Publius Ovidius Naso is better known to the English-speaking world as Ovid. Regarded as an equal of those most famous of Roman poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. Ovid was generally considered the greatest master of the elegiac couplet and his poetry was much imitated throughout history.
Ovid wrote in elegiac couplets, with two exceptions: his lost poem Medea, and perhaps his most famous work The Metamorphoses, which he wrote in dactylic hexameter, the poetic meter of Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's epics.
Ovid offers an epic unlike those of his predecessors, a chronological account of the cosmos from creation to his own day, incorporating many myths and legends about supernatural transformations from the Greek and Roman traditions.
Ovid was born into an equestrian family in 43 BCE in Sulmona in central Italy but he was educated in Rome. His father wished for him to study rhetoric and law. But after the death of his father, Ovid renounced law and began traveling. He traveled to Athens, Asia Minor, and Sicily and after he returned to Rome began  to pursue his poetry under the patronage of Mesalla.
In 8 BCE Ovid wrote The Metamorphoses, which became an instant success. From his own time until today, Ovid was among the most widely read and imitated of Latin poets; his greatest work, the Metamorphoses, also seems to have enjoyed huge popularity.
In 8 AD for reasons that remain unknown, the Emperor Augustus banished Ovid to Tomis on the Black Sea, in what is now Romania. Ovid himself wrote that it was because of "a poem and a mistake" but it is believed that Ovid had an affair with a female relative of Augustus, or withheld knowledge of such an affair.
In this period of exile he continued to write in both Latin and the local language although most of those poems are ones of sadness and desolation. Ovid died at Tomis after nearly ten years of banishment.

The Metamorphoses

Ovid offers an epic unlike those of his predecessors, a chronological account of the cosmos from creation to his own day, incorporating many myths and legends about supernatural transformations from the Greek and Roman traditions. Probably written in 8 BCE, it has remained one of the most popular works of mythology.
Ovid emphasizes tales of transformation where a person or lesser deity is permanently transformed into an animal or plant, hence the title.
The poem is divided into fifteen books and describes the creation and history of the world in terms according to Greek and Roman points of view. The poem begins with Prometheus changing earth into Man and ends with the transformation of the spirit of Julius Caesar into a star.
Ovid works his way through the major stories of Greek and Roman mythology, jumping from one transformation story to another. There is little attempt to create an epic quality to the poem and most stories are only given a token telling. However, they are beautifully told and the poem garnered praise almost immediately it arrived in Rome.
A recurring theme of the poem is that of love—amorous love or the dissembling nature of love personified by Cupid. The Roman gods are repeatedly confounded and embarrassed, by Cupid. Apollo is a particular victim as Ovid describes how irrational love can confound the god of pure reason.