Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T07:07:13.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

OVIDʼS HIDDEN LAST LETTERS ON HIS EXILE – TELESTICHS FROM TOMIS: POSTCODE OR CODE?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2019

Keith Mitchell*
Affiliation:
Sunderland, UK
*

Abstract

Ovid is clear that the cause of his exile was a carmen and an error, the one his poem the Ars amatoria (although written several years before his exile in AD 8), the other something which he was never allowed to explain. This paper argues that Ovid has encrypted a plausibly deniable statement contradicting the official reason for his exile in three interrelated telestichs in his Fasti, a work already known to have been revised in exile.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

My thanks are due, as ever, to the staff of the Robinson Library of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In particular, I must record my sincere gratitude to CCJʼs Editor and Readers, without whose patience, encouragement and always constructive criticism this paper could not have come to fruition.

References

Works cited

Allen, K. (1922) ʻThe Fasti of Ovid and the Augustan propagandaʼ, AJPh 43, 250–66.Google Scholar
André, J. (1968) Ovide Tristes. Texte établi et traduit, Paris.Google Scholar
André, J. (1993) Ovide Pontiques. Texte établi et traduit, Paris.Google Scholar
Barchiesi, A. (2001) Speaking volumes: narrative and intertext in Ovid and other Latin poets, London.Google Scholar
Boyle, A. J. (1997) ʻPostscripts from the edgeʼ, Ramus 26, 728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brill's New Pauly (2009) Encyclopaedia of the ancient world, Leiden and Boston.Google Scholar
Carter, M. A. S. (2002) ʻVergilium vestigare: Aen. 12.587–8ʼ, CQ 55, 615–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colborn, R (2013) ʻSolving problems with acrostics: Manilius dates Germanicusʼ, CQ 63, 450–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everymanʼs Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography (rev. edn 1952), London.Google Scholar
Fantham, R. E. (1985) ʻOvid, Germanicus and the composition of the Fastiʼ, Papers of the Liverpool Latim Seminar 5, 243–82.Google Scholar
Fantham, R. E. (1995) ʻReview article: recent readings of Ovidʼs Fastiʼ, CP 90, 367–98.Google Scholar
Green, S. J. (2004) Ovid, Fasti 1: a commentary, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hejduk, J. D. (2018) ʻWas Vergil reading the Bible? Original sin and an astonishing acrostic in the Orpheus and Eurydiceʼ, Vergilius 64, 71101.Google Scholar
Herbert-Brown, G. (1994) Ovid and the Fasti: an historical study, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G. O. (2017) ʻSome new and old light on the reasons for Ovidʼs exileʼ, ZPE 203, 7684.Google Scholar
Ingleheart, J. (2010) A Commentary on Ovid: Tristia, Book 2, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lemprière, J. (1984) Classical dictionary, 3rd end, London and Boston.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. (1993) ʻNullum, Vare…: chance or choice in Odes 1.18?ʼ, Philologus 137, 142–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newlands, C. E. (1995) Playing with time: Ovid and the Fasti, Ithaca and London.Google Scholar
Owen, S. G. (1915) P. Ovidi Nasonis Tristium libri quinque. Ex Ponto libri quattuor, Oxford.Google Scholar
Peeters, F. (1939) Les Fastes dʼOvide. Histoire du texte, Brussels.Google Scholar
Robinson, M. (forthcoming) ʻArms and a mouse: thinking about acrostics in Vergil and Ovidʼ, MD.Google Scholar
Smith, W. (ed.) (1873) A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography (London).Google Scholar
Syme, R. (1978) History in Ovid, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thibault, J. C. (1964) The mystery of Ovidʼs exile, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Wheeler, A. L. (1988) Ovid VI: Tristia, Ex Ponto, with an English translation, rev. Goold, G. P., 2nd edn, Cambridge, MA and London.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, L. P. (2005) Ovid recalled, Bristol.Google Scholar