The Art of Love In Ancient Rome
Taught by Nick Fokas
Nick misspent his youth studying and teaching ancient history and classics. When not yelling at kids to get off his lawn, he raises a ruckus playing guitar in the band Reserved For Rondee.
Since its publication in the early 1st century AD, Ovid's poem The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) has been one of the most popular and controversial works of literature to have survived from the Roman Empire. While on its surface The Art of Love is a humorous and lighthearted look at the dating scene in early Imperial Rome, the poem also serves as a subversive critique of the emperor Augustus' social policy which stressed traditional Roman family values and marriage practices -- a critique which may have contributed to Augustus' official banishment of Ovid from Rome to the Black Sea.
In this class, we'll examine the poem to see not only what it has to say about the dating practices of the early Roman Empire but also how the poem itself fits into the overall culture of the Augustan Age and the classical literary tradition.
Image credit: Painter of the Frankfort Acorn, painter and Phintias, potter, Oil Jar with Paris and Helen, about 420 - 400 B.C., Terracotta, Object: H: 18.4 x Diam.: 6.7 cm (7 1/4 x 2 11/16 in.) Object (body): Diam.: 10.6 cm (4 3/16 in.), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California
