Ovid, Ibis

Gareth David Williams (Columbia University)

Ed. by Sophia Papaioannou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (American University of Paris)

Dates

First circulation or publication 10 - 12

Places

Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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Beyond the five books of

Tristia

(“Poems of sadness”) and the four books of

Epistulae ex Ponto

(“Letters from Pontus”) that Ovid (43 BCE-17/18 CE) wrote during his years of exile from 8 CE onwards in Tomis (modern Constanţa) on what is now the Romanian coast of the Black Sea, he also composed the extraordinary curse poem that is known as the

Ibis

. This vast effusion of imprecations, amounting to more than 300 elegiac couplets, is directed against an enemy who is pseudonymously termed Ibis; the name is drawn from the Ibis who was apparently targeted by Callimachus in the Alexandrian prototype on which Ovid claims to have modeled his own poem. Given the loss of the Callimachean original, it is unclear whether (yet surely likely that) Ovid vastly outdoes the length of Callimachus’…

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1005 words

Citation: Williams, Gareth David. "Ibis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4571, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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