As the second son, his family expected that he would pursue a career in public service and the law as his elder brother did. But Ovid's talents inclined him in a different direction:
But I. while still a boy, loved Heaven's service;
The Muse enticed me to her task by stealth.
My father often said, "Why try a useless
Vocation? Even Homer left no wealth."
So I obeyed, all Helicon abandoned,
And tried to write in prose that did not scan.
But poetry in metre came unbidden,
And what I tried to write in verses ran.
(Trist. 4.10.19-26, translated byMelville)
Little is known of the details of Ovid's life as a poet. He studied rhetoric with some of the leading professors of the day. The elder Seneca recalls Ovid's studies with Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, whom Seneca regarded as two of the four best declaimers of his time. Of Ovid's performance as an orator, Seneca remarks (Contr. 2.8.8), "He had a neat, seemly and attractive talent. Even in those days his speech could be regarded as simply poetry put into prose." Ovid apparently tried his hand at the civil service, holding two minor posts on the boards of tresuiri capitales (criminal) and decemuiri stlitibus iudicandis (civil judges).
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