The Last Poems of Ovid

by Ovid

33. OMNES, TVM QVOS. Ehwald wished to read OMNES, TVNC HOS (P reads TVNC HOS ORES), hos referring to the gods of the Capitol who had been named in the distich missing after 32; but this would leave cum Ioue Caesar erunt without a predicate.

33. AEQVOS. 'Favourable'; compare Her I 23 'sed bene consuluit casto deus aequus amori'; Tr I ii 6 'aequa Venus Teucris, Pallas iniqua fuit', Tr III xiv 29 'aequus erit scriptis', and Tr IV i 25.

35. E MORE VOCATI. 'Convened, as is traditional'. After the sacrifice on the Capitoline, the new consul addressed the assembled Senate; compare Livy XXVI 26 5 'M. Marcellus cum idibus Martiis consulatum inisset, senatum eo die moris modo causa habuit ['held a session of the Senate simply because it was traditional to do so']' and Livy XXI 63 8 'ne die initi magistratus Iouis optimi maximi templum adiret, ne senatum inuisus ipse et sibi uni inuisum uideret consuleretque'.

36. INTENDENT AVRES. The expression is not found elsewhere in Ovid, or in Virgil; but compare Manilius II 511 'at nudus Geminis intendit Aquarius aurem'. The expression is presumably an extension of oculos (aciem) intendere, for which see Cic Tusc IV 38, Ac II 80, and Tac Ann IV 70.

37. FACVNDO TVA VOX ... ORE. For Pompeius' eloquence, Némethy cites Val Max II vi 8 'facundissimo ... sermone, qui ore eius quasi e beato quodam eloquentiae fonte manabat' and IV vii ext 2 'clarissimi ac disertissimi uiri'.

37. HILARAVERIT. The verb is rare and elevated in tone. Compare Cic Brut 44 (of Pericles' oratory) 'huius suauitate maxime hilaratae Athenae sunt', Catullus LXIII 18, and Ecl V 69.

38. VTQVE SOLET, TVLERIT PROSPERA VERBA DIES. Compare Fast I 175-76 (Ovid to Janus) '"at cur laeta tuis dicuntur uerba Kalendis, / et damus alternas accipimusque preces?"'.

40. Riese's punctuation 'facias cur ita, saepe dabit' seems preferable to the alternate 'facias cur ita saepe, dabit', as placing more emphasis on Augustus and being perhaps an echo of Tr IV ii 12 'munera det meritis, saepe datura, deis'.

42. OFFICIVM POPVLI = populum officium facientem; the same metonymy at Met XV 691-93 (of Aesculapius) 'restitit hic agmenque suum turbaeque sequentis / officium placido uisus dimittere uultu / corpus in Ausonia posuit rate'.

44. NEC POTERVNT ISTIS LVMINA NOSTRA FRVI. Other non-personal subjects at Cic Am 45 (animus) and ps-Quint Decl VII 10 'uulneribus illis non fruentur oculi'. In all of these passages the transition from an expressed personal subject to a faculty or part of the personality seems fairly natural.