Ovid was born Publius Ovidius Naso into a middle class family in the city of Sulmo in 43 B.C. He studied rhetoric in Rome and embarked on a career in government. He was on track to becoming the first Roman senator from Sulmo, but neglected his studies and dedicated his time to writing poetry.

The poetry of Ovid falls into three divisions: the works of his youth, of his middle age, and of his years in exile at Tomi. He is believed to be either the last of the Golden Age poets or the first of the Silver Age poets. His first work was "Amores", love poems centered around a woman named Corinna. Other works of his are didactic poems, including "Medicamina Faciei Femineae", a fragment of writing on cosmetics, and "Remedia Amoris", a kind of recantation of the "Ars Amatoria" (The Art of Love). He also wrote...