‘Sulmonis gelidi—patriae, Germanice, nostrae—
me miserum, Scythico quam procul illa solo est!’
i. 540,
‘Felix, exilium cui locus ille fuit!’
The design is stated at the outset, i. 1-8,
‘Tempora cum causis Latium digesta per annum
lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa canam ...
Sacra recognosces annalibus eruta priscis,
et quo sit merito quaeque notata dies.’
The work is thus a medley of religion, history, and astrology, and in its explanations of customs may be compared to the Αἴτια of Callimachus. For information about religious rites, and for derivations of names (e.g. Agnalia, i. 317-332), he would have recourse to Varro; for history, to Livy (cf. ii. 193-242, the story of the Fabii, from Livy, ii. 49, and vi. 587, etc., the story of Tullia, from Livy, i. 48); for astronomy, to Clodius Tuscus.
It was begun some time after Augustus regulated the Julian calendar in B.C. 8, and was originally addressed to Augustus, as Ovid himself says (Tr. ii. 552 above); ‘Caesar’ is addressed ii. 15, vi. 763, and elsewhere. After the death of Augustus, Ovid began to remodel it and dedicate it to Germanicus. Cf. i. 3,
‘Excipe pacato, Caesar Germanice, voltu
hoc opus et timidae dirige navis iter.’
But the task was stopped by his death; and while Book i. has the remodelled form, Books ii.-vi. remain as first written.
Poems written in exile.—9. Tristia, five Books of letters to Augustus, to Ovid’s wife and friends (who, however, are not named), praying for pardon or for a place of exile nearer Rome. Book i. was written on the journey to Tomi, the other books not after A.D. 11 or 12, Cf. v. 10, 1,