In Malouf’s novel, as in reality, Ovid paid a heavy price for his temerity. Yet it is out of these flimsy facts that David Malouf has fashioned an intriguing life-in-exile for Ovid in his second novel, An Imaginary Life ( 1978). It turns out that what I remember about him is about all there is to know, probably because Augustus was as good at turning his foes into ‘non-persons’ as Soviet dictators do. He liked The Good Life, and most of its lesser vices, and he enjoyed being provocative for the fun of it. This was not least because he was a bit of a ‘lad’, full of joie de vivre and a taste for ladies not necessarily available for romance, even in free-and-easy Rome. He was exiled to a remote island called Tomis because he offended the Emperor Augustus, and was utterly miserable there. I discovered the Roman poet Ovid when I was at university and enjoyed reading his Amores and Metamorphoses very much – but I was much too young to appreciate him properly. All I really remember is that the Amores was rather raunchy and that Ovid wrote once too often about matters too sensitive for him to be permitted to continue.
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