telchines, mythical craftsmen and wizards living on Ceos, angered the gods by blighting the fruits of the earth. Zeus and Poseidon (or Apollo) destroyed the island and its population, but spared Dexithea and her sisters, daughters of Damon (or Demonax), the chief of the Telkhines, because Macelo, Dexithea’s sister, had entertained the two gods. Macelo’s husband offended the gods, and they were both destroyed.
Daughter of Jupiter and Latona (hence her epithet Latonia) and twin sister of Apollo. She was born on the island of Ortygia which is Delos (hence her epithet Ortygia). Goddess of the moon and the hunt. She carries a bow, quiver and arrows. She and her followers are virgins. She is worshipped as the triple goddess, as Hecate in the underworld, Luna the moon, in the heavens, and Diana the huntress on earth. (Skelton’s ‘Diana in the leaves green, Luna who so bright doth sheen, Persephone in hell’) Callisto is one of her followers. (See Luca Penni’s – Diana Huntress – Louvre, Paris, and Jean Goujon’s sculpture (attributed) – Diana of Anet – Louvre, Paris.) She was worshipped at the sacred grove and lake of Nemi in Aricia, as Diana Nemorensis, and the rites practised there are the starting point for Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’ (see Chapter I et seq.) She hid Hippolytus, and set him down at Aricia (Nemi), as her consort Virbius. The Romans identified the original Sabine goddess Diana with the Greek Artemis and established her cult on the Aventine. Strabo mentions the connection of the cult of Aricia with the Tauric Chersonese (5.3.12, C.239)
Book TII:77-120 Ibis:465-540 Actaeon saw her naked, bathing in a pool, and was changed to a stag, and torn to pieces by the hounds for unwittingly being present.
Book TIV.IV:43-88 Book EI.II:53-100 Book EIII.II:1-110 Ibis:365-412 The Diana of the Tauric Chersonese was worshipped with human sacrifice. Strabo (7.4.2) locates her temple at Heracleia Pontica near modern Sevastapol, and Herodotus (4.103) describes the sacrifice.
Book EI.I:37-80 Possibly the Diana of Ephesus is meant. Ovid implies no alms collecting was allowed the priestesses and prophets
of the goddess.
Book EII.III:1-48 This suggests a reference to the ritual prostitution of the followers of Diana at Ephesus and elsewhere.
Ibis:465-540 Delos was her island.
Ibis:541-596 Her pack of hounds. Cerberus was an incarnation of Hecate, a mask of Diana.
The Greek philosopher of Sinope (412-322 BC) who founded the philosophical sect of Cynics. Influenced by Antisthenes he calimed total freedom and self-sufficiency for the individual, and had a disregard for social conventions.
Book EI.III:49-94 Exiled to Attica.
The son of Tydeus King of Argos, and a Greek hero in the Trojan War. He aided Ulysses against Rhesus and Palamades, and with him brought Philoctetes and his bow (that of Hercules) from Lemnos.
Book EII.II:1-38 He wounded Venus and Mars in the Trojan War.
The Thracian King of the Bistones who fed his horses on human flesh. Their capture formed Hercules’s eighth labour.
Book EI.II:101-150 Ibis:365-412 An example of cruelty.
Dionysius II, the Younger, the tyrant of Syracuse (in 367-356, and 347-344 BC) who was a patron of writers and philosophers and was taught briefly by Plato. He opened a school at Corinth after his expulsion.
Book EIV.III:1-58 Ejected from the fortress of Ortygia by Timoleon, and ended as a schoolteacher in Corinth.
A town on the Moesian coast of the Pontus, south of Tomis. Earlier known as Krounoi, ‘the springs’. Now Balchik (40 kilometres north of Varna).
Book TI.X:1-50 On the Minerva’s course.
Ibis:465-540 The wife of Lycus, King of Thebes, who mistreated her niece Antiope. Antiope was rescued by her sons Amphion and Zethus who tied Dirce to the horns of a wild bull and set it loose.
The town in Epirus in north western Greece, site of the Oracle of Jupiter-Zeus, whose responses were delivered by the rustling of the oak trees in the sacred grove. (After 1200BC the goddess Naia, worshipped there, who continued to be honoured as Dione, was joined by Zeus Naios. The sanctuary was destroyed in 391AD.)
Book TIV.VIII:1-52 The oracle.
The Trojan son of Eumedes. He acted as a spy in the Greek camp and asked for the horses of Achilles as his reward. He was killed by Ulysses and Diomedes during their raid behind the enemy lines. See Iliad Book X.
Book TIII.IV:1-46 Ibis:597-644 His desire for Achilles’s horses.
A Celtic chieftain, the ancestor of Vestalis, a Celt who took service with the Romans.
Book EIV.VII:1-54 The grandfather of Vestalis.
Surnamed Germanicus, the younger son of Livia Augusta by her first husband (Tiberius Claudius Nero). The father of Germanicus.
Book TIV.II:1-74 He was rewarded by the Senate with the title Germanicus for his German campaigns from 12BC to AD9. Ovid’s ‘fine son worthy of his father’, may be a dig at Augustus, since Livia was forced to divorce her husband and marry Augustus when six months pregnant with Drusus.
Book EII.VIII:37-76 Killed by illness or a fall from his horse, in Germany, in AD9.
Born 13BC. The son of Tiberius and Vipsania (daughter of Agrippa), and the cousin and brother of Germanicus through Germanicus’s adoption by Tiberius. He married the Elder Livilla.
Book TII:155-206 Ovid offers a prayer for his safety.
Book TIV.II:1-74 Fighting alongside Tiberius in Germany in AD10.
Book EII.II:39-74 Praised with Germanicus.
Book EIV.IX:89-134 As Livia’s grandson worshipped by Ovid as divine.
Ibis:311-364 The son of Mars, and brother of the Thracian Tereus. If this is the Dryas referred to, the incident of his son is obscure.
Ibis:465-540 The father of Theiodamas, who ruled the area below Mount Parnassus, and who was easily defeated by Hercules. The Dryopians were taken to the shrine of Apollo and made slaves.
An unidentified island, like Same, near Ithaca, and belonging to Ulysses. Ulysses (Odysseus) and his comrades are called ‘Dulichian’.
Book TI.V:45-84 Ibis:365-412 Often synonymous with Ithaca.
Book TIV.I:1-48 The Dulichians, Odysseus’s men, were drugged by the food of the Lotus-Eaters, see Homer’s Odyssey IX:82
Book EIV.X:35-84 A river running into the Black Sea.
Theban, from Echion the son-in-law of Cadmus founder of Thebes.
Book TV.V:27-64 Thebes.
The king of Thebes, in Mysia, and father of Andromache, Hector’s wife.
Book TV.V:27-64 Father of Andromache.
Ilva the modern Elba, the island lying off the Etrurian coast in the Tyrrhenian Sea, famous for its iron ore mines.
Book EII.III:49-100 Ovid last saw Cotta there in the autumn of AD8.
Ibis:163-208 A region of the underworld for spirits in bliss, rewarding virtue in life.
The daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister to Chrysothemis, Iphigenia and Orestes. Devoted to Orestes, hostile to Aegisthus and her mother. See Sophocles and Euripides (Electra).
Book TII:361-420 Famous because of Clytemnestra’s adultery and the consequent events.
The region of the north-west Peloponnese famous for its horses. The Elians presided over the Games at Olympia.
Book EII.X:1-52 The Elean river Alpheus.
A comrade of Ulysses. The Odyssey describes his death when he tumbles from the roof of Circe’s house, the morning after a heavy bout of drinking. His ghost begs Ulysses for proper burial, and for the oar that he pulled with his comrades to be set up over his grave. His ashes were entombed on Mount Circeo.
Book TIII.IV:1-46 Mentioned.
Ibis:465-540 His fate.
Elysium or the Elysian Fields, identified with the Islands of the Blest, a paradise ruled by Rhadamanthys, apparently distinct from Hades.
A poetic term for Macedonian, originally applied to the Emathian Plain.
Book TIII.V:1-56 Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
One of the giants who stormed heaven, piling Mounts Pelion, Ossa and Olympus on each other. He was overthrown by Pallas Athene (Minerva).
Book EII.II:1-38 Ovid implies he had not joined in any plotting against Augustus.
A beautiful youth from Elis or Caria who was made to sleep for eternity in a cave on Carian Mount Latmos by Zeus for attempting to seduce Hera. He was visited and kissed by the Moon (Selene/Luna/Diana/Artemis).
Book TII:253-312 Visited by the Moon.
Quintus Ennius (239-169BC) from Rudiae in Calabria, the important early Roman poet and tragedian. His chief work was the Annales an epic history of Rome including the Punic and eastern wars.
Book TII:253-312 His Annals are probably referred to here.
Book TII:421-470 A serious poet, talented but primitive.
Book TIV.IX:1-32 Book EII.V:41-76 Book EIV.VI:1-50
Book EIV.IX:89-134 The dawn, ‘eastern’.
A city in Argolis, sacred to Aesculapius. The pre-Greek god Maleas was later equated with Apollo, and he and his son Asklepios were worshipped there. There were games in honour of the god every four years, and from 395BC a drama festival. The impressive ancient theatre has been restored and plays are performed there. From the end of the 5th c. BC the cult of Asklepios spread widely through the ancient world reaching Athens in 420BC and Rome (as Aesculapius) in 293BC.
Book EI.III:1-48 Aesculapius the Epidaurian was famed for his healing arts.
The Underworld (also a god of darkness).
Ibis:209-250 Source of the Furies’ snake venom.
A son of Vulcan (Hephaestus), born without a mother (or born from the Earth after Hephaestus the victim of a deception had been repulsed by Athene). Legendary king of Athens (as Erechtheus) and a skilled charioteer. He is represented by the constellation Auriga the charioteer, containing the star Capella. (Alternatively the constellation represents the she-goat Amaltheia that suckled the infant Jupiter, and the stars ζ (zeta) and η (eta) Aurigae are her Kids. It is a constellation visible in the winter months.)
Book TII:253-312 Pallas-Athene raised him.
Book EII.IX:1-38 Ibis:251-310 Ancestor of Eumolpus and Cotys.
Arcadian from Mount Erymanthus in Arcadia.
Book TI.IV:1-28 Book TIII.IV:1-46 An epithet for the Great Bear from Callisto the Arcadian girl transformed to that constellation.
Ibis:413-464 The son of the Thessalian king Triopas. His daughter was Mestra. After living off Mestra’s shape-changing skills he ended by consuming himself. See Metamorphoses VIII:725
The elder son of Oedipus and Iocasta, brother of Polynices who fought against him in the war of the Seven against Thebes. The two brothers killed each other. Their sister was Antigone.
Book TII:313-360 Book TV.V:27-64 Their mutual death.
An unknown writer.
Book TII:361-420 Apparently he wrote a story that involved abortion.
One of the largest of the Aegean islands close to the south-east of Greece and stretching from the Maliac Gulf and the Gulf of Pagasae in the north to the island of Andros in the south. At Chalcis it is less than a hundred yards from the mainland.
Book TI.I:70-128 Book TV.VII:1-68 Ibis:311-364 Caphereus, the site of the shipwreck of the Greek fleet.
Ibis:465-540 Lichas hurled there.
The father of Dolon.
Book TIII.IV:1-46 Mentioned.
A mythical Thracian singer, the son of Poseidon and Chione (the daughter of Boreas and Oreithiya, making Eumolpus a decendant of Erictheus, king of Athens), and a priest of Ceres-Demeter, who brought the Eleusinian mysteries to Attica. He learned the mysteries from Demeter herself or from Orpheus (see Metamorphoses Book XI:85). The priestly clan of the Eumolpidae claimed descent from him, as the Kerkidae did from his son Keryx. His son Ismarus married a daughter of Tegyrius the King of Thrace, and Eumolpus himself succeeded to the throne on their death. He taught Hercules the lyre.
Book EII.IX:1-38 Ancestor of Cotys, King of Thrace.
Book EIII.III:1-108 A pupil of Orpheus.
Ibis:251-310 His mother Chione hurled him into his father Neptune’s sea to avoid Boreas’s anger. Neptune saved him.
Ibis:465-540 A younger contemporary of Aristophanes, a comic poet and playwright. An Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, he flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian War (c. 446—411BC). Fragments of his plays survive. May be intended here.
The daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, and sister of Cadmus, abducted by Jupiter disguised as a white bull. (See Paolo Veronese’s painting – The Rape of Europa – Palazzo Ducale, Venice).
Book EIV.X:35-84 She gave her name to the continent of Europe.
The East Wind. Auster is the South Wind, Zephyrus the West Wind, and Boreas is the North Wind.
Book TI.II:1-74 The warring of the winds.
The beautiful boy in Virgil’s Aeneid (IX:176) loved by Nisus, son of Hyrtacus, who avenged his death by killing Volcens, before dying himself.
Book TI.V:1-44 Book TI. IX:1-66 Book TV.IV:1-50 A paragon of friendship.
Ibis:597-644 Died with his friend after killing the sleeping Rhamnes.
The wife of Orpheus, who died after being bitten by a snake. Orpheus went to the Underworld to ask for her life, but lost her when he broke the injunction not to look back at her. See Metamorphoses Books X:1 and XI:1. (See also Rilke’s poem, ‘Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes’, and his ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’, and Gluck’s Opera ‘Orphée’).
Ibis:365-412 The Centaur. Hercules rescued Mnesimache the daughter of King Dexamenus of Olenus from him, and apparently killed him, though Eurytion also appears in the myth of Theseus’s fight against the Centaurs.
Ibis:251-310 Supposedly a companion of Odysseus, who expelled Cychreus, son of Neptune and Salamis, daughter of the river god Asopus, from the throne of Salamis. Cychreus had killed a serpent to gain the kingdom, and bred one to defend it, and Ovid has some variant on what is a fragmentary myth whereby he was eaten by serpents.
The Black Sea (Euxine) was called the Pontus Euxinus, the ‘Hospitable Sea’ for purposes of good omen.
Book TII:155-206 Book EIV.VI:1-50 The Danube delta was the Roman boundary on the west coast.
Book TIII.XIII:1-28 Book TIV.IV:43-88 Book TV.X:1-53 Falsely named ‘hospitable’ as far as Ovid is concerned.
Book TIV.I:49-107 Book TIV.VIII:1-52 Book TIV.X:93-132
Book TV.X:1-53 Book EII.II:1-38 The western or left-hand (sinister: unlucky) shore, Pontus on the left.
Book TV.II:45-79 Ovid describes the shoreline as deformia, shapeless, featureless, unlovely.
Book TV.IV:1-50 Book EII.VI:1-38 Book EIII.VI:1-60 Book EIV.III:1-58 Book EIV.IX:1-54 His place of exile, from which he sent letters.
Book TV.X:1-53 The sea frozen in winter.
Book EIII.II:1-110 Bordered by the Tauric Chersonese and Thrace.
Book EIII.VII:1-40 The place he is likely to die in.
Book EIV.VII:1-54 Vestalis possibly prefect there.
The daughter of Iphis and wife of Capaneus who had herself burned to death on her husband’s funeral pyre, after he was struck by Zeus’s lightning bolt in the war of the Seven Against Thebes.
Book TIV.III:49-84 She was loyal to her husband.
Book TV.V:27-64 Made famous by her husband.
Book TV.XIV:1-46 Book EIII.1:105-166 The daughter of Iphis, a paragon of loyalty and love.
Ibis:465-540 Son of Mars. He married Alcippe and had a daughter Marpessa. Suitors contended with him for her in a chariot race, the loser being killed. Idas stole her, and Evenus drowned himself in the river Lycormas which became the river Evenus.
Ovid’s third wife was a bride from the House of the Fabii but it is not certain her name was Fabia, or that she was of the family. She was a widow, or divorced, with a daughter Perilla, when Ovid married her. She was loyal to him in exile.
Book TI.II:1-74 She grieves for him, but was sensibly left behind in Rome, probably to work on his behalf for mitigation of his sentence, and to prevent her being exposed to the hardships of life in exile.
Book TI.III:1-46 His leave-taking from her.
Book TV.XI:1-30 One of the many letters to her, as she lived the life of an exile’s wife in Rome, loyally defending his estate.
Book TV.XIV:1-46 Ovid’s guarantee of immortality to her.
Book EI.II:101-150 Book EIII.1:67-104 She was a bride from the house of Paullus Fabius. The lines suggest a close relationship between Ovid and Paullus, of a literary nature. There is no concrete evidence that she was herself a member of the family. She was one of Marcia’s companions, loved by her, and also previously in a similar relationship to her mother Atia Minor, Augustus’s maternal aunt.
Book EI.VIII:1-70 His thoughts of her and her daughter.
Paullus Fabius Maximus. See Maximus.
The Etruscan city on the bank of the Tiber north-west of Rome, beyond Mount Soracte, captured by Rome in 241BC. It was famous for its orchards, pastures and cattle. Ovid’s second wife was from Falerii. Falisca herba is the ‘grass of Falerii’.
Book EIV.IV:1-50 Book EIV.VIII:1-48 Oxen from its rich meadows.
The three Fates, the Moirai, or Parcae, were goddesses born of Erebus and Night. Clothed in white, they spin, measure out, and sever the thread of each human life. Clotho (the Spinner) spins the thread. Lachesis (The Assigner of Destinies) measures it. Atropos (She Who Cannot Be Resisted) wields the shears. The Parcae were originally Roman goddesses of childbearing but were assimilated to the Fates who preside over birth marriage and death.
Book TV.X:1-53 Lachesis measured the thread of life.
Book EI.VIII:1-70 Ibis:41-104 Spinners of the thread of life.
Woodland spirits.
Ibis:41-104 Powers invoked by Ovid.
Lucius Pomponius Flaccus the brother of Ovid’s friend Graecinus. He served in Moesia c.12AD and again as governor in 18 or 19AD. He was subsequently Governor of Syria in AD32 (Tacitus Annales 6.27). He was an energetic soldier, close to Tiberius.
Book EI.X:1-44 This poem addressed to him explicitly.
Book EIV.IX:55-88 His command of the Danube shores.
The Flaminian Way, the Roman road, ran from Rome to Ariminum (Rimini) on the Adriatic Coast. Gaius Flaminius completed it in 220BC. Augustus himself paid for its repair in 27BC, and statues of him were erected on the arches of the Mulvian Bridge over the Tiber.
Book EI.VIII:1-70 Mentioned. The junction with the Via Clodia near the Milvian (Mulvian) Bridge where Ovid had a small estate.
An Augustan bucolic poet.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 A poet in Ovid’s list of his lesser contemporaries.
The Roman goddess of Fortune, Chance and Luck, identified with the Greek Tyche, and associated from early times with childbirth, fertility and women generally. Traditionally brought to Rome by Servius Tullius perhaps from Praeneste where she had an oracular shrine. Represented on a wheel or globe.
Book TI.V:1-44 Book TV.XIV:1-46 Book EII.III:49-100
Book EII.IX:1-38 Fortune as chance and fate.
Book TV.VIII:1-38 Book EIV.III:1-58 The Wheel of Fortune.
Book EII.VII:1-46 Fortune’s iniquitous arrows. Fickle by reputation but now constant in seeking his destruction.
Book EIII.1:105-166 Depicted as blind or blindfolded.
Fundanum solum, a town on the Appian Way in southern Latium.
Book EII.XI:1-28 Native town of Rufus.
The Furies, Erinyes, or Eumenides (ironically ‘The Kindly Ones’). The Three Sisters, were Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera, the daughters of Night and Uranus. They were the personified pangs of cruel conscience that pursued the guilty. (See Aeschylus – The Eumenides). Their abode was in Hades by the Styx.
Book TI.V:1-44 Book TIV.IV:43-88 They pursued Orestes for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra.
Ibis:41-104 The Furies sat at the ‘prison’ gate of the city of Dis. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book IV:416
Ibis:163-208 Their whips, snaky hair and smoking torches.
The Eumenides.
Ibis:209-250 Their minstrations to the newborn Ibis.
Lucius Junius Gallio a rhetorician and friend of Ovid. Also a friend of the elder Seneca, and of Messalla Corvinus. He was removed as a senator and exiled to Lesbos by Tiberius in AD32 but later summoned back to Rome.
Book EIV.XI:1-22 This letter addressed to him explicitly.
Gaius Cornelius Gallus (69-27BC), one of the most brilliant and versatile figures of his time, general, statesman and elegiac poet, friend of Virgil who dedicated his tenth eclogue to him, and initially Augustus who appointed him first Prefect of Egypt (Cassius Dio: The Roman History 51.9 and 17). However his behaviour incurred Augustus’s displeasure, he was recalled, exiled, and committed suicide to avoid prosecution for treason. He had taken up with Antony’s mistress Cytheris, and as Lycoris wrote her four books of love-elegies, of which a single line survives.
Book TII:421-470 His celebration of Lycoris in his verse.
Book TIV.X:41-92 Senior to Tibullus and Propertius.
Book TV.I:1-48 A writer of love poetry.
The sacred river of northern India.
Book TV.III:1-58 Visited by Bacchus.
Ibis:135-162 Its warm waters.
The son of Tros, brother of Ilus and Assaracus, loved by Jupiter because of his great beauty. Jupiter, in the form of an eagle, abducted him and made him his cup-bearer, against Juno’s will. Ganymede’s name was given to the largest moon of the planet Jupiter.
Book TII:361-420 Loved by Jupiter.
Germanicus (15BC-AD19) was the handsome, brilliant and popular son of the elder Drusus, grandson of Antony, and adopted (4AD) son of Tiberius, and husband of Agrippina (daughter of Agrippa, granddaughter of Augustus). He was consul in AD12 , and commander in chief of campaigns in Germany in AD14-16. In AD17 he was appointed to govern Rome’s eastern provinces and died in Antioch in mysterious circumstances, perhaps, as rumoured, through the effects of poison. He was the father of Caligula. Ovid re-dedicated the Fasti to him after Augustus’s death.
Book TII:155-206 Ovid offers a prayer for his safety.
Book TIV.II:1-74 Fighting alongside Tiberius in Germany in AD10.
Book EII.I:68 Germanicus participated in Tiberius’s Pannonian triumph in October AD12. Ovid prophesies a later triumph for him, which did in fact happen on 26th May 17AD, for victories over the German tribes. Ovid however does not appear to have written a poem about it before his own death sometime in the period lateAD16-AD18. (Last dateable reference in Ex Ponto is Graecinus’s consulship in early AD16. Ovid died in AD16 or 17 according to Saint Jerome’s Chronicle of Eusebius, at the latest AD18 based on Fasti I:223-226 and its reference to the restoration of the temple of Janus, but this may equally refer to an earlier year)
Book EII.II:39-74 Celebrated for his courage and abilities.
Book EII.V:41-76 Salanus, his tutor in oratory.
Book EII.VIII:1-36 Adopted son of Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus, himself the adopted son of Julius Caesar. Ovid’s irony is subdued.
Germanicus translated the Phaenomena of Aratus, a guide to the constellations.
Book EIV.V:1-46 Still a possible successor to Augustus, in early 14AD, and so mentioned by Ovid as a contact of Pompey’s.
Book EIV.VIII:1-48 Book EIV.VIII:49-90 Book EIV.XIII:1-50 A possible source of help after Augustus’s death.
Book EIV.IX:89-134 As Tiberius’s adopted son worshipped by Ovid as divine.
The monster with three bodies, killed by Hercules. In the Tenth Labour, Hercules brought back Geryon’s famous herd of cattle from the island of Erythia after shooting three arrows through the three bodies. Geryon was the son of Chrysaor and Callirhoë, and King of Tartessus in Spain.
Book TIV.VII:1-26 Ovid sceptically lists the ‘unbelievable’ myths that he would have to believe in first before he could believe in this friends disloyalty.
A Thracian tribe occupying both banks of the lower Danube south and east of the Carpathians, considered of superior intelligence by Herodotus (4.92). Alexander defeated them. They were also called the Daci (Dacians). Strabo ( 7.3.11-12, C.304) considers them a merging of two tribes and aggressive by nature.
Book TI.V:45-84 Book TIII.III:1-46 Book TIII. X:1-40
Book TIII. XI:39-74 Book TIV.I:49-107 Book TIV.VI:1-50
Book TIV.VIII:1-52 Book TV.III:1-58 Book TV.V:27-64
Book TV.XII:1-68 Book TV.XIII:1-34 Book EI.I:1-36
Book EI.VII:1-70 Book EI.IX:1-56 Book EII.I:68 Book EII.X:1-52
Book EIII.VII:1-40 Book EIV.IV:1-50 Book EIV.X:35-84 Ovid exiled among them.
Book TI.X:1-50 Book TV.I:1-48 A term for the shores around Tomis.
Book TII:155-206 A tribe of the Danube region.
Book TIII. IX:1-34 Colonised by the Greeks.
Book TIII. XII:1-54 Ovid describes their lands as tree-less and vine-less.
Book TIII.XIV:1-52 Book EII.VIII:37-76 A hostile people.
Book TIII.XIV:1-52 Book TV.II:45-79 The languages of the region. The rhythms of Getic are different to those of Latin. Latin is relatively unknown, and the original Greek speech of the cities is submerged in Getic pronunciation.
Book TIV.X:93-132 Book EI.VIII:1-70 Book EIV.III:1-58
Ibis:597-644 The Getic bowmen.
Book TV.I:1-48 Book EII.VII:1-46 Book EIV.VIII:49-90 Ovid labels them fierce, stern, of a barbaric nation.
Book TV.VII:1-68 Book TV.X:1-53 Book EIV.X:1-34 The Getae: dominate the Greek admixture, are barely civilised, warlike, with long beards and hair, savage and aggressive. They dress in skins and loose Persian trousers, and are ignorant of Latin.
Book TV.XII:1-68 Book EIII.II:1-110 Ovid learnt something of their language.
Book EI.II:53-100 Tomis not a significant place even to the Getae.
Book EI.II:101-150 His wish not to die at Getan hands.
Book EI.V:1-42 Book EIII.IX:1-56 A harsh place to expect the Muse to visit.
Book EI.V:43- 86 An ironic judgement on their lack of poetry.
Book EI.VIII:1-70 The Getae captured the town of Aegisos. Ovid also mentions the oxen used for ploughing.
Book EI.X:1-44 No abundance of good food among them.
Book EII.II:1-38 Book EII.VII:1-46 Book EIII.IV:57-115 Book EIV.IX:55-88 The Getae not fully conquered and pacified by Rome.
Book EII.II:39-74 He would make a worthless prize for them.
Book EIII.II:1-110 They appreciate the virtues of loyalty and friendship. The Getae are not far from the Tauric Chersonese.
Book EIII.V:1-58 Book EIV.XV:1-42 The uncouth and uncivilised Getae.
Book EIV.II:1-50 The long-haired, unshorn Getae.
Book EIV.VII:1-54 Vestalis campaigned against them.
Book EIV.XIII:1-50 Ovid wrote a poem in Getic.
Book EIV.XIV:1-62 Ovid praises the people of Tomis but not the warlike tribes.
Monsters, sons of Tartarus and Earth, with many arms and serpent feet, who made war on the gods by piling up the mountains, and overthrown by Jupiter. They were buried under Sicily.
Book TII:43-76 Book TII:313-360 Ovid may have intended to write a poem about the war. He appears to have started such a work and abandoned it.
Book TIV.VII:1-26 Ovid sceptically lists the ‘unbelievable’ myths that he would have to believe in first before he could believe in this friends disloyalty.
Book EIV.VIII:49-90 Known of through the poets.
Ibis:597-644 Buried beneath Sicily.
Ibis:541-596 The son of Sisyphus and Merope, and father of Bellerephon, who lived at Potniae near Thebes. Aphrodite punished him for feeding his mares on human flesh by causing them to eat him alive.
Ibis:541-596 The Boeotian son of Anthedon or Poseidon who tasted the herb of immortality and leapt into the sea where he became a marine god. See Metamorphoses VII:179
Ibis:541-596 Ovid indicates another Glaucus, who drowned in honey. This was Glaucus son of Minos, who drowned in a jar of honey in the cellars of Cnossos, whom Polyeidus restored to life.
Book EIV.VIII:49-90 Pegasus, born of Medusa.
Probably Titus Sempronius Graccus, a writer of tragedy and a descendant of the great Gracci.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 A poet in Ovid’s list of his lesser contemporaries.
Publius Pomponius Graecinus brother of Lucius Pomponius Flaccus who was a distinguished soldier and became Governor of Syria. Publius was consul suffectus in May 16 AD. A soldier interested in literature, possibly the Graecinus mentioned in Amores II.10.
Book EI.VI:1-54 This poem addressed to him explicitly.
Book EII.VI:1-38 A second poem explicitly addressed to him.
Book EIV.IX:1-54 Addressed to him and celebrating his consulship in AD16.
An Augustan poet who wrote a poem on hunting Cynegetica, and bucolics.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 A poet in Ovid’s list of his lesser contemporaries.
One of the Giants, possessing a hundred arms.
Book TIV.VII:1-26 Ovid sceptically lists the ‘unbelievable’ myths that he would have to believe in first before he could believe in this friends disloyalty.
Book TI.XI:1-44 The Adriatic.
The constellation Auriga represents the she-goat Amaltheia that suckled the infant Jupiter, and the stars ζ (zeta) and η (eta) Aurigae are her Kids. It is a constellation visible in the winter months, and indicative of stormy weather.
Book TI.XI:1-44 Causing winter storms during Ovid’s journey.
The son of Creon, King of Thebes and the nephew of Jocasta. Antigone’s betrothed in the Sophoclean version, he committed suicide at her death.
Book TII:361-420 A victim of passion.
Ibis:541-596 His fate.
The ancient name for Thessaly, from Haemon father of Thessalos.
Book TI.X:1-50 Cyzicos was founded by the Argonaut Aeneus from Haemonia.
Book TIII. XI:1-38 Here an epithet for the Thessalian horses of Achilles.
Book TIV.I:1-48 Achilles’ Thessalian lyre.
Book EI.III:49-94 Jason’s homeland.
A mountain in Thrace supposed to be a mortal turned into a mountain for assuming the name of a great god.
Book EIV.V:1-46 Ovid is retracing the journey to Rome.
The daughter of Aeolus, granddaughter of Polypemon, and wife of Ceyx, changed into a kingfisher or halcyon. They foolishly compared themselves to Juno and Jupiter, for which the gods drowned Ceyx in a storm. Alcyone leapt into the sea to join him, and both were transformed into kingfishers. In antiquity it was believed that the hen-kingfisher layed her eggs in a floating nest in the Halcyon Days around the winter solstice, when the sea is made calm by Aeolus, Alcyone’s father. (The kingfisher actually lays its eggs in a hole, normally in a riverbank, by freshwater and not by seawater.)
See Metamorphoses Book VII:350
Book TV.I:49-80 Her lament for Ceyx.
A large river, the longest in Asia Minor, flowing through central Asia Minor into the Pontus. The modern Kizil-Irmak flowing into the Black Sea between Sinope and Amisos.
Book EIV.X:35-84 A river running into the Black Sea.
Ibis:251-310 The great Carthaginian commander, son of Hamilcar Barca. Ovid may refer to the incident after Cannae when Hannibal sent ten Roman survivors under oath to discuss ransom terms with the Senate. One of the men sent broke his oath to return, when the Senate refused the plea, and they then sent him back forcibly to Hannibal, to be dealt with. They thereafter established a rule that Roman soldiers must conquer or die in the field. (Polybius The Roman History VI.57)
Ibis:541-596 A Mede in the service of King Astyages, who disobeyed his orders and failed to destroy the infant Cyrus. He was cruelly punished by Astyages who served him his own child at a banquet. The story is told in full in Herodotus I.107-119.
The ‘snatchers’, Aellopus and Ocypete, the fair-haired, loathsome, winged daughters of Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra, who snatch up criminals for punishment by the Furies. They lived in a cave in Cretan Dicte. They plagued Phineus of Salmydessus, the blind prophet, and were chased away by the winged sons of Boreas. An alternative myth has Phineus drive them away to the Strophades where Ovid has Aeneas meet the harpy Aëllo, and Virgil, Celaeno. They are foul-bellied birds with girls’ faces, and clawed hands, and their faces are pale with hunger. (See Virgil Aeneid III:190-220)
Book TIV.VII:1-26 Ovid sceptically lists the ‘unbelievable’ myths that he would have to believe in first before he could believe in this friends disloyalty.
The chief river of Thrace.
Book EI.V:1-42 Ovid suggests he is being asked to perform the impossible, equivalent to the distant Lixus running into the Hebrus.
The daughter of Zeus-Jupiter and Hera-Juno, born without a father. She was the wife of Hercules after his deification, and had the power to renew life. She was the cupbearer of the Olympians.
Book TIII.V:1-56 Married Hercules.
Book EI.X:1-44 Cupbearer to the gods.
The Trojan hero, eldest son of Priam and Hecuba, the husband of Andromache and father of Astyanax. After killing Patroclus he was himself killed by Achilles and his body dragged round the walls of Troy. His body was yielded to Priam for burial, and his funeral forms the close of Homer’s Iliad.
Book TI. IX:1-66 He praised the loyalty of Patroclus to Achilles.
Book TI.X:1-50 ‘Hector’s city’ was Ophrynion, the site of his purported grave.
Book TIII. XI:1-38 Book TIV.III:1-48 No longer Hector, dragged behind Achilles’ horses.
Book TIV.III:49-84 He would have been unknown if not for the War.
Book TV.IV:1-50 Priam his father grieving at his death.
Book TV.XIV:1-46 Andromache, his faithful wife.
Book EII.XI:1-28 Uncle to Ascanius the son of his brother Aeneas.
Book EIV.VII:1-54 Attempted to destroy the Greek ships with fire.
Ibis:311-364 Book EIV.XVI:1-52 His body was dragged three times round the walls of Troy by Achilles’ chariot.
Ibis:541-596 Father of Astyanax.
The daughter of Leda and Jupiter (Tyndareus was her putative father), sister of Clytemnaestra, and the Dioscuri. The wife of Menelaüs. She was taken, by Paris, to Troy, instigating the Trojan War.
Diomede son of Tydeus was in love with her before her abduction. Ovid treates her as an adulteress, to be blushed for.
The seven daughters of the Sun god and Clymene. They mourned their brother Phaethon. Two of them are named. Lampetia and the eldest Phaethüsa. Turned into poplars beside the River Po as they mourned Phaethon their brother, their tears become drops of amber. See Metamorphoses Book II:329
The highest mountain in Boeotia (5968 ft) near the Gulf of Corinth, was the mountain where the Muses lived. It is a continuation of the Parnassus Range lying between Lake Copais and the Gulf. The sacred springs of Helicon were Aganippe and Hippocrene both giving poetic inspiration. (The Muses’ other favourite haunt was Mount Parnassus in Phocis with its Castalian Spring. They also guarded the oracle at Delphi.) Hesiod’s village of Ascra was on the lower slopes.
Book TIV.I:49-107 The haunt of the Muses.
Book TIV.X:1-40 Book TIV.X:93-132 Book EIV.II:1-50 The symbolic place of poetry.
The daughter of Athamas and Nephele, sister of Phrixus, and granddaughter of Aeolus. Escaping from Ino on the golden ram, she fell into the sea and was drowned, giving her name to the Hellespont, the straits that link the Propontis with the Aegean Sea.
Book TI.X:1-50 Helle’s sea: the Hellespont, and the corner of the north-weast Aegean at its entrance. The Minerva sailed on through it, leaving Ovid to take his alternative route to Tomis from Samothrace.
Book TIII. XII:1-54 Carried by the ram, which here signifies the constellation Aries, the constellation of the spring equinox at that time.
The probable author of the Sybaritica, tales of Sybaris.
Book TII:361-420 Classed as containing obscene material.
Book EIV.X:1-34 A Sarmatian people who indulged in piracy.
The town in central Sicily. Scene of the rape of Persephone by Dis. Its lake is the Lago di Pergusa. Also scene of the First Sicilian Slave War (135-132BC)
Book EII.X:1-52 Visited by Ovid and Macer.
(The following material covered by Ovid in the Metamorphoses). The Hero, son of Jupiter. He was set in the sky as the constellation Hercules between Lyra and Corona Borealis. The son of Jupiter and Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon (so Hercules is of Theban descent, and a Boeotian). Called Alcides from Amphitryon’s father Alceus. Called also Amphitryoniades. Called also Tyrinthius from Tiryns his city in the Argolis. Jupiter predicted at his birth that a scion of Perseus would be born, greater than all other descendants. Juno delayed Hercules’ birth and hastened that of Eurystheus, grandson of Perseus, making Hercules subservient to him. Hercules was set twelve labours by Eurystheus at Juno’s instigation.
1. The killing of the Nemean lion.
2. The destruction of the Lernean Hydra. He uses the poison from the Hydra for his arrows.
3. The capture of the stag with golden antlers.
4. The capture of the Erymanthian Boar.
5. The cleansing of the stables of Augeas king of Elis.
6. The killing of the birds of the Stymphalian Lake in Arcadia.
7. The capture of the Cretan wild bull.
8. The capture of the mares of Diomede of Thrace, that ate human flesh.
9. The taking of the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons.
10. The killing of Geryon and the capture of his oxen.
11. The securing of the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. He held up the sky for Atlas in order to deceive him and obtain them.
12. The bringing of the dog Cerberus from Hades to the upper world.
He fought with Acheloüs for the hand of Deianira. He married Deianira, killed Nessus, fell in love with Iole, daughter of Eurytus who had cheated him, and received the shirt of Nessus from the outraged Deianira. (See Cavalli’s opera with Lully’s dances – Ercole Amante). He was then tormented to death by the shirt of Nessus.
Ibis:365-412 He killed King Antaeus of Libya, brother of Busiris, who was a giant, child of mother Earth, by lifting him from the ground that gave him strength, and, cracking his ribs, held him up until he died. He also killed Busiris, King of Egypt brother of Antaeus, who sacrificed strangers at the altars, to fulfil a prophecy that an eight-year drought and famine would end if he did so.
He killed the servant Lichas who brought the fatal shirt, then built a funeral pyre, and became a constellation and was deified. (See Canova’s sculpture – Hercules and Lichas – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Rome). He had asked his son Hyllus, by Deianira to marry Iole. His birth is described when the sun is in the tenth sign, Capricorn, i.e. at midwinter, making him a solar god. His mother’s seven night labour would also make his birth at the new year, a week after the winter solstice. He captured Troy and rescued Hesione, with the help of Telamon, and gave her to Telamon in marriage.
Philoctetes received his bow and arrows after his death, destined to be needed at Troy. Ulysses went to fetch Philoctetes and the arrows.
Book TII:361-420 He loved Iole, married and was loved by Deianira.
Book TIII.V:1-56 He was deified and married Hebe.
Book EIII.III:1-108 The bluff, frank and open hero type. The Fabii claimed descent from Hercules.
Book EIV.VIII:49-90 He attacked Oechalia when its king Eurytus refused him his daughter Iole. He killed Eurytus and carried off Iole.
Ibis:251-310 Sacrificing at the altars to Jupiter after taking Oechalia, Hercules put on the shirt of Nessus, and the poison of the Hydra tormented him, and corroded his flesh. Philoctetes received his bow. Taught the lyre by Eumolpus whom he defeated in contest. Hercules was the son of Jupiter connected with the shrine of Jupiter Ammon in Libya.
Ibis:311-364 Ibis:597-644 He endured the torment of the shirt of Nessus and built his funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, between Aetolia and Thessaly. (see Metamorphoses IX:159)
Book EIV.XIII:1-50 Noted for his strength.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 Persecuted by Juno.
The daughter of Menelaus and Helen, niece of Castor and Pollux, betrothed at Troy to Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) son of Achilles. Returning to Greece he found her married to Orestes, who subsequently killed him when he demanded her back.
Book TII:361-420 A victim of male passion.
Book EII.XI:1-28 Castor was her uncle.
Book EIV.XIV:1-62 The Greek poet (c 700 BC) of Ascra in Boeotia, on the slopes of Parnassus. To him are attributed the Theogony, Works and Days, and Shield of Hercules.
Book TIV.IX:1-32 The West, and Italy. Hesperius, ‘of the evening’.
The fountain of the Muses on Mount Helicon.
In one version of myth Hippodamia was the daughter of Oenomaus, King of Pisa. Pelops defeated the king in a chariot race and carried her off. He was assisted by Myrtilus the King’s charioteer, who was cursed by the King and in turn cursed Pelops leading to the feud between Atreus and Thyestes.
Book TII:361-420 The ‘Pisan’ girl carried off by Pelops.
The son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyte. He was admired by Phaedra, his step-mother, and was killed at Troezen, after meeting ‘a bull from the sea’. He was brought to life again by Aesculapius, and hidden by Diana (Cynthia, the moon-goddess) who set him down in the sacred grove at Arician Nemi, where he became Virbius, the consort of the goddess (as Adonis was of Venus, and Attis of Cybele), and the King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis). All this is retold and developed in Frazer’s monumental work, on magic and religion, ‘The Golden Bough’ (see Chapter I et seq.). (See also Euripides’s play ‘Hippolytos’, and Racine’s ‘Phaedra’.)
Book TII:361-420 Euripides’ play dealing with illict love.
Ibis:541-596 Venus made him fall in love with Phaedra. He died when his horses stampeded at the vision of a bull from the sea.
Ibis:311-364 The son of Megareus. Great-grandson of Neptune. Falling in love with Atalanta, he determined to race against her, on penalty of death for failure.By means of the golden apples he won the race and claimed Atalanta.He desecrated Cybele’s sacred cave with the sexual act and was turned, with Atalanta, into a lion. The reference to his daughter is obscure, if this is the Hippomenes’ Ovid intended.
Book EI.VIII:1-70 The Danube, also called Danuvius.
Book TII:155-206 Tomis (Constantza) is south of the Danube estuary.
Book TIII. X:1-40 Book EIV.IX:55-88 Book EIV.X:1-34 A barrier against the warring tribes.
Book TIII. X:41-78 Book EI.II:53-100 In winter the tribes attack across the frozen Danube, riding their swift horses.
Book TIII. XII:1-54 The Sarmatians drive their wagons over the frozen river.
Book TIV.X:93-132 Book TV.VII:1-68 Book EIII.III:1-108
Book EIII.IV:57-115 Book EIII.V:1-58 The wide river of his exile.
Book TV.I:1-48 The Scythian Danube.
Book TV.X:1-53 Book EII.IV:1-34 The river frozen in winter.
Book EI.IV:1-58 Its estuary is nearer to Rome by sea, by a few hundred miles, than Colchis at the far end of the Black Sea is to Thessaly.
Book EI.V:43- 86 A region bereft of wit.
Book EIII.II:1-110 Far from Rome.
Ibis:135-162 Its cold waters.
Book EIV.VI:1-50 The delta is not far north of Tomis.
The Greek epic poet, (fl. c. 8th century BC? born Chios or Smyrna?), supposed main author of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Book TI.VI:1-36 Book TII:361-420 He made Penelope famous as a loyal wife, through the Odyssey.
Book TII:361-420 The story of the Iliad is centred around Helen’s adultery.
He also tells of Mars and Venus trapped by Hephaestus, and of Odysseus seduced by Circe and Calypso. (the last two in Odyssey V:13, X:133)
Book TIV.X:1-40 An example: the greatest poet.
Book EII.X:1-52 Author of the Iliad, an immortal.
Book EIII.IX:1-56 The greatest of epic poets.
Book EIV.II:1-50 Blessed by his location in Greece.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 Tuticanus translated part of the Odyssey.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8BC) son of a freedman, and Augustan lyrical poet and satirist. He enjoyed the patronage of Maecenas who granted him his beloved Sabine farm. He was befriended by Augustus who failed to persuade him to become his private secretary. His lyrics imitate Greek poets (e.g. Sappho and Alcaeus) in matter and metre.
Book TIV.X:41-92 A member of Ovid’s poetic circle.
Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114-50BC) was a prominent lawyer, but notorious for bribery. He defended Verres against Cicero but lost the case. He turned to a political career, becoming consul in 69 but after the formation of the First Triumvirate (60) he retreated from politics and returned to the law. His enormous wealth was accompanied by personal eccentricity. He also published erotic poetry.
Book TII:421-470 His verse.
The daughters of Atlas and Aethra, half-sisters of the Pleiades. They lived on Mount Nysa and nurtured the infant Bacchus. The Hyades are the star-cluster forming the ‘face’ of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The cluster is used as the first step in the distance scale of the galaxy. The stars were engraved on Achilles’s shield. As an autumn and winter constellation the Hyades indicated rain.
Book TI.XI:1-44 A sign of rain, when combined with a southerly wind.
Megara Hyblaea, a small town in eastern Sicily, near to and north of Syracuse, famous for its sweet-scented honey. Modern Mellili.
Book TV.VI:1-46 The bees of Hybla.
Book TV.XIII:1-34 Book EII.VII:1-46 Noted for its fragrant thyme on which the bees fed.
Ibis:163-208 Its flowery meadows.
Book EIV.XV:1-42 Its honeycombs.
The son of Theiodamas, King of the Dryopians. Theiodamas attacked Hercules who killed him but spared Hylas for his beauty. They joined the Argonauts voyage and the boy was stolen by Naiads near the River Ascanius.
Book TII:361-420 Loved by Hercules.
The god of marriage who lived on Helicon with the Muses.
Book EI.II:101-150 He was symbolically present at a marriage.
A Sarmatian river, now the River Bug.
Book EIV.X:35-84 A river running into the Black Sea.
Ibis:465-540 The daughter of Thoas, who nursed Lycurgus’s son Opheltes. The boy was attacked and bitten to death by a serpent.
Nisus son of Hyrtacus.
Son of Jupiter and Corythus’s wife Electra. Ceres fell in love with him and lay with him in the thrice-ploughed field. She wished she could obtain a renewal of his youth. She gave birth to Plutus by him.
Book TII:253-312 Lover of Ceres.
A Sarmatian tribe living near the Danube.
Book EI.II:53-100 Ibis:135-162 Book EIV.VII:1-54 Mentioned.
The mysterious enemy of Ovid, subject of his curse-poem Ibis based on a poem of Callimachus’s. TIV.IX has close similarities with Ibis:1-61.
Ibis:41-104 Ovid adopts the name Ibis as a cover for his true enemy.
Book EIII.1:105-166 Penelope daughter of Icarius.
Book TV.V:27-64 The father of Penelope.
Ibis:541-596 Odysseus was his son-in-law.
The son of Daedalus for whom his father fashioned wings of wax and feathers like his own in order to escape from Crete. Flying too near the sun, despite being warned, the wax melts and he drowns in the Icarian Sea, and is buried on the island of Icaria. ( See W H Auden’s poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ referring to Brueghel’s painting, Icarus, in Brussels) See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VIII:183
Book TI.I:70-128 Book TV.II:1-44 He gave his name to the Icarian Sea.
Book TIII.IV:1-46 He flew too near the sun.
The extensive range of mountains in western Mysia, the highest peak Gargaros rising to over 4500 feet and commanding a fine view of the Hellespont and Propontis. There is also a Cretan Mount Ida.
Book TIV.I:1-48 The rites of the Bacchantes, celebrated on the Mysian Mount Ida.
Ibis:163-208 Heavily wooded.
Ibis:465-540 The seer, the son of Apollo and Cyrene. He was one of the Argonauts and was killed by a wild boar by the river Lycus on the Black Sea coast.
The daughter of Aeneas (Greek myth) or Numitor (Roman version), the Vestal who bore Romulus and Remus, to the god Mars.
Book TII:253-312 She was impregnated by Mars. See the entry for Romulus.
Ilian, and so Trojan.
Book EIV.XVI:1-52 Used of Macer a poet in Ovid’s list of his lesser contemporaries.
Book TIV.III:1-48 Remus.
Illyris, the district along the east coast of the Adriatic.
Book TI.IV:1-28 Ovid sails by on his way to exile.
Book TII:207-252 Tiberius and Germanicus defeated the Pannonian and Illyrian rebels in the second Illyrian war of the summer of 9AD.
Book EII.II:75-126 The Roman Illyricum roughly the Eastern Balkans was divided after the Pannonian War into Dalmatia and Pannonia.
Book EIV.XIV:1-62 Pitch obtained from there.
The island of Elba.
The north Aegean island to the south west of the Thracian Chersonese near Samothrace and Lemnos.
Book TI.X:1-50 Ovid touched port there.
The daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, whom Hercules was enamoured of. He carried her off after killing her father, causing Deianeira to give him the shirt of Nessus drenched in the Centaur’s blood supposedly mixed with a love potion but in fact the Hydra’s venom from Hercules’s own arrow.
Book TII:361-420 Loved by Hercules.
The Ionian Sea, between Greece and southern Italy (not the coast of Ionia).
Book TI.IV:1-28 Book EIV.V:1-46 Ovid crossed the wintry Adriatic on his way to exile.
Book TII:253-312 Juno drove Io over the sea.
Evadne the daughter of Iphis.
Book EIII.1:105-166 Evadne.
The daughter of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and Clytaemnestra. She is called Mycenis. She was sacrificed by her father at Aulis, to gain favourable winds for the passage to Troy but snatched away by Diana to Tauris, a deer being left in her place. Orestes her brother found her there and they fled to Athens with the image of the goddess. She later became priestess of Diana-Artemis at Brauron.
Book TIV.IV:43-88 Book EIII.II:1-110 The priestess of the altar of Diana in the Tauric Chersonese where human sacrifices were offered.
The Ithacan beggar with whom Ulysses had a boxing match on returning to his palace. His nickname Irus was a version of Iris since he was also a messenger, at the beck and call of the suitors.
Book TIII.VII:1-54 Ibis:413-464 An example of poverty.
The Egyptian Goddess, in Greek mythology the deified Io and identified also with Ceres-Demeter. Goddess of the domestic arts. Her cult absorbed the other great goddesses and spread through the Graeco-Roman world as far as the Rhine. Isis was the star of the sea, and the goddess of travellers. Osiris was her husband, whom she searched for, in the great vegetation myth of Egypt. She carries the sacred rattle or sistrum, and on her forehead she carries the horns, moon disc, and ears of corn symbolising her moon, fertility and cow attributes. (In Sulla’s time a college of priests had been founded in Rome and there was a shrine by 48BC. The cult did not receive State approval in Augustus’s time, due to his concern to revive traditional Roman values).
Book TII:253-312 Identified with Io, Daughter of Inachus a river-god of Argolis, who was chased and raped by Jupiter. She was changed to a heifer by Jupiter and conceded as a gift to Juno. She was then guarded by hundred-eyed Argus. After Mercury killed Argus, driven by Juno’s fury Io reached the Nile, and was returned to human form. With her son Epaphus she was worshipped in Egypt as a goddess. Io is therefore synonymous with Isis (or Hathor the cow-headed goddess with whom she was often confused), and Epaphus with Horus. Ovid suggests Juno drove her across the seas east of Greece.
Book EI.I:37-80 The cult of Isis was associated with the island of Pharos near Alexandria. The sacred rattle, the sistrum was a feature of the rites. Isis’s followers dressed in white linen, in imitation of the Egyptian goddess.
The Ionian island off the west coast of Greece between the Acarnian Coast and Cephallenia, the home of Ulysses (Odysseus). At the time of the Odyssey thickly wooded.
Book TI.V:45-84 The site of Ulysses’ palace, synonymous with Dulichium.
Book EI.III:1-48 Ulysses, the Ithacan, also longed for home.
Book EII.VII:47-84 Ulysses the Ithacan met with no stormier seas than Ovid on his journey.
The son of Tereus and Procne, murdered by his mother in revenge for Tereus’s rape of Philomela, and his flesh served to his father at a banquet.
Book TII:361-420 Mourned by Procne.
The son of Aeneas from whom the Julian family claimed descent.
Book EI.I:37-80 Book EII.II:1-38 Book EII.V:41-76 The supposed origin of the Julian clan.
Book EII.XI:1-28 Hector was one of his uncles.
Ibis:163-208 King of the Lapithae, father of Pirithoüs, and of the Centaurs. He attempted to seduce Juno, but Jupiter created a false image of her, caught Ixion in the act with this simulacrum, and bound him to a fiery wheel that turns in the Underworld.
Book EIV.IV:1-50 The Roman two-headed god of doorways and beginnings, equivalent to the Hindu elephant god Ganesh. The Janus mask is often depicted with one melancholy and one smiling face. The first month of the year in the Julian calendar was named for him, January (Ianuarius).
The son of Aeson, leader of the Argonauts, and hero of the adventure of the Golden Fleece. The fleece is represented in the sky by the constellation and zodiacal sign of Aries, the Ram. In ancient times it contained the point of the vernal equinox (The First Point of Aries) that has since moved by precession into Pisces. He reached Colchis and the court of King Aeetes where he accepted Medea’s help to secure the fleece and married her before returning to Iolchos.
He acquired the throne of Corinth, and married a new bride Glauce. Medea in revenge for his disloyalty to her sent Glauce a wedding gift of a golden crown and white robe, that burst into flames when she put them on, and consumed her and the palace. Medea then killed her own sons by Jason, and fled his wrath. See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VII.
Book EI.III:49-94 Exiled from Thessaly to Corinth.
Book EI.IV:1-58 Praised for his efforts in reaching the Black Sea, but Ovid’s journey was longer, since Rome is further from the Danube estuary, than Thessaly is from Colchis.
Book EIII.1:1-66 The first Greek to sail into the Black Sea.
The Numidian King conquered by Marius. He died in prison at Rome in 104BC.
Book EIV.III:1-58 Marius defeated Jugurtha in Numidia, and held a triumph in 104BC.
The only daughter (39BC-14AD) of Augustus and Scribonia. She married Marcellus and then Marcus Vispsanius Agrippa to whom she bore Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Agrippina who married Germanicus, Agrippa Posthumus and Julia the younger (2). She then married Tiberius. Augustus banished her to the island of Pandataria in 2BC for her dissolute lifestyle, and for political intrigue also. She was involved with Iullus Antonius the younger son of Mark Antony and Fulvia, educated at Rome by Augustus’s sister Octavia. Julia and her associates planned to replace Tiberius with Antonius as consort to Augustus. Iullus was allowed to commit suicide when the plans were discovered. Scribonia followed Julia into exile and the plot probably centred on Scribonia’s family faction. Julia was moved to Rhegium (Reggio) on the mainland in 4AD but never released. Tiberius effectively had her starved to death (officially she committed suicide) in AD14.
The daughter (19BC-28AD) of the elder Julia (1) and Agrippa. She was married to Lucius Aemelius Paullus and shared his disgrace when his conspiracy against Augustus (aimed at Tiberius) was discovered in 6AD. He was executed and she was ultimately (8AD) banished to the island of Trimerum off the coast of Apulia (officially for adultery) and died there. Ovid’s crime may well have been linked to her set, and a clandestine and unacceptable marriage (perhaps to Decimus Iunius Silanus her lover, with whom she had been accused of adultery: she had an illegitimate child in exile, not raised or recognised.) that he had witnessed or less likely some aspect of the plotting against Augustus. The date of his relegatio (banishment) is surely more than coincidental.
The daughter of Rhea and Saturn, wife and sister of Jupiter, and the queen of the gods. A representation of the pre-Hellenic Great Goddess. (See the Metope of Temple E at Selinus – The Marriage of Hera and Zeus – Palermo, National Museum.)
Book TII:253-312 Her husband Jupiter noted for his adulteries. See the Metamorphoses. She persecuted Io, who was worshipped as Isis.
Book TIII.V:1-56 Book EIV.XVI:1-52. She persecuted Hercules who ended up married to Hebe her daughter.
Book EI.IV:1-58 She protected Jason and the Argonauts. Ovid implies no deity protected him, which does not rule out his possibly being aided by lesser members of the Augustan or Julian families.
Book EIII.1:105-166 Ovid suggests Livia has the character and ways of Juno, a dubious compliment.
The sky-god, the Greek Zeus, son of Saturn and Rhea, born on Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia and nurtured on Mount Ida in Crete. The oak is his sacred tree. His emblems of power are the sceptre and lightning-bolt. His wife and sister is Juno (the Greek Hera). (See the sculpted bust (copy) by Brassides, the Jupiter of Otricoli, Vatican)
Book TI.V:45-84 Book EI.VII:1-70 Equated with Augustus.
Book TII.I:1 Book TII:120-154 Book TII:313-360 Book TIII.V:1-56 Book TIV.VIII:1-52 Book EIII.VI:1-60 His weapon is the lightning-bolt.
Book TII:253-312 Noted for his adulteries. See the Metamorphoses.
Book TIII.I:1-46 The Temple of Jupiter Stator (the Stayer).
Book TIII. XI:39-74 His anger against Ovid is greater than Neptune’s against Ulysses.
Book TIV.IV:1-42 A reference to Augustus as Jupiter, and a dubious use of the verb celebrare which means to frequent as well as celebrate. Possibly Ovid is making one of his traditional jibes at Augustus’s supposed homosexuality in a letter to a man who might just appreciate it, but showing Ovid’s dangerous willingness to tread the fine line. He follows it with a cleverly ambiguous comment on divinity. Is Augustus seen to be a god or only believed to be one?
Book TIV.IX:1-32 Jupiter’s sacred oak-tree and lightning bolt are connected by the occurrence of the natural phenomenon. Oak trees are particularly susceptible to lightning blasts.
Book TV.II:45-79 Augustus as Jupiter, the ruler of the world mirrors the ruler of the heavens and the gods.
Book TV.III:1-58 Jupiter blasted Capaneus with lightning.
Book EII.I:68 Jupiter Pluvius, the rain-bringer.
Book EII.II:39-74 Augustus is also Jupiter Capitolinus, the Tarpeian Thunderer, from Jupiter’s Temples on the Capitoline. The great temple was augmented by the lower temple to Jupiter Tonans, the Thunderer, in 22BC, the first of the two reached on climbing the Capitoline (Cassius Dio The Roman History 54.4)
Book EII.VIII:37-76 The worship of images of Jupiter and other gods.
Book EII.IX:1-38 Ritual sacrifice of animals in front of Jupiter’s temples.
Ibis:209-250 In astrology a beneficent planet, ruling knowledge, travel etc. Jupiter was the father of Mercury, by Maia.
Ibis:251-310 Jupiter’s temple of Ammon in Libya where he was the ram-horned god.
Ibis:311-364 Cambyses sent an army to attack the Ammonians and the temple of Jupiter at Ammon (Siwa Oasis, El Khargeh) but the army vanished in a sandstorm. (Herodotus III.26)
Ibis:541-596 Married his sister Juno, and avenged his grandfather
An ancient Roman goddess later identified with the Greek Hebe.
Book EI.X:1-44 Hebe.