 In spite of the "Metamorphoses" enduring popularity from its first publication (around the time of Ovid's exile in 8 AD) no manuscript survives from antiquity.From the 9th and 10th centuries there are only fragments of the poem; it is only from the 11th century onwards that manuscripts, of varying value, have been passed down.Influential in the course of the poem's manuscript tradition is the 17th-century Dutch scholar Nikolaes Heinsius.