“Ars Amatoria” advised men on how to make promises and deceive a woman to seduce her. In the ancient Roman art of love, this was seen as a valuable skill in love affairs, among others.

Ovid, the Roman poet of the second century A.D., wrote three books of poems called “Ars Amatoria.” His texts portray the wealthy, elegant, and hedonistic lives of the upper classes of the Roman Empire. People in that ancient culture enjoyed sensual and adventurous things to do. To pass leisure time, they looked for sexual affairs and enjoyed the pleasure of Cupid’s arrows of love. In ancient Roman society of that period, the art of making love was held in the highest regard.

The books of “Ars Amatoria”, written by Ovid originally in Latin, were translated in subsequent centuries into other languages. In the English version, it was “The Art of Love.” Therefore, people of the educated upper classes in countries were able to read them. These works are considered essential reading by readers and love experts.

The two versions of “The Art of Love” texts are currently available for interested readers online. The earlier one of 1885 was in literal English translation in prose, and the latter one of 2001 was in English verses. During the 19th century, Henry Riley (1816–1878), an English antiquarian and renowned interpreter of ancient literature, translated Ovid’s poems from Latin into literal English prose. The text of the books was published for the first time in 1885 and reprinted in 2014.

At the end of the 20th century, Anthony Kline, a poet as well as an interpreter of classical Roman poems into English, translated the poetry of Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” into English in its poetic forms. It was made available on the Internet in the year of 2001.

Even though modern people live in a different era and in a different type of society than the ancient Romans did, I believe they can still find these books fascinating and interesting to read. Therefore, for people who are interested in the cross-cultural wisdom of love, I have published articles on this website with excerpts from these books.

The poetry of “Ars Amatoria” about love is full of intelligent and interesting advice for both men and women about how to find and keep a partner. The first two books of Ovid’s poems were very specific about how to meet, flirt with, and make love to a woman.

Significant portions of Ovid’s advice on how to love are still applicable in today’s world and cultures. Ovid’s wise advice can be helpful for both modern men and women and scholars who study modern love. This is why I’ve quoted a few pieces of Ovid’s remarkable verses, translated by Anthony Kline, in the articles posted on this website. They’re speaking about “What Is His Task” (Part 1), “How to Find Her” (Part 2), “Search for Love While Walking” (Part 3), “Search for Love while at the Theatre” (Part 4), “Search for Love at the Races or Circus” (Part 5), “Triumphs that Are Good to Attract a Woman” (Part 6), “Search for Love around the Dinner-Table and on the Beach” (Parts 7 and 8), “How to Win Her” (Part 9), “How to Know the Maid” (Part 10), “How to Be Attentive to Her” (Part 11), “How to Make Promises of Love to Her” (Part 12), “How to Woo and Seduce a Woman” (Parts 13 and 14), and “How to Captivate a Woman at Dinner” (Part 15).

Here is Part 16, Teaching a Roman Man How to Make Promises and Deceive a Woman It may appear surprising in light of modern ethics, but Ovid also advised how to make promises and deceive a woman as the art of love. Here is his advice:

“Don’t be shy of promising: promises entice girls:

add any gods you like as witness to what you swear.

Jupiter on high laughs at lovers’ perjuries,

and orders Aeolus’s winds to carry them into the void.

Jupiter used to swear by the Styx, falsely, to Juno:

now he looks favourably on his own example.

Gods are useful: as they’re useful, let’s think they’re there:

take wine and incense to the ancient altars:

indifferent calm and it’s like, apathy, don’t chain them:

live innocently: the divine is close at hand:

pay what you owe, hold dutifully to agreements:

commit no fraud: let your hands be free from blood.

Delude only women, if you’re wise, with impunity:

where truth’s more to be guarded against than fraud.

Deceive deceivers: for the most part an impious tribe:

let them fall themselves into the traps they’ve set.

They say in Egypt the life-giving waters failed

in the fields: and there were nine years of drought,

then Thrasius came to Busiris, and said that Jove

might be propitiated by shedding a stranger’s blood.

Busiris told him: ‘You become Jove’s first victim,

and you be the stranger to give Egypt water.’

And Phalaris roasted impetuous Perillus’s body

in the brazen bull: the unhappy creator was first to fill his work.

Both cases were just: for there’s no fairer law

than that the murderous maker should perish by his art.

As liars by liars are rightfully deceived, wounded by their own example, let women grieve.”

Kline, A. S. (2001). Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love.