<P> Ovid 's is the oldest surviving version of the story , published in 8 AD , but he adapted an existing etiological myth . While in Ovid 's telling Pyramus and Thisbe lived in Babylon and Ctesias had placed the tomb of his imagined king Ninus near that city , the myth probably originated in Cilicia ( part of Ninus ' Babylonian empire ) as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the local Ceyhan River . The metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changing into this river and Thisbe into a nearby spring . A 2nd - century mosaic unearthed near Nea Paphos on Cyprus depicts this older version of the myth . </P>
<P> Ovid 's is the oldest surviving version of the story , published in 8 AD , but he adapted an existing etiological myth . While in Ovid 's telling Pyramus and Thisbe lived in Babylon and Ctesias had placed the tomb of his imagined king Ninus near that city , the myth probably originated in Cilicia ( part of Ninus ' Babylonian empire ) as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the local Ceyhan River . The metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changing into this river and Thisbe into a nearby spring . A 2nd - century mosaic unearthed near Nea Paphos on Cyprus depicts this older version of the myth . </P>
when was the story of pyramus and thisbe written
when was the story of pyramus and thisbe written
published in 8 AD
published in 8 AD