Curated playlist
1st-century Roman poets
- OvidOvid blamed his exile on a poem and a mistake. He suggested the poem was his guide to seduction, the Ars Amatoria.
- JuvenalJuvenal never mentions exile in his Satires, yet every surviving biography says he was exiled.
- DomitianRoman emperor Domitian was stabbed by a steward who faked an arm injury to hide a dagger.
- PetroniusCharged with treason, Petronius opened his veins, bound them up, then reopened them while talking with friends.
- MartialMartial, a Roman poet, mocked landlords who set fires for insurance money.
- PersiusThe Roman poet Persius left fewer than seven hundred lines, yet they became a medieval favorite.
- StatiusPublius Papinius Statius, a Latin poet who lived from about 45 to about 96 CE, three times received a golden crown directly from an emperor's hand. The emperor was Domitian, and the prize was handed out at the Alban Festival. Statius left…
- TitusEmperor Titus reportedly died saying, "I have made but one mistake." No one agrees what it was.
- GermanicusRomans began mourning Germanicus before the Senate ordered it. He died in Antioch in AD 19, aged thirty-three.
- LucanNero rewarded the poet Lucan with honors, then banned his poetry. Lucan's epic turned openly against the emperor.