Sabinus (Ovid)

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Sabinus, a contemporary poet and a friend of Ovid, known to us only from two pas­sages of the works of the latter:

1. From Am. ii. 18. 27—34, we learn that Sabinus had written answers to six of Ovid's Epistolae Heroidum. Three answers enumerated by Ovid in this passage are printed in many editions of the poet's works as the genuine poems of Sabinus, though most scholarship now doubts this, and asserts that they were written by a modern scholar, Angelus Sabinus, about the year 1467.
2. ex Pont. iv. 16. 13— 16 (written in 15) alludes to one of the above answers and also informs us of the titles of two other works by Sabinus: —

" Quique suam Troezena, imperfectumque dierum Deseruit celeri morte Sabinus opus."

Glaser conjectures that this "Troezen" was an epic poem, containing a his­tory of the birth and adventures of Theseus (whose birthplace was Troezen) till his arrival at his father's court at Athens, and that the "Dierum Opus" was a continuation of Ovid's Fasti. The letter's date suggests Sabinus died shortly before 15 AD.

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For further discussion respecting this poet, see an essay by Glaser, entitled "Der Dichter Sabinus" in the Rheinisches Museum for 1842, p. 437, &c.

[edit] Sources

• Smith

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).