Most editors print VIX VLLI (BCT), which is possible enough. Vix illi seems rather more forceful, however, as making the point that even Theseus was able to make the dangerous journey only with difficulty, and that before him the road was impassable. Compare Met VII 443-44 'tutus ad Alcathoen, Lelegeia moenia, limes / composito Scirone patet'.
81. OPEROSA. The word in the sense 'troublesome' seems confined to prose except for this passage and Her II 63-64 'fallere credentem non est operosa puellam / gloria; simplicitas digna fauore fuit'.
83. PERSTAS IPF2ul. Compare Tr IV i 19-20 'me quoque Musa leuat Ponti loca iussa petentem: / sola comes nostrae perstitit illa fugae' and Tr V xiv 19-20 'quae ne quis possit temeraria dicere, persta [uar praesta] / et pariter serua meque piamque fidem'. PERSTAS, the reading of most manuscripts, would have no acceptable meaning in the present passage; it has no object, and the intransitive meaning, 'stand out', is clearly inappropriate. The error may have been induced by Tr IV v 23-24 'teque, quod est rarum, praesta constanter ad omne / indeclinatae munus amicitiae'; more probably, it is an aftereffect of praestandus in 81.
83. INDECLINATVS governs amico. The only other instance of the word in classical Latin seems to be Tr IV v 24, quoted at the end of the last note.
84. LINGVA QVERENTE. Ovid elsewhere uses persons as the subject of queri, except for similar uses of metonymy at xiv 26 'littera de uobis est mea questa nihil' and Tr V xi 1-2 'Quod te nescioquis per iurgia dixerit esse / exulis uxorem, littera questa tua est'.
XI. To Gallio
The poem is a letter of condolence to the famous rhetor Junius Gallio, an old friend of Ovid (see at 1). Ovid starts the poem by saying that Gallio should certainly be mentioned in his poetry, because he helped Ovid at the time of his catastrophe (1-4). This one misfortune should have been enough for him, but now he has lost his wife (5-8). Ovid wept on receiving the news, but will not attempt to comfort him, since by now the grief is in the past, and he would risk renewing it (9-20). Also (and he hopes this will turn out to be the case), Gallio may already have remarried (21-22).
The poem is one of the shortest in Ovid's canon (Am II iii is shorter), and has few parallels with his other poems. The one that comes closest is EP I ix, addressed to Cotta Maximus, which describes Ovid's reaction on hearing of the death of Celsus. There are some verbal parallels as well with EP I iii, Ovid's answer to Rufinus' letter of consolation on his exile. In the commentary I cite passages from Ser. Sulpicius Rufus' famous letter to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia (Fam IV v) and from Seneca's treatises of consolation; Ovid was clearly making use of the common topics of the genre.
1. GALLIO. Junius Gallio[24], adoptive father of the younger Seneca's elder brother, is often cited by the elder Seneca, who considered him one of the four supreme orators of his time (Contr X praef. 13). At Suas III 6-8, Seneca discusses Gallio's fondness for the Virgilian phrase plena deo (which, oddly, is not found in our text of the poet), and quotes Gallio as saying that his friend Ovid was also very fond of the phrase. Quintilian and Tacitus did not share Seneca's high opinion of Gallio: Quintilian criticizes the lack of restraint in his style (IX ii 92), while at Dial 26 1 Tacitus has Messalla say how he prefers 'G. Gracchi impetum aut L. Crassi maturitatem quam calamistros ['curling irons' = 'excessive ornament'] Maecenatis aut tinnitus Gallionis'.