Ars Amatoria
The "carmen" to which Ovid referred has been identified as "Ars Amatoria" (The Art of Love), written some seven years before his exile. However, Ovid expresses surprise that only he has been exiled for such a reason since many others also wrote obscene verse, seemingly with the emperor's approval. Scholars have argued that Ovid's real crime was "lèse-majesté". Augustus was presenting himself as the restorer of Roman public morality and could not fail to punish an author of such standing who represented himself in the "Ars amatoria" as a promoter of adultery in defiance of the Emperor.