Ovid (43 BC–AD 17)

Latin poet. His poetry deals mainly with the themes of love (Amores (20 BC), Ars amatoria/The Art of Love (1 BC)), mythology (Metamorphoses (AD 2)), and exile (Tristia (AD 9–12)). Born at Sulmo, Ovid studied rhetoric in Rome in preparation for a legal career, but soon turned to literature. In AD 9 he was banished by Augustus to Tomis, on the Black Sea, where he died. Sophisticated, ironical, and self-pitying, his work was highly influential during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Other works include Epistolae ex Ponto; Fasti, a poetical calendar; and Heroides. All his surviving poems are written in elegaic couplets, with the exception of Metamorphoses which is in hexameters.