Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known in English as Ovid (/ˈɒvɪd/ OV-id), was a <a href="/facts/Augustan_literature_(ancient_Rome)/SFJhbHGT">Roman poet</a> who lived during the reign of <a href="/facts/Augustus/RGfMCR2V">Augustus</a>. He was a younger contemporary of <a href="/facts/Virgil/K9zjwwHS">Virgil</a> and <a href="/facts/Horace/8NQn78B9">Horace</a>, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three <a href="/facts/Western_canon/2skJ4h7f">canonical</a> poets of <a href="/facts/Latin_literature/qX5zBEDL">Latin literature</a>. The <a href="/facts/Roman_Empire/l4E1aUuV">Imperial</a> scholar <a href="/facts/Quintilian/b1jMLAbI">Quintilian</a> considered him the last of the Latin love <a href="/facts/Elegy/wqeeMAJW">elegists</a>. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus <a href="/facts/Exile_of_Ovid/59Wvnbk0">exiled him</a> to <a href="/facts/Constan%25C8%259Ba/4hQxbEuP">Tomis</a>, the capital of the newly-organised province of <a href="/facts/Moesia/bw41LUd4">Moesia</a>, on the <a href="/facts/Black_Sea/M0rLKvge">Black Sea</a>, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Ovid is most famous for the <a href="/facts/Metamorphoses/1VToCpsF">Metamorphoses</a>, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in <a href="/facts/Dactylic_hexameter/PzpmyFka">dactylic hexameters</a>. He is also known for works in <a href="/facts/Elegiac_couplet/CjtKESEh">elegiac couplets</a> such as <a href="/facts/Ars_Amatoria/NfdjElN4">Ars Amatoria</a> ("The Art of Love") and <a href="/facts/Fasti_(poem)/MkD4waj6">Fasti</a>. His poetry was much imitated during <a href="/facts/Late_Antiquity/sPTl0dyD">Late Antiquity</a> and the <a href="/facts/Middle_Ages/RqzEKB9v">Middle Ages</a>, and greatly influenced <a href="/facts/Western_art/LNbzu6l1">Western art</a> and <a href="/facts/Western_literature/Ko4LJC6H">literature</a>. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of <a href="/facts/Classical_mythology/143wLJoq">classical mythology</a> today.

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Ovid