When Ovid completed the Metamorphoses around 8 CE, Rome was a new empire under its first emperor Augustus. In 31 BCE, Augustus (previously called Octavian) won the Battle of Actium, and in 27 BCE, he became the sole ruler and emperor of Rome. This ended the Roman Republic, which had begun centuries earlier in around 509 BCE but had been undergoing a period of widespread violence and civil war prior to Augustus’ ascension. He brought the first era of relative peace in approximately a century. Although Ovid and many others of his time were technically born into the Republic, by the time he completed his Metamorphoses, much of Rome had little personal experience with Rome’s prior political system.

Ovid was born in 43 BCE, just after the assassination of Julius Caesar. He was a contemporary of the poets Virgil and Horace, and the three together are considered canonical Latin authors and emblematic of early imperial Roman literature. Ovid was born into an middle class family outside of Rome, and he was later educated in rhetoric in Rome. Ovid had a brief political career, as many wealthy Roman men of his period did, but for much of his life he pursued writing.