[4] Professor E. Fantham notes as well the central placement of poem ix, with its laudes Augusti.
[5] Full information on what is known of each of the addressees will be found in the introductions to the poems in the commentary.
[6] Ovid had used a similar technique in Tr I i, where he gives his book instructions for its voyage to Rome, including directions on how it should approach Augustus.
[7] Professor R. J. Tarrant points out to me in particular that lines 63-64 on the apotheosis of Augustus being in part accomplished through poetry are one of the few instances in the poetry of exile of Ovid's earlier mischievous irony towards Augustus—a sign of a return on Ovid's part to his earlier form.
[8] However, Albinovanus' poem on Germanicus' campaigns may have had a strong geographical element; as Professor E. Fantham notes, Ovid may here be appealing to this interest, or demonstrating competitive skill in handling the topic.
[9] The manuscripts were probably produced at the same German centre. Professor R. J. Tarrant has noted the presence of the Ex Ponto in book-lists of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries from Blaubeuern, Tegernsee, Bamberg, Egmond, and Cracow (Texts and Transmission 263); he suggests Tegernsee to me as a probable candidate for the production of B and C.
[10] G. P. Goold ("Amatoria Critica", HSPh 69 [1965] 10) has an interesting discussion of the problems in establishing Ovid's orthography. For accusative plural endings in the third declension, he concludes that -is for Ovid can be neither established nor excluded.
[11] In recent years much progress has been made in identifying the manuscripts Heinsius used. See the monograph of Munari and the articles of Reeve and Lenz listed in the bibliography.
[12] Electa minora ex Ovidio, Tibullo et Propertio, London, 1705. The book was reprinted as late as 1860 (Brit. Mus. Gen. Catalogue, vol. 177, col. 470). I quote some of the notes on x in the commentary and apparatus.
[13] 'Diligenter autem et religiose tractaui codicem et singulas epistolas bis, et in locis uexatis saepius contuli. Neque tamen, quae hominum est imbecillitas, aciem oculorum quaedam effugisse, negabo' (xi-xii).