Poesia encomiastica nelle Epistulae ex Ponto

Among the strategies deployed to secure himself the return to Rome, Ovid offers to his would-be benefactors (first of all the princeps) to be celebrated by his poetry. In this context, important models must have been Hellenistic encomiastic compositions, which had also mediated archaic Greek celebrative poetry (among other genres, epinikia). It is not easy for Ovid to carry out this ambitious project, that is made difficult by his very absence from Rome, but he succeeds in giving us some specimens of innovative panegyrical poetry (Pont. 2.9; 4.7). This turns out to be an important argument in his negotiations with power.