Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE)
“My gift
Is poetry, the praise
Of beautiful girls. I can make them immortal. Fine dresses,
Jewelry, gold, all perish. But the fame
Bestowed by my verse is perennial.”
- From The Amores (1.10.60) by Ovid, translated by Peter Green in The Erotic Poems (Penguin Classics, 1982).