Exile of Ovid

Ovid, the Latin poet of the Roman Empire, was banished in 8 AD from Rome to Tomis (now Constanța, Romania) by decree of the emperor Augustus. The reasons for his banishment are uncertain.^[1] Ovid's exile is related by the poet himself, and also in brief references to the event by Pliny the Elder and Statius. At the time, Tomis was a remote town on the edge of the civilized world; it was loosely under the authority of the Kingdom of Thrace (a satellite state of Rome), and was superficially Hellenized. According to Ovid, none of its citizens spoke Latin, which as an educated Roman, he found trying. Ovid wrote that the cause of his exile was carmen et error ("a poem and an error"), probably the Ars Amatoria and a personal indiscretion or mistake.^[2] The council of the city of Rome revoked his exile in December 2017, some 2000 years after his banishment.^[3]

Ovid was one of the most prolific poets of his time, and before being banished had already composed his most famous poems – Heroides, Amores, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, Medicamina Faciei Femineae, his lost tragedy Medea, the ambitious Metamorphoses and the Fasti. The latter two works were left, respectively, without a final revision and only half finished. In exile, the poet continued producing works that survive today: Ibis, Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, and possibly several other, minor poems. These works consist of letters to friends and enemies, and also depict the poet's treatment by the Scythians – particularly the Getae, a nomadic people related to the Dacians or Thracians.

Ovid's poems in exile have been seen as of fundamental importance for the study of the Roman aristocracy under Augustus and Tiberius, furnishing "precious pieces of information about events and persons."^[4][5] His work continued to serve as a literary influence on Latin writers who also experienced exile, from Seneca to Boethius. It was also a central point of reference for medieval imaginings of exile, as it was for Romantic portrayals of misunderstood genius. In modern times, classicists have questioned whether the exile was merely a farce, a misrepresentation by Ovid, or a rhetorical and literary device.^[6][7]