After a first publication (around 1 BC) of two of the books, Ovid wrote the third dealing with the same themes from the female perspective at a later date (c. AD 1).
The Ars amatoria is, on one of its many levels, a burlesque satire on didactic poetry. While claiming 'Aeacidae Chiron, ego sum praeceptor Amoris' ('As Chiron was to Achilles, so I am to Cupid' - in other words, 'I taught Cupid everything he knows'), Ovid hardly offers lore of great potency to his eager disciples. He advises that, if one is accompanying a lady to the horse-racing in the Circus Maximus, one should gallantly brush the dust from her gown. And if there isn't any dust there, brush it nonetheless. A young man should promise the moon to the object of his affections in letters - even a beggar can be rich in promises. A small woman, meanwhile, would be better advised to receive her suitor lying down... but should make sure that her feet are hidden under her dress, so that her true size is not disclosed.
Although Ovid protests 'Siqua fides arti, quam longo fecimus usu, /Credite: praestabunt carmina nostra fidem' ('If you trust art's promise that I've long employed/ my songs will offer you their promise'), his erotic advice comes less from 'longo usu' than from a literary tradition, especially the two previous exponents of the Latin love-elegy, Propertius and Tibullus, and the (mostly lost) erotic poetry of the Greek Hellenistic period.
This is no didactic poem in the straightforward sense, but a sophisticated urban Roman conversation piece, aimed at an audience of corresponding tastes and refinement. Nonetheless, Ovid's linguistic brilliance, his scholarship and his capacity for allusion (and the illusion of allusion) take the Ars amatoria far beyond the mere burlesque. The marriage of form and content he achieves makes it possible to argue that this is, indeed, a didactic poem - but what it teaches is not the 'Art of Love', but the art of seeing life poetically.
Appropriately for its subject, the 'Ars amatoria' is composed in elegiac couplets, rather than the hexameters more usually associated with the didactic poem. Students of Latin will therefore find this easier to read than the verse form in which Ovid is accustomed to writing.
The first two books, aimed at men, contain sections entitled, for example, 'Don't Forget Her Birthday!', 'Let Her Miss You - But Not For Long' and 'Don't Ask About Her Age'. The third gives similar advice to women: 'Make-Up, But In Private', 'Beware of False Lovers' and 'Try Young and Older Lovers'. In fact, however, Ovid gives no advice that is immediately usable, but employs cryptic allusions, while on the surface treating the subject matter in all its many aspects with the range and intelligence of urbane conversation. His intent is often more profound than the brilliance of the surface suggests. In connection with the revelation that the theatre is a good place to meet girls, for instance, Ovid, the classically educated trickster, refers to the story of the rape of the Sabine women. It has been convincingly argued that this passage represents a radical attempt to redefine relationships between men and women in Roman society, advocating a move away from paradigms of force and possession, towards concepts of mutual fulfilment.
The superficial brilliance, however, dazzles even scholars (paradoxically, Ovid consequently tended in the 20th century to be underrated as lacking in seriousness). The standard situations and cliches of the subject are treated in a highly entertaining way, spiced with ever-colourful details from Greek mythology, everyday Roman life and general human experience. Ovid likens love to military service, supposedly requiring the strictest obedience to the beloved woman. Women, meanwhile, he advises to make their lovers artificially jealous so that they do not become neglectful through complacency. For this purpose, a slave should be instructed to interrupt the lovers' tryst with the cry 'Perimus' ('We are lost!'), compelling the young lover to while away some time in a cupboard. Readers can follow the 