Statue of the Roman poet Ovid in Constanta, Romania

WHEN the Roman poet Ovid upset Emperor Augustus with his satirical works, he was given three choices. The first was to take the seemingly “honourable” route – kill himself. The second was to destroy everything he had ever written.

Neither appealed.

Instead, he was banished to a small Black Sea coastal town called Tomis, far away from the delights of Rome.

It was because of this exile that a young Romanian called Michael came to know the story of the poet, who died in AD18, aged 68.

And now, Michael V Solomon, many decades later, has written a novel that tells Ovid’s story and his return to Rome.

For Michael, who lives in Belsize Park, Ovid’s story was personal. His grandfather had been exiled without trial by the Soviet regime – and his family used Ovid to explain what had happened.

“I was six when my parents told me about Ovid for the first time,” he says. “I had been taken to Constanta on the Black Sea, where there is a huge statue in the main square.

“An old man looking down at me, as if wondering what he was doing there. He did not come here by his own will, my father explained.”

A map of the route Ovid took back to Rome

Ovid’s exile was talked about – he became known as much for his banishment as his writing.

“By pleasing his contemporaries, befriending patricians and subtly mocking the Emperor Augustus, he became, from a provincial outsider, Rome’s darling – and, for some, its corrupter,” says Michael.

And there was some mystery around Ovid that further made him the subject of the chattering classes in Rome.

“He was banished without trial by the emperor, but he continued to write. The reasons for his relegation had never been known. He attributes them to a carmen and error – ‘a poem and a mistake’ – but does not disclose specifics.”

Michael’s grandfather was also locked up between 1947 and 1964 with no explanation.

Michael recalls the impact it had.

“I might have been too young to understand what exile was, but not too young to visit my grandfather in a political labour camp,” he says.

“I would learn first-hand what banishment looks like. “

As a child, Michael wanted to write, but it was not considered a career.

“One did not become a writer,” he says. “You either became an engineer or a doctor.

“I started writing in my teenage years and had always found a real satisfaction.”

He turned his hand to poetry, focusing on issues of freedom.

“Expressing myself was as much fun as staying out of trouble, a cat-and-mouse game not unusual in authoritarian regimes. Ovid must have enjoyed the game as well,” he states.

When graduating, Michael’s first job was in Tomis – where Ovid lived.

“I was overwhelmed by Ovid’s presence everywhere. I started to research his exile, and to think about mine,” he says.

Author Michael V Solomon

“I wrote a play about Ovid, my grandfather and me. It was rejected by the local theatre: they explained that the subject was too risky to be performed.”

When travel restrictions were relaxed as the Soviet Union collapsed, Michael moved to London.

“I felt at home,” he says. “Was I still an exile? I needed to write to find out.”

His novel, The Scapegoat, traces Ovid’s life and return to Rome following Augustus’s death. It is full of insight and scandal, philosophy and drama – all based on Michael’s thorough research, which included following Ovid’s route to Italy.

Michael originally wrote the book in Romanian 13 years ago and during the pandemic he translated it.

“I was struck by his sense of powerlessness – which we all felt during the pandemic, as well as the isolation and uncertainty. We wondered when and if life would return to normal. All exiles feel this.”

Michael’s book not only reads as a page-turner, his knowledge has made the Ancient World come to life.

“It took me many years of research,” he says. “I fell in love with finding out about Ovid and his life and times.”

He uncovered plenty about Ovid’s character. It did not reveal the hero he had hoped to find.

“Ovid was very stubborn,” he says. “He was a difficult character. He lived in a couple of very different worlds and had to span them both.

“Behind the façade of despair and self-pity that he displayed in his exile poems, Tristia and Letters from the Black Sea, I hoped to discover a fighter.”

But that was not the Ovid he learned about.

“I found a drunkard and a drug addict, full of conceit, riddled by fears of dying, craving to have his bruised ego pampered, living on his past glory. I even suspected him no longer wanting to return to Rome, because for this, he needed to change, at least change back to the one he used to be.”

And as well as a creative urge, Ovid’s work was driven by something more basic.

“He also got on my nerves – he wanted to be immortal,” adds Michael. “He sought celebrity through writing about love.”
And he identified reasons for Ovid’s behaviour.

“I discovered Ovid’s birth place – about 100 miles east of Rome, in the mountains,” he says.

And this isolated place impacted on him.

“They felt they were very different from the Romans. They loved the mountains and did not feel at home elsewhere.”

Michael’s story starts in ad14 – the year Emperor Augustus died without issuing Ovid with the pardon he craved – and the poet’s voice rings down through the centuries.

“He was fortunate that his work, with some exceptions, did not get lost,” Michael adds.

“His handbooks of erotic love taught men and women the art of dealing with the opposite sex. Ars Amatoria turned him into one of the most subversive writers of all time. It has been banished, forbidden, burned, or seized more than any other book ever.”

And his series The Metamor­phoses was a landmark.

“The transformation stories, his masterpiece, remain the most important source of classical mythology today,” adds Michael.

“They inspired Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and influenced European culture, both literary and iconographic, in a manner unequalled by any writer before or after him.”

• The Scapegoat: Ovid’s Journey Out of Exile. By Michael V Solomon. Unicorn, £10