The influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses on Western art, music, drama, poetry, and literature cannot be overstated. If emulation is the greatest form of flattery, as it has been said, then there is perhaps no more complimented writer in the Western canon than Ovid.

Ovid's impact is distinguished among the classical writers in that his fame grew during his own lifetime and continued to grow unabated after his death. Archeologists have found Ovidian graffiti dating to Ovid's lifetime on the walls of Pompeii. According to Peter Knox, writing in his biographical essay on Ovid for the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Seneca said in reference to Ovid's oratorical skills, "He had a neat, seemly and attractive talent. Even in those days his speech could be regarded as simply poetry put into prose." However, Knox also quotes the Spanish rhetorician, Quintilian (35—96 a.d.), who criticized Ovid's transitions in...