The research and research training network "Augustan Poetry" was launched in Lille in June 1998 by Jacqueline Fabre-Serris following a conference in honor of Simone Viarre: Elegy and epic poetry in the Ovidian (Heroides and Amours). The founding members were Alessandro Barchiesi, Alain Deremetz, Jacqueline Fabre-Serris, Jean-Christophe Jolivet, Mario Labate, and Gianpiero Rosati.

At the time of its creation in 1988, the network brought together the universities of Florence (Lead: Mario Labate), Lille (Lead: Jacqueline Fabre-Serris) and Udine (Lead: Gianpiero Rosati). It has since integrated the universities of Dublin (Lead: Damien Nelis), Oxford (Lead: Philip Hardie), London (Lead: Alessandro Schiesaro) and Heidelberg (Lead: Jürgen Paul Schwindt).

As some Leads have since changed universities, the network has grown to include, by endorsements, the universities of Geneva (Lead: Damien Nelis), Cambridge (Lead: Philip Hardie), Rome (Lead: Alessandro Schiesaro) and La Scuola Normale di Pisa (Lead: Gianpiero Rosati).

The network integrated in 2016 the Freie Universität Berlin (Lead: Melanie Möller) and in 2022 the Durham University (Lead: Roy Gibson).