With the fall of Troy and the escape of Æneas, the poem begins to deal with Roman rather than Greek subjects. The earlier adventures of Æneas and others after the fall of Troy are, to be sure, still derived from Greek sources, but the stories of the combats in Italy and of the founding of Rome are no longer Greek. Near the end of the poem the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls is set forth in considerable detail. Several Roman stories follow, and at last comes the account of Julius Cæsar’s ascent to the gods, and a prophecy of a similar fortune for Augustus. Then the poem ends with the lines: And now my work is done; which not Jove’s wrath, Nor fire, nor sword, nor all-consuming age Can e’er destroy. Let when it will that day, Which only o’er this body’s frame has power, Make ending of my life’s uncertain space; Yet shall the better part of me be borne Above the lofty stars through countless years, And ever undestroyed shall be my name. Where’er the Roman power o’er conquered lands Extends, shall I be read by many tongues, And through all ages, if there’s aught of truth In prophecies of bards, my fame shall live. Certainly Ovid had written a most remarkable poem. At times the lack of earnestness so noticeable in his earlier works appears also in the _Metamorphoses_, but frequently he is carried along by his subject to utterances of real power and pathos. His hexameters have not the swelling grandeur of Virgil’s, but they have a fluent rapidity and easy grace that no other Latin writer ever attained. Nor does any other Roman poet equal Ovid in the art of telling a story. He is a master of direct, simple narrative and of clear, vivid description, and he excels also in dramatic presentation and in the analysis of human thoughts and feelings. In the _Metamorphoses_ Ovid’s power is at its height. His later poems, written after his banishment, show a constant deterioration in every respect, even in technique. The long series of laments over his exile is tedious and wearisome. The five books entitled _Tristia_ consist of elegies addressed for the most part to no one person, while the four books of _Letters from the Pontus_ (_Ex Ponto_) have the form of real letters to the poet’s friends. The second book of the _Tristia_ is one long letter of appeal to Augustus. The short poem entitled _Ibis_ is an elaborate heaping up of curses and maledictions against an enemy to whom the fictitious name of Ibis is given, and the _Halieutica_ is a fragment (134 lines) of a poem on fishes. Among all these poems those in which Ovid refers to his own circumstances are the most interesting. It is from these[84] that most of our information about his life is derived. In some of these elegies the tone of genuine feeling, which is wanting in the earlier poems, is evident: