Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in 43 BC at Sulmo in central Italy to a wealthy family. His father wanted him to enter public life, but he gave himself to poetry and soon became the favourite poet of Roman society. His love poetry is witty and playful, and his Art of Love was all the rage. In AD 8, just as he was completing the Metamorphoses, Augustus suddenly banished him to Tomis on the Black Sea, today Constanța in Romania, for, as he put it, 'a poem and a mistake'. He spent the rest of his life there and never saw Rome again.