21. Which Roman poet, author of "Metamorphoses", was banished from Rome in the year 8 AD?
From Quiz Eight the Hard Way
Answer:
Ovid
A younger contemporary of both Virgil and Horace, Ovid is considered one of the three classical poets of Latin literature. Born 43 BC, he lived until either 17 or 18 AD, and his early works bore themes of eroticism, women's beauty and the art of love.
By 8 AD he was at the height of his popularity and had just completed his most ambitious work "Metamorphoses", a 15 book epic that chronicled the history of the world, right up to the point of the deification of Julius Caesar. This was also the year that Ovid was exiled to Tomis, a region in Romania, by the Black Sea. The edict was delivered by the Emperor Augustus, himself, without discussion with the Senate or any of Rome's judges. As to why he was exiled, it is not known. Augustus never revealed it, nor did Ovid. The only reveal came from a piece of poetry from Ovid where he indicated that it arose from "a poem and a mistake" and that "his crime was worse than murder".