Ovid

A fascinating and surprising biography of one of ancient Rome’s greatest and most influential poets, tracing the mysterious scandal and heartbreaking exile that defined his life and reflected the changes sweeping the newly emerging Roman Empire

In AD 8, Emperor Augustus handed down the verdict that Ovid—a mischievous, daring and subversive poet, famous and beloved then as he is today—was to be exiled to the farthest reaches of the empire. It was a life-shattering turning point for the cultural titan. But most surprisingly, though he left behind a substantial body of work, we do not know the reason the emperor dispatched him across the seas. In Ovid, the celebrated classicist Daisy Dunn investigates this stunning mystery—and reveals the secrets it holds about the precarious moment in history that was the creation of the Roman Empire.

Ovid was a virtuosic, playful, and audacious artist during a time when the people of Rome craved the freedom found in his work but when transgression was becoming a threat to the empire. He was undeniably popular and influential; his depictions of Icarus, King Midas, the forerunners of Pyramus and Thisbe, and many, many more are still part of the stories we tell today. But Emperor Augustus, in his effort to solidify his rule and legacy during the uncertain transition from republic to empire, became fixated on imposing old-fashioned morals on his public. As Dunn reveals through rigorous research and her own lively translations of Ovid’s work, the poet’s erotic verses and refusal to conform had no place in the emperor’s new world order. Though the details of the central tragedy of Ovid’s life remain shrouded in shadow, Ovid constructs a new understanding of the very makings of Rome, as seen through the eyes of a poet who lost the emperor’s favor.