( 0441; 43 BCAD 18) Illustrious period in Latin literary history.
Along with the preceding period, which was dominated by Cicero , it forms the Golden Age of Latin literature. Marked by civil peace and prosperity, the age reached its highest expression in poetry, with polished, sophisticated verse on themes of patriotism, love, and nature, generally addressed to a patron or to the emperor Augustus . Writers active in the period include Virgil , Horace , Livy , and Ovid . The term is also applied to "classical" periods in the literature of other nations, especially to late 17th-and 18th-century England.