XIV. To Tuticanus
In his first poem to Tuticanus, Ovid had promised that other poems would follow: 'teque canam quacumque nota, tibi carmina mittam' (xii 19). The present poem was written quite shortly after xii, perhaps in AD 16: 'Haec tibi mittuntur quem sum modo carmine questus / non aptum numeris nomen habere meis'.
The opening distich indicates that the poem is addressed to Tuticanus. The dedication is a perfunctory one, however, since he is not referred to at any other point of the letter: Ovid perhaps felt that he had fulfilled any obligations he had to Tuticanus with the highly personal earlier poem.
In 3-14 Ovid expresses at length his wish to be sent anywhere, even the Syrtes, Charybdis, or the Styx, as long as he can escape Tomis. Such complaints as these have caused the Tomitans to be angry with him (15-22). But he has been misunderstood: he was complaining not of the people but of the land. Hesiod criticized Ascra, Ulysses Ithaca, and Metrodorus Rome, all with impunity, but Ovid's verse has once more caused him trouble (23-44). The Tomitans have been as kind to him as the Paeligni would have been: they have even granted him immunity from taxation, and publicly crowned him (45-56). After this lengthy account of the Tomitans, he moves to an unexpectedly quick summing-up: Tomis is as dear to him as Delos is to Latona (57-60). This conclusion is immediately undercut by the final distich: his only wish is that Tomis were not subject to attack, and that it had a better climate. This type of undercutting is paralleled elsewhere in Ovid's verse: I discuss these passages at 61-62.
At ix 97-104 Ovid had mentioned the Tomitans' sympathy for him; but the present poem is unique for the praise Ovid bestows on them, and furnishes a striking contrast to the horrific picture of Tomis in, for instance, Tr V x. A primary purpose of Ovid's poetry from exile was to secure recall, and so he no doubt intentionally emphasized his hardships; it is clear enough from this poem that at the same time he was in fact reaching an accommodation with his new conditions of life.
3. VTCVMQVE. 'Somehow (in spite of my hardships)'. The word is used by Ovid only in the poetry of exile, and only in this sense: compare Ibis 9-10 'quisquis is est (nam nomen adhuc utcumque tacebo), / cogit inassuetas sumere tela manus' and EP III ix 53 'postmodo collectas [sc litteras] utcumque sine ordine iunxi'. This is a prose sense of utcumque, common in Livy; when the word is used in verse, it generally means 'whenever' (Hor Epod XVII 52, Carm I xvii 10, I xxxv 23, II xvii 11, III iv 29 & IV iv 35) or 'however' (Aen VI 822; the only instance of the word in Virgil).
4. TE Berolinensis Diez. B. Sant. 1, saec xiii Bodleianus Rawlinson G 105ul ME BCMFHILT. Me seems unlikely to be right, for the phrase 'nil me praeterea quod iuuet inuenies' would not only be awkward in itself, but would also be in apparent contradiction with the following 'ipsa quoque est inuisa salus', where salus refers back to utcumque ualemus.
4. INVENIES. See at ii 10 Alcinoo ([p 164]).
5. VLTIMA VOTA. 'My utmost wish'. For this sense of ultimus compare Cic Fin III 30 'summum bonum, quod ultimum appello', Livy XXVII 10 11 'aurum ... quod ... ad ultimos casus ['the greatest emergencies'] seruabatur promi placuit', Hor Carm II vii 1-2 'O saepe mecum tempus in ultimum / deducte Bruto militiae duce' (tempus has the same meaning as casus in the passage from Livy), and Petronius 24 'non tenui ego diutius lacrimas ... ad ultimam perductus tristitiam'.