at Tomi, a colony planted among the Getae, in the midst of barbarous and hostile tribes, on the bleak shores of the Euxine, near the mouth of the Danube. To hear was to obey. Paralysed by grief, he tore himself from the arms of his afflicted wife, and set forth in the dead of the winter for the place of his destination, which he reached the following spring.

The cause of this banishment is a problem which has excited the curiosity and exercised the ingenuity of learned men ever since the revival of letters, but it is one which our present sources of knowledge do not enable us to solve. The ostensible reason was the immoral tendency of the Ars Amatoria: to this Ovid frequently alludes, and the second book of the Tristia, which is addressed to Augustus, contains an elaborate apology for that poem'. But, even if we set aside the fact that it was published nine years before the period of which we now speak, we are expressly told that there was another and more deadly offence which had roused the wrath of the prince. The language employed in reference to this matter is ever dark and mysterious; but the poet distinctly states that he had seen something which ought never to have met his eye, and constantly urges the plea that his transgression ought to be looked upon as a blunder, or an inadvertence, rather than a crime. His expressions, however, are not only always ambiguous, but not unfrequently inconsistent with each other; at one time he seems inclined to throw the whole blame upon his unlucky poem; at another he insinuates, with little concealment, that this was used merely as a pretext. It would be vain to enumerate the various hypotheses which have been proposed, the greater number of which are palpably absurd. The most probable is that which supposes that he had become accidentally acquainted with some of the intrigues

1 The works of Ovid were at this time cast forth from the three great public libraries of Rome; that in the temple of Apollo Palatinus, that in the Atrium Libertatis, and that in the Porticus Octaviae.-See Trist. 3. I, 59, et seqq.

of Julia, the profligate granddaughter of the emperor, whose well-known sensibility in all matters affecting the honour of his family rendered him unable to tolerate the presence of a man who had been an eye-witness to the infamy of one of its members. The following are the most important passages which bear upon this topic :

Trist. 2. 541, addressed to Augustus,

'Carminaque edideram, cum te delicta notantem
Praeterii toties iure quietus eques.

Ergo, quae iuveni mihi non nocitura putavi
Scripta parum prudens, nunc nocuere seni.
Sera redundavit veteris vindicta libelli,
Distat et a meriti tempore poena sui.'

E. ex. P. 2. 15, addressed to Macer,

'Naso parum prudens, artem dum tradit amandi,
Doctrinae pretium triste magister habet.'

E. ex P. 4. 13, 41, addressed to Carus,

Carmina nil prosunt; nocuerunt carmina quondam:
Primaque tam miserae causa fuere fugae.'

See also Trist. 2. 211, 239, 345, in all of which the Ars Amatoria is represented as the source of his misfortune. But in the following from E. ex P. 3. 3, 37, another and more serious offence is indicated. The poet is addressing Amor, in a vision,

'Nec satis id fuerat, stultus quoque carmina feci,
Artibus ut posses non rudis esse meis.
Pro quibus exilium misero mihi reddita merces,
Id quoque in extremis et sine pace locis.'

To which Amor replies—

'Per mea tela faces, et per mea tela sagittas,
Per matrem iuro, Caesareumque caput:
Nil, nisi concessum, nos te didicisse magistro;
Artibus et nullum crimen inesse tuis.
Vtque hoc, sic utinam defendere cetera posses!
Scis aliud quod te laeserit esse magis.
b

Quidquid id est (neque enim debet dolor ille referri)
Non potes a culpa dicere abesse tua.

Tu licet erroris sub imagine crimen obumbres;
Non gravior merito vindicis ira fuit.'

Again in E. ex. P. 2. 9, 73, addressed to the Thracian prince,
Cotys,

'Neve roges quid sit; stultam conscripsimus Artem;
Innocuas nobis haec vetat esse manus.
Ecquid praeterea peccarim, quaerere noli,

Vt lateat sola culpa sub Arte mea.

Quidquid id est, habui moderatam vindicis iram:
Qui, nisi natalem, nil mihi dempsit, humum,'

and in Trist. 2. 207

'Perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi:

Nam non sum tanti ut renovem tua vulnera, Caesar,
Quem nimio plus est indoluisse semel.

Altera pars superest; qua turpi crimine tactus
Arguor obscaeni doctor adulterii,'

upon which he proceeds to argue that the nature and tendency of his poem were perfectly harmless. The quotations below declare the crime to have consisted in witnessing some hidden deed; thus Trist. 2. 103

'Cur aliquid vidi? cur noxia lumina feci?

Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi?
Inscius Actaeon vidit sine veste Dianam :
Praeda fuit canibus non minus ille suis.'

and Trist. 3. 5, 49

'Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector:
Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum.
Non equidem totam possum defendere culpam :
Sed partem nostri criminis error habet.'

Compare also Trist. 3. 1, 49; 6, 25, to the same effect. Finally, in E. ex. P. 1. 6, 21, addressed to Graecinus, he speaks of his offence as a secret which it would be dangerous to disclose.

'Nec leve, nec tutum, peccati quae sit origo,
Scribere: tractari vulnera nostra timent.
Qualicumque modo mihi sint ea facta rogare
Desine: non agites, si qua coire velis.

Quidquid id est, ut non facinus, sic culpa, vocandum,
Omnis an in magnos culpa Deos, scelus est?'

and yet, notwithstanding all this affectation of mystery, he tells us in Trist. 4. 10, 99

'Causa meae cunctis nimium quoque nota ruinae
Indicio non est testificanda meo.'

Ninety-six poems in Elegiac verse serve as a sad chronicle of the sufferings he endured during his journey, and while in exile. They exhibit a melancholy picture of the mental prostration of the gay, witty, voluptuous Roman, suddenly snatched from the midst of the most polished society of the age, from the exciting pleasures of the capital of the world, from the charms of a delicious climate, and abandoned to his own resources among a horde of rude soldier peasants, in a remote half-civilized frontier garrison, beneath a Scythian sky. Notwithstanding the exertions of many and powerful friends; notwithstanding the expostulations, entreaties, prayers, and servile abasement of the unfortunate victim, Augustus and his successor Tiberius remained alike inexorable, and Ovid died of a broken heart in the sixtieth year of his age, and in the tenth of his banishment.

b 2

II.

P. OVIDII NASONIS VITA

EX CODICE VETVSTO.

P. Ovidius Naso a. d. XII. Kal. April. Sulmone in Pelignis natus est; quo anno bello Mutinensi P. Hirtius et C. Pansa Coss. diem obiere. Honoribus Romae functus: fuit enim arbiter et triumvir, et iudicium inter centum viros dixit. Sub Plotio Grippo literis eruditus: deinde apud Marcellum Fuscum Rhetorem, cuius auditor fuit, optime declamavit. Admirator plurimum Porcii Latronis fuit, quem adeo studiose audivit, ut multas eius sententias in versus suos transtulerit. Bonus declamator et ingeniosus habitus est, et carmine et prosa licenter scripsit, ingenii sui adeo amator, ut ex iis quae dixit, etiam percantibus amicis, nihil mutaverit. In carminibus vitia sua non ignoravit, sed amavit. Militavit sub M. Varrone. Iulio Graecino Grammatico familiaris. Tandem cum venisset in suspicionem Augusti, creditus sub nomine Corinnae amasse Iuliam, in exsilium missus est; exsulavit Tomis, ibique decessit annum agens LX. novissimum.