Sabinus (died 14 or 15 AD) was a

Latin poet The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC. History Scholars conve ...

and friend of Ovid. He is known only from two passages of Ovid's works. At '' Amores'' 2.18.27—34, Ovid says that Sabinus has written responses to six of Ovid's ''

Heroïdes The ''Heroides'' (''The Heroines''), or ''Epistulae Heroidum'' (''Letters of Heroines''), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved hero ...

'', the collection of elegiac epistles each written in the person of a legendary woman to her absent male lover. These are enumerated as Ulysses to Penelope, in response to ''Heroïdes'' 1; Hippolytus to Phaedra (''H.'' 4); Aeneas to Dido (''H.'' 7); Demophoon to Phyllis (''H.'' 2); Jason to Hypsipyle (''H.'' 6); and (presumably) Phaon to

Sappho Sappho (; el, Σαπφώ ''Sapphō'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her Greek lyric, lyric poetry, written to be sung while ...

(''H.'' 15). Three of these Ovidian responses by Sabinus — the letters from Ulysses and Demophoon, along with a letter from Paris to Oenone (''Heroïdes'' 5) — are printed in Renaissance editions of the ''Heroïdes''. Modern scholars believe them to have actually been written in the 1460s–1470s by the humanist Angelo Sabino, who was a poet and editor of classical texts. His edition advertised the inclusion of poems by "Aulus Sabinus," and though this has sometimes been taken as the ancient poet's ''

praenomen The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the bi ...

,'' it was probably part of Sabino's invention. Sabinus is also among some thirty contemporary poets mentioned by Ovid in his verse letters from exile (collected as the '' Tristia'' and '' Epistulae ex Ponto''). Ovid's bitter last letter ''ex Ponto'', written in 15 AD, alludes to Sabinus's response from Ulysses and gives titles for two other works by him, ''Troezen'' and ''Dierum Opus'', the latter of which is said to have been left unfinished upon his recent and untimely death. The 19th-century scholar Carl Gläser conjectured that the ''Troezen'' was an epic poem containing a history of the birth and adventures of Theseus, whose birthplace was Troezen, up to the time of his arrival at his father's court at Athens. The ''Dierum Opus'' ("Days' Work") he regarded as a continuation of Ovid's calendrical '' Fasti'', which was left unfinished when he died in exile.Carl Eduard Gläser, "Der Dichter Sabinus," ''Rheinisches Museum'' 1 (1842), 437–442. Since Sabinus died before Ovid, this may be problematic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabinus 1st-century Romans 10s deaths 1st-century Roman poets Ancient Roman poets Golden Age Latin writers Latin writers known only from secondary sources Year of birth missing Year of death uncertain