In the last work before he died, Delacroix depicts the last years of the life of Ovid after being exiled from Rome by Augustus. Living in the Black Sea port of Tomis in Scythia Minor, the poet was treated well by the Scythian in comparison to the Romans. The patch of land that contains the action in the composition is green and lush, seemingly untouchable by the resting volcanoes surrounding it—an oasis. Amid previous canvases of destruction and violence, Ovid Among the Scythians itself serves as a similar relief to Delacroix.  Other parallels can be drawn between Ovid and Delacroix. Nearing death, both artists sympathize with the notion that the romantic artist is misunderstood by his own people—a common belief among French romantic intellectuals of the mid-nineteenth century.

Delacroix first premiered the work at the 1859 Paris Salon. The unusual composition and questionable scale of the figures in the “first draft” Ovid (1859) evoked criticism from the art world. In his second, more complete version of Ovid Among the Scythians (1862), Delacroix more closely integrated the figures and landscape and resolved his problems with scale.