Speaking in a Situation : Ovid and the Ethopoeia
The Augustan poet Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18) is mentioned by Seneca the elder for his oratorical skills as a school boy. If we are to believe Seneca, Ovid excelled to such a degree that he even surpassed his teachers. He took special interest in exercises concerning ethos, and is said to have transferred what he learned into his own verse. The influence from rhetorical training is indeed visible in O
