it nostras numerosus Horatius aures,
dum ferit Ausonia carmina culta lyra.
Vergilium vidi tantum; nec amara Tibullo
tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae.'

Besides the _rura paterna_ at Sulmo, Ovid possessed an estate on the
_via Clodia_, near Rome; _Pont._ i. 8, 41,

'Non meus amissos animus desiderat agros
ruraque Paeligno conspicienda solo,
nec quos piniferis positos in collibus hortos
spectat Flaminiae Clodia iuncta viae.'

He cannot have been poor, in spite of his complaints, _e.g._ _Pont._ iv.
8, 32,

'Carpsit opes illa ruina meas.'

(2) WORKS.

1. _Amores_, at first in five Books, but in a second edition reduced
to three; cf. the motto prefixed to the Book,

'Qui modo Nasonis fueramus quinque libelli,
Tres sumus.'

The poems are nearly all on Corinna, a name which probably does not
stand for any real person, but merely for an abstraction around which
Ovid groups his own fancies. To suppose, as Sidonius Apollinaris did
(23, 157)[69] that Augustus' daughter Julia was meant, is absurd, for
Corinna is a _meretrix_. The identity of Corinna was unknown; _Am._
ii. 17, 28,

'Et multae per me nomen habere volunt.
Novi aliquam, quae se circumferat esse Corinnam';

and twenty years afterwards Ovid could write (_A.A._ iii. 538),

'Et multi, quae sit nostra Corinna, rogant.'

The _Amores_, in their original form, constituted Ovid's earliest
work, written in his youth. The extant poems are not all that he wrote
on Corinna; _Tr._ iv. 10, 57,

'Carmina cum primum populo iuvenilia legi,
barba resecta mihi bisve semelve fuit.
Moverat ingenium totam cantata per urbem
nomine non vero dicta Corinna mihi.
Multa quidem scripsi; sed quae vitiosa putavi,
emendaturis ignibus ipse dedi.'

The lament for Tibullus (iii. 9) must have been written in Ovid's
twenty-fourth year.

2. _Heroides_.--Some of these at least were written before the second
edition of the _Amores_, for in _Am._ ii. 18, 21-6 nine of them are
mentioned by name. The title _Heroides_ is due to the grammarian
Priscian; in the MSS. they are called _Epistulae_, and so Ovid himself
refers to them, _A.A._ iii. 345,

'Vel tibi composita cantetur epistula voce:
ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus.'

Of the twenty letters in our collection 1-14 are letters from heroines
to their lovers; 15-20 are in pairs, _e.g._ Paris to Helen and Helen
to Paris. The authenticity of these last six is doubted, par