‘Perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
alterius facti culpa silenda mihi;
nam non sum tanti renovem ut tua vulnera, Caesar,
quem nimio plus est indoluisse semel.
Altera pars superest, qua turpi carmine factus
arguor obscaeni doctor adulterii.’
He was guilty of no crime of his own, but was banished for witnessing the crime of another. Cf. Tr. iii. 5, 49,
‘Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector,
peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum.’
It is probable that the real reason[68] of Ovid’s banishment was that he was privy to a guilty intrigue between D. Silanus and Julia, the grand-daughter of Augustus. Julia was banished in A.D. 9, and Tacitus (Ann. iii. 24) tells us of the intrigue, for which Silanus (like Ovid) suffered relegatio. His knowledge of the offence was betrayed by friends and domestics. Cf. Tr. iv. 10, 101,
‘Quid referam comitumque nefas famulosque nocentes?’
The date of his banishment is given Tr. iv. 10, 95,
‘Postque meos ortus Pisaea vinctus oliva
abstulerat decies praemia victor equus,
cum maris Euxini positos ad laeva Tomitas
quaerere me laesi principis ira iubet.’
[Here an Olympiad is reckoned as five years.] His punishment was relegatio, involving banishment to a fixed spot, but not confiscation of property; Tr. ii. 135,
‘Adde quod edictum, quamvis immite minaxque,
attamen in poenae nomine lene fuit;
quippe relegatus, non exul, dicor in illo,
privaque fortunae sunt ibi verba meae.’
In Tomi he spent the remaining years of his life, far from friends and books; Tr. v. 12, 53,