While Augustus represents the political architect of the era, the bimillennium of the poet Ovid focused on the endurance of his literary "transfiguration".
The Bimillennium: Echoes of the Augustan Age in the 21st Century Introduction
The 2,000th anniversary of Ovid's death saw the first professional meeting in China dedicated to the poet, titled "Globalizing Ovid," which explored his influence on 18th-century Chinese porcelain.
A bimillennium is more than a chronological marker; it is a "purely notional" yet powerful opportunity for systematic reassessment. The early 21st century has witnessed a cluster of these anniversaries, most notably the 2,000th anniversary of the death of Augustus (AD 14–2014) and the death of Ovid (AD 17–2017). These milestones have sparked a "wave of new and creative scholarly interest," prompting historians and classicists to move beyond traditional hagiography toward more complex, "disfigured," or "globalized" interpretations of Roman legacy. The Augustan Bimillennium (2014)
