Abstract

The sea of love (a convenient heading under which to group the various marine and nautical metaphors, similes, parallels, allusions, and analogies applied to love and sex) was one of the more important amatory figures. It featured in both Greek and Latin from earliest until latest times, was employed in several genres of verse (dominating whole poems on occasion), appearing in prose as well, and reached an advanced stage of development in the hands of the Alexandrians and particularly the Augustans. The purpose of this article is to provide the first comprehensive and detailed study of the sea of love from the archaic period until late antiquity.