The Last Poems of Ovid | Page 4

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 103-4 and _Tr_
III v 49-50 to have been the witnessing of some action that was
embarrassing to the imperial family. Beyond this nothing is known, for
Ovid was careful to avoid compounding his original mistake by
mentioning what it consisted of.
[Footnote 1: The evidence for Ovid's _error_ and the many theories
advanced to explain it are gathered and fully discussed in J. C.
Thibault's _The Mystery of Ovid's Exile_ (Berkeley: 1964).]
The catastrophe which befell Ovid did not put an end to his poetic
activity; from the eight or nine years of his exile we possess a corpus of
elegiac verse that substantially exceeds in bulk the combined
production of Tibullus and Propertius.
The first work produced by Ovid was book I of the _Tristia_. Although
it is perhaps not literally true that Ovid wrote much of the poetry on
shipboard (_Tr_ I xi 3-10), all of the poems are directly related to the
circumstances of his downfall and his journey to exile; and it is
reasonable to suppose that the book was published shortly after Ovid's
arrival in Tomis.
In his first poems from exile, Ovid had attempted to engage the
sympathy of the public on his behalf; his next production was a direct
appeal to Augustus in the 578-line elegiac poem that comprises the
second book of the _Tristia_. The poem is written with Ovid's usual
clarity and elegance, but its failure to secure his recall is not surprising.
The poem deals only with the publication of the _Ars Amatoria_,
which was not the true cause of the exile; and rather than admitting his
guilt and appealing to Augustus' clemency, Ovid tactlessly argues that
Augustus had been wrong to exile him.
The years 10, 11, and 12 saw the publication of the final three books of

the _Tristia_. The charge of monotony that is generally brought against
Ovid's poetry from exile (and was brought by his friends at the time;
Ovid makes his defence in _EP_ III ix) is most nearly true of these
three books of verse. He was unable to name his correspondents and
vary his poetry with personal references as he was to do in the _Ex
Ponto_; and the pain of exile was so fresh as to exclude other topics.
Not all of Ovid's literary efforts in exile were devoted to his letters. It
appears from _Fast_ IV 81-82 and VI 666, as well as from the
dedication to Germanicus at the start of the first book (at _Tr_ II 551
Ovid says he dedicated the work to Augustus) that the _Fasti_ in the
edition we possess is a revision produced by Ovid in exile after the
death of Augustus.
In AD 12 Ovid produced the _Ibis_. The greater part of the poem is a
series of curses showing such minute mythological learning that many
of them have not been explained; but the poem's lengthy exordium is a
powerful treatment of Ovid's circumstances and Ibis's perfidy that has
been considered Ovid's most perfect literary creation (Housman 1041).
Many scholars also ascribe the composition of the final six _Heroides_
to the period of Ovid's exile; but although the literary appeal of these
three sets of double epistles is considerable, I believe that their
comparative diffuseness of manner indicates that Ovid was not their
author. They are, however, clearly modelled on the _Heroides_ written
by Ovid, and I have frequently quoted from them in the commentary.
In AD 12 Ovid must have received some indication that it was safe for
him to name his correspondents. He took full advantage of this new
opportunity to induce his friends to work on his behalf; it is clear from
Ovid's references to his fourth year of exile (I ii 26, I viii 28) and to
Tiberius' triumph of 23 October AD 12 (II i 1 & 46, II ii 75-76, II v
27-28, III i 136, III iii 86, III iv 3)[2] that all three books were written
within the space of a single year: as fast a rate of composition as can be
proved for any part of Ovid's life. The three books were published as a
unit: the