The Last Poems of Ovid | Page 3

(dash) above.
When the textual apparatus reports a manuscript correction where the original reading is no longer legible, the HTML version underlines the corrected letters, but the Text version uses capitalization. For example, the Text version reports "facTisque _B2c_" at iii 25: a later hand in _B_ has erased the original fourth letter, and has replaced it with "t".
In the commentary, when metre is being discussed and a Latin word is quoted, any vowel in that word which is capitalized is long, and any vowel which is not capitalized is short. I have occasionally pointed out explicitly that a word is metrically inconvenient because it has a series of short vowels: in the HTML edition, because the actual letters are marked short, these statements will appear to be redundant.
In the Latin text, the start and end of passages which are deeply corrupt and therefore difficult to correct are indicated by an asterisk, instead of the usual dagger (obelus).
Finally, in the critical apparatus, '?' is used where a manuscript has 'e' with a cedilla.
Enhancements made: the indices
In order to make the digital edition as useful as possible, I have added this preface, a full table of contents, and two indices.
The first index (starting on page 477) is an index of _topics discussed_. It is a selective rather than an exhaustive index for the following two reasons:
(1) A commentary is already in effect indexed by the text it is linked to. If, for instance, readers wish to find what the commentary has to say about a certain passage, all they need do is turn to the part of the commentary dealing with that passage.
(2) A digital edition can be searched online very quickly and easily. A reader wishing to find any mention of the eminent Dutch textual critic Nicolaus Heinsius could find every mention of Heinsius in the edition simply by using "Heinsius" as a search argument.
However, some of the discussions in the commentary do not have an obvious link to the text, nor would they necessarily be found quickly by an electronic search. An example would be the discussion of "Simple verbs used for compound ones" at page 281.
Also, there were some parts of the introduction and commentary which I wanted to highlight to the reader as being of possible interest: including references to these in the index would serve this purpose.
For similar reasons, I have included (starting on page 489) an index of textual emendations first proposed in this edition. Some of these emendations involve works other than _Ex Ponto_ IV, and authors other than Ovid. The index of textual emendations makes these corrections easy to find.
The debt I owe to others
I was able to create this edition only because of the help that I have received over the years from others.
My basic training in the classical languages took place at the University of British Columbia, where I completed my B.A. in 1974, and my M.A. in 1977. It is impossible to repay the debt I owe to every single member of the Classics Department at that time.
Professor Charles Murgia of the University of California (Berkeley) initiated me into the mysteries of Latin palaeography and textual criticism.
I created this edition while a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Professor Richard Tarrant, who encouraged me to undertake the edition, posed many excellent questions, and offered many excellent suggestions.
I owe a similar debt to Professor Alexander Dalzell, Professor Elaine Fantham, Professor J. N. Grant, and Professor C. P. Jones, all of them members of the Graduate Department of Classics at the University of Toronto when I was creating the edition.
I have known Rob Morrow for twenty-one years, and he has touched every aspect of my life. The study of Latin poetry is a field of endeavour far removed from his usual interests: but even here he has made an important contribution in the work he did in scanning the original typescript, and in his continuing encouragement and support during the months I worked on creating this digital edition. It is to him, with deep affection and gratitude, that I dedicate this edition.
INTRODUCTION
In AD 8, when he was fifty years of age, Ovid was abruptly banished from Rome to Tomis, an exile from which he never returned. In his poetry from exile, he gives two reasons for the banishment: the publication of the _Ars Amatoria_, and an unnamed error (_Tr_ II 207; _EP_ III iii 71-72)[1]. The _Ars Amatoria_ had been published some years previously, being generally dated on the basis of _AA_ I 171-72 to 2 BC or shortly thereafter; compare _Tr_ II 545-46. The error was clearly the real cause of the banishment; what precisely this _error_ was Ovid does not reveal, but it appears from _Tr_ II