Ovid, the
Latin poet of the
Roman Empire, was banished in 8
CE from Rome to Tomis (now
Constanta,
Romania) by decree of the
emperor Augustus. The reasons for his banishment are uncertain. 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 civilised world; it lay beyond the
Danube, 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", probably the
Ars Amatoria; and a personal indiscretion or mistake.