AMOR CONTRA ROMA

Urgídar, a Young Iberian from Lesera, arrives to Rome the year 12 BC with the intention of training as an orator and poet. There he meets Ovid, whom he befriends, and witnesses the creation of his “Ars Amatoria”. With that book, the Roman thinker revolutionized marital relations, and challenged Augustus’s marriage laws against adultery.

This is the story of an initiation, one Urgídar endures among slaves, poets, spies, brothels, market stalls, baths, circuses, palaces, gardens, parties, orgies, conspiracies, attempts, poisonings, exiles, sea journeys, islands, magic rituals … and a dangerous scheme to take over the Empire.

Augustus’ ambition, Livia’s poisons, Julia’s orgies, Tiber’s patience, and Ovid’s games—who will finally be accused of being a “doctor adulterii”—weave a historical plot around the origins of modern eroticism.

This novel reveals how Ovid’s erotic poetry turned the Rome of Augustus upside-down –who died exactly 2000 years ago–, and why the most influential poet of all times was exiled.