11. OCCIDIS ANTE PRECES. 'You died before making your request'. Since Fabius is named in an inscription (CIL VI 2023a, line 17; cited by Froesch 209) as having participated in the election of Drusus to the Arval Brotherhood on 15 May AD 14, he must have died very shortly before Augustus.
11-12. CAVSAMQVE EGO, MAXIME, MORTIS ... ME REOR ESSE TVAE. The death of Fabius, so soon before that of Augustus, seems to have raised popular suspicions. Tacitus (Ann I 5 1-2) mentions a rumour that Fabius had secretly accompanied Augustus to Planasia to visit Agrippa Postumus and that his wife had warned Livia of this; Augustus heard of this, and at Fabius' funeral she was heard blaming herself for his death. If Fabius' death occurred under strange circumstances, Ovid's accusation against himself of having been its cause may have special point.
For a full discussion of the circumstances of Fabius' death, see Syme HO 149-51.
12. NEC FVERAM TANTI. 'But I was not worth this much'. Fueram has the sense of the imperfect, as at AA I 103-4 'tunc neque marmoreo pendebant uela theatro, / nec fuerant liquido pulpita rubra croco'; other instances at Her V 69, AA II 137, AA III 429 & 618, and Tr III xi 25. A full discussion at Platnauer 112-14: he cites thirteen instances from Propertius, who seems to have been fondest of the idiom, and only one certain instance from Tibullus, II v 79 'haec fuerant olim'.
FVERO (BC) gives the sense 'but I will be discovered not to have been worth this much'; the tense seems difficult to fit to the context.
FVERIM (British Library Burney 220, saec xii-xiii) 'but I hope I was not worth so much' is quite possibly correct, and would account for the corruption to fuero.
12. NEC ... TANTI. Similar phrasing at Met X 613 (Atalanta ponders Hippomenes' willingness to risk death to gain her hand) 'non sum me iudice tanti'.
13. MANDARE. 'Consign'; a legal term for charging others with carrying out business on one's behalf, which carried certain obligations with it. See Gaius III 155-62, Just Inst III 26, and the discussion at Buckland 514-21.
15. DETECTAE ... CVLPAE scripsi DECEPTAE ... CVLPAE codd. Me decipit error is a phrase used by Ovid to mean 'I am making a mistake'; see EP III ix 9-12 'auctor opus laudat ... iudicium tamen hic non decipit error ['I do not make this error of judgment'], / nec quicquid genui protinus illud amo'. Ovid uses the expression very often for the "mistake" which led to his exile: see Tr I iii 37-38 (Ovid to his friends on the night of his exile) 'caelestique uiro quis me deceperit error / dicite pro culpa ne scelus esse putet', Tr IV i 23 'scit quoque [sc Musa] cum perii quis me deceperit error', and EP II ii 61 'quasi me nullus deceperit error'. He uses decipere once when speaking of the other cause of his exile: 'o puer [sc Amor], exilii decepto causa magistro' (EP III iii 23). Wheeler took deceptae to refer to Ovid: 'Augustus had begun to pardon the fault I committed in error'. This kind of extreme hypallage, with the true modified noun not expressed, does not however seem to be Ovid's practice, although found in the Silver poets: Statius Theb IX 425 'deceptaque fulmina' means 'the thunderbolts thrown by Jupiter at the request of Semele, who had been deceived by Juno'. Professor J. N. Grant suggests DECEPTI to me; but the genitive of the first person is rare in Ovid, and the perfect participle without expressed noun seems difficult. Owen saw the difficulty with deceptae, and in his second edition referred to Livy XXII 4 4 'id tantum hostium quod ex aduerso erat conspexit; ab tergo ac super caput deceptae insidiae'. But deceptae (which has been variously emended) there means occultae, as explained by Housman (521-22), who cited Prop II xxiv 35-36 'Phrygio fallax Maeandria campo / errat et ipsa suas decipit unda uias' and Sen HF 155 for the same sense; and occultae is clearly not the meaning here required, since Ovid's misdemeanour was all too visible.
Being unable to explain deceptae, I have conjectured detectae. Ovid seems to have committed his error in two stages. First he committed the original misdemeanour; then he kept silent about it when it might have been better for him to speak. Compare Tr III vi 11-13 'cuique ego narrabam secreti quicquid habebam, / excepto quod me perdidit, unus eras. / id quoque si scisses, saluo fruerere sodali'. Later this misdemeanour was discovered: for the arrival of the news of this discovery when Ovid was visiting Elba with Cotta Maximus, see EP II iii 83-90. It is to this discovery that detectae refers: 'Augustus had begun to forgive the misdemeanour that had been revealed'. For this use of detegere compare Met II 544-47 'ales / sensit adulterium Phoebeius [coruus, the raven], utque latentem / detegeret culpam, non exorabilis index, / ad dominum tendebat iter' and Livy XXII 28 8 'necubi ... motus alicuius ... aut fulgor armorum fraudem ... detegeret'.