Ovid

Born in 43 BCE in Sulmo, in what is now Italy, Ovid grew up in a well-off family and was educated for public life. Instead, he chose poetry, becoming one of the most celebrated Latin writers of the age of Augustus.

His early works made his name with witty, polished poems about love, including the Amores and Ars amatoria. He later wrote the Metamorphoses, a sweeping poem that gathers hundreds of Greek and Roman myths into one flowing story of transformation; it became one of the most influential books in Western literature.

In 8 CE, Augustus exiled him to Tomis on the Black Sea, where Ovid spent the rest of his life. In poems from exile, he describes the shock, loneliness, and uncertainty of being cut off from Rome, giving his work an emotional depth that still reaches readers today.