Theseus’s battle with the Minotaur appears in Book 8 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid, a Roman poet who lived from 43 BCE to about 17 CE, included the Cretan story within his large narrative poem about transformations.
Book 8 describes Minos’s war with Athens, the Athenian tribute sent to Crete, Theseus’s entry into the Labyrinth, and his defeat of the Minotaur. It then continues with related stories, including Daedalus and Icarus and the transformation of King Minos’s daughter Scylla.
Ovid’s account helped preserve and popularize the myth for later European readers. It is not the earliest surviving version of every detail, and different Greek and Roman authors vary in emphasis.
The Roman poem is written in Latin hexameter, while many modern retellings simplify or combine episodes from Ovid with material from Greek mythographers and later adaptations.