‘The Fasti’ was believed to have been left incomplete when Ovid was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 AD. The work, which is structured based on the Roman calendar, is a series of elegiac couplets which present the first-hand accounts of vates, or ‘poet-prophets’ with Roman deities regarding the origin of various Roman holidays and associated customs. The first six months of the year are all that is included in the work and it is unclear whether this was the intention of Ovid, whether the work is incomplete, or if the books on the last six months are simply lost. The book is dedicated to Germanicus, great-nephew of the Emperor Augustus, and it’s speculated that ‘The Fasti’ was written with the intention of restoring Ovid’s standing with the rulers of Rome and to secure his release from exile. Presented here in this edition is the verse translation by John Benson Rose.
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