In the meantime, Ovid’s most famous work Metamorphoses is generally regarded as his masterpiece and it is said that the work was completed ‘By AD 8’ (http://www.poemhunter.com/ovid/biography/), the year in question when Ovid was allegedly banished. However, ‘a poem’ in question that implied by Ovid himself as a possible cause for his banishment is usually regarded as his earlier works, The Amores and The Ars Amatoria. Whilst the latter was pointed out by Ovid himself as the poem, which was the ‘cause of his banishment’ (ibid) during his exile, the former has been speculated as the poem in charge, due to its contents. Although both seem to have much in common in their contents – whilst the latter is about the Art of Love, which ‘parodies didactic poetry whilst being a manual about seduction and intrigue’ (ibid), the former ‘made fun of conventional (socially accepted) love poetry and offered vivid portrayals of contemporary Roman society’ (http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ni-Pe/Ovid.html) – a significant difference between them is that the author ‘writes about adultery, rendered illegal in Augustus’s marriage law reforms of 18 BC’ (http://www.poemhunter.com/ovid/biography/) in the former.
It is said that The Amores is one of Ovid’s early works and its original edition can be traced back to ‘a five-book collection, circa 20 BC’ (ibid), before the marriage law reforms take place. Furthermore, it seems that Ovid continued to work on this title for a couple of decades because there is a ‘surviving, extant version, reduced to three books, includes poems written as late as AD 1’ (ibid). This means that despite the criminalising of adultery with severe penalties such as ‘exile and confiscation of property’ (http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-romanlegal120.shtml) nearly a couple of decades ago, the final form of completed work was not only yet in circulation but also was described as ‘an immediate and overwhelming success in fashionable society’ (http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ni-Pe/Ovid.html) roughly for eight more years until the author’s banishment.
For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/ovids-banishment-and-the-julian-marriage-laws/
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