The Representation of the “Other World” in the Literature and Philosophy of the Age of the Principate, with Special Reference to Ovid

Abstract

The Age of the Principate was characterized by an unprecedented cultural development, being considered “the golden age” of the Latin literature. The so called “Latin classicism” appears now, marked by the works of several important writers, among whom we mention Ovid, the poet exiled at Tomis in the first years of the Christian age. For the classical antiquity, the image of the world where dead souls arrive was rendered by means of myth and poetry, enriched by the appeal to popular beliefs. The Latins considered, similarly to the Greeks, that the “other world” was as an obscure, undefined land, where the dead people’s souls, named manii and lemurii, were wandering. In Ovid’s works, one can find many references to the world beyond the death, which are analysed in this paper.