Ovid was born on March 20, 43 B.C., in Sulmo(known today as Sulmona), Italy. He is considered by some to be the last of the Golden Age poets(Horace, Vergil), or by others the first of the Silver Age poets(Statius, Lucan). Unlike other Golden Age poets that survived the wars that marked the violent downfall of the Roman Republic, Ovid was the first to come come of age during the beginning of the Roman Empire(the Augustan Age).
Ovid was not considered a Roman, but Paeligian since his family was from Sulmo. However, the Paeligini had long been associated with Rome, and his family was well known locally. When his elder brother died, his family transferred all of their hopes onto Ovid. He went to Rome and embarked on career in government. He became either one of the tresuiri monetales (administrators of the mint) or of the tresuiri capitales (administrators of prisons and executions), it is unsure which. Later on he became one of the decemuiri stlitibus iudicandis, a kind of judge. He was fast on track to becoming the first Roman senator from Sulmo. However, he decided to leave the government and pursue a career and life as a poet.
He began his career writing love poems. He wrote only in elegaic couplet and hexameter, although he tended to stick to the former for the majority of his works. He is known to have written at least one play in the early part of his literary career. His greatest piece of work, however, is the Metamorphoses, an epic of an unusual sort. Ovid was most likely still working on it when he was exiled to Tomi in 8 A.D., where he continued to write poems, most of which focused on his unhappy predicament. Technically, though, his punishment was not what the Romans considered exile (Latin - exsilium), but relegation(relegatio), which was a much milder punishment that for one did not include seizure of assets. The reasons for his exile are very unclear, there are only hints to be found in his writings from that period such as in Tristia where he says that:
"Though two crimes, a song and mistake, have destroyed me,
on the cause of the one deed I have to remain silent"
Later on in his Ars Amatoria he gives a few clues as to what the error may have been:
"Why did I see anything? Why did I make my eyes guilty? Why did I recklessly learn of a sin?"
He freely admits to having knowledge of something, but denies any actual involvement in a crime.
After his return from exile Ovid enjoyed immense literary success and later poets often imitated him. His influences extended into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The popularity of the Metamorphoses remained strong, even in those times, as well as his other writings. Allegorical versions of his work was widely distributed and many of the stories of Greek and Roman mythology are most well known in their versions by Ovid. For example, his story of Pyramus and Thisbe(book four of the Metamorphoses) became the source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare was not the only writer of those times to be influenced by Ovid's writings, among some of the best known are Chaucer and Milton.
Although nothing is known of the circumstances of his death (the date is only known as being between 17-18), Ovid is most likely one of the most influential writers of his time. His influences are evident in many works by authors born generations after his death. In many ways, he is still very much alive in the rich literary history that he left behind. His imprint on the world was not made with stone or bloodshed, but with words that many enjoy even today and will for generations to come.
Source for biography:
www.jiffycomp.com/smr/rob/faq/ovid_faq.php3
