Metamorphoses

Book I; The four Ages of Humankind
A long time ago, humankind lived into conditions that were comparable with what the Bible describes as “The Garden of Eden”; Ovid called it the Golden Age and humans enjoyed almost godlike status and lives.
They didn’t know the Art of Navigation and didn’t feel the urge to explore the rest of the world. During that age, the god Saturn was in charge of the creation, but got deposed by one of the younger gods, Jupiter, what kicked off the next age.
Into the Silver Age, we see the introduction of the four seasons because Jupiter granted the goddess of the harvest to go to the underworld for six months a year to stay with her daughter, who was abducted by Pluto, the king of the underworld. Humankind had to learn Agriculture because nothing would grow during the months that she was in the underworld and Architecture to build houses to protect themselves against the cold. Into the Bronze Age most man were warmongers, but still respectful to the Gods, till some stupid king serves a boy to Jupiter for dinner, igniting the God’s fury about the desecration.
As a punishment, Jupiter sent a huge flood that lasted for 9 days and that destroyed all life, apart of that of two chosen ones; Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. Because Deucalion was already 82 years old, they were to repopulate the World by throwing stones over their shoulder.
His stones turned into man, hers into women. Into the Iron Age we see the world to be divided into nations and they discovered Navigation and Mining. Since then, humans became greedy, aggressive and impertinent. We get also introduced to Apollo, Daphne, Io and Phaeton, all linked by a complicate genealogy.
Book II; More Divine Comedy.
The second book starts with the same personage as the first book ended; Phaeton, the son of Phoebus, the sun god. When he asks to borrow his father’s car (the sun chariot) for one day he nearly burns up the earth. Or ancestors can be grateful to Jupiter that he killed the reckless driver with a thunderbolt before he could do so.
The story goes on with the nymph Calisto, a follower of the goddess Diana, who breached her vow to remain a virgin after being seduced by Jupiter. She got banned out of Diana’s inner circle and gives birth to a boy named Arcas. The goddess Juno, Jupiter’s wife, sick of jealousy, changes the nymph into a bear who 16 years later, nearly got killed by her own son. At the last moment, Jupiter could avert the tragedy and transformed them into star constellations.
Another nymph Ocyrrhoe meets her fate because one of the gods (in this case Apollo) became besotted of her.
And so this chapter goes on, to conclude with the rape of Europa by Jupiter into the disguise of a bull.

Book III and IV; the wrath of the gods
The third book starts with the story of Cadmus, the founder and first ruler of Thebes, who’s also credited for the creation of the first Phoenician alphabet from which the Greek alphabet is a derivate. But he became a victim of the wrath of the gods when he killed a water dragon that was held sacred by Mars.
These two books are full of similar stories of mortals who, sometimes unintended, provoked the anger of a god or goddess and who have subsequently had to carry the burden of their vengeance. For example Cadmus, he only killed the dragon after the dragon killed two of his companions because they were taking water out of a well that the dragon was protecting.

Books IV till XI; Pathetic love-struck Gods.
Cupid is amongst the ranks of the gods only a minor god, but if this story had a central protagonist, it was him. Repeatedly he sneaked through the pantheon to ridicule and surprise the other gods, made them react in an irrational way. In these books, Ovid reverted with humor the normal order of things; there where the gods were behaving as irresponsible teenagers, while the human thoughts, passions and actions were almost noble.
Book XII till XV; the history of Rome presented as an explanation for the deification of its emperor.
Into this section of Metamorphoses, one can observe the shift from myth to history. First there is an old god, Saturn (probably the creator) who got deposed by Jupiter the almighty. In the second part you find the victorious hero (Perseus) and in the third part the hero Hercules becomes a god. Into his last section, Ovid connected the fall of Troy with the founding of Rome, the first three parts preparing us for the introduction of the divine human. So one could discern that where in the Pythagoras episode, the wisdom that Numa learns at Croton, was following the writer related to the small city over whose cultural beginnings he would preside. That way Rome’s foundation became divinely motivated and of which the seers predicted the leadership of the world under the rule of the descendants of Aeneas. Connecting the foundation of Rome with Troy was Rome’s connection with the mythical past of it. Into this context, argues Ovid, Troy was not completely fallen since Aeneas would claim another land and one of his descendants would make “mistress of all things” thus reaching the heavens as a new god; the Augustine connection.
Yet he, when all is said, came over the seas
To join the ranks of Roman deities;
Cesar is god at home.

Ovid was born a year after the murder of Julius Cesar and this verse was meant to give his successor and heir, Augustine, a Godlike progenitor (although Ovid omits to tell that Augustus Cesar was an adoptive son of Julius Cesar).

And now a radiant star
He sees his son’s great exploits from afar,
And grants them greater as his own to be,
Rejoicing into his son’s supremacy.
The whole transitional design of this poetic tale was to come to this evolutive apotheosis;
Far be the time, deferred beyond our days,
When great August leaves the Earth he sways,
And joins the gods, yet still with loving care,
From heaven shows favor to our prayer.

Ovid ends his book with a prayer for the future of Rome and its Emperors, but insists that where all of those can fall to dust, his tale will stand for ever (as it did indeed, up to now).
Comment;
The only institute that survived the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church, has sovereignty rights over a tiny part of the city of Rome, known as the Vatican, where Latin is still the official language. Of course the small territory stands in big contrast with the spiritual influence its absolute ruler, the Pope, has over his millions of followers worldwide.
Upon his elevation to Pope, the Roman Catholic doctrine attributes him with a couple of demi –god-like qualities. He is infallible in matters of theological teachings and is to be referred to as Your Holiness; they just stopped short before deification. Another analogy is that the soldiers who’re responsible for the Papal security are called The Pretorian Guard; the same as the Roman imperial life guard.
Ovid would probably argue that thus the Roman Imperium has never fallen completely and still lives on into one of the institutes it founded. It was after all the Roman Emperor Constantine I who, in 325, convened the first council of all Christian bishops a Nicaea.
Since Rome at its turn was a continuation of Troy, that would connect the church with the Greek mythology and their pantheon of gods. That’s maybe why the roman catholic church, who believes that there is only one and unique god (who’s a trinity) assisted by a bunch of helpers called angels, felt the urge to create that many saints who can also be venerated and be prayed to in order to request a special favor (just like the Greek gods, every saint has a specialism). The only real general requirement for being canonized a saint is that the person in question has to be dead.