The land swayed beneath Magistrate Ovid’s feet as he exited the carriage outside his father’s villa, forty days after he’d left Alexandria. Rome lay beneath him, firelight dotting the hills like uneasy eyes, the sounds of drunken revelry no longer audible due to the brisk winds. Some thought the city like a slumbering lion, restless and ready to draw blood with its sharp claws, but Ovid saw the city like a colony of ants, climbing over themselves to offer their bodies to a mercurial emperor. The requested return to Rome was no accident. His father did nothing without purpose, and

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