9. IAZYX. The Iazyges Sarmatae are mentioned by Pliny (NH IV 80) and by Strabo (VII 3 17), who describes them as one of several tribes living between the Borysthenes (Dnepr) and the Danube. They are also listed by Pompey, under the name of 'Iazyges Metanastae', the Wandering Iazyges (Geog III 7); the 'Iazyges' he describes as living along the shore of the Maeotis (III 5 19). Tacitus mentions the nation at Ann XII 29 4 (Vannius, king of the Suebi, is under attack) 'ipsi manus propria pedites, eques e Sarmaticis Iazygibus erat' and at Hist III 5 (the principes Sarmatarum Iazygum are enlisted to ensure the defence of Moesia in the absence of the regular troops; their offer to raise infantry as well as supplying their usual force of cavalry is rejected because of the fear of future treachery).
The name of the tribe was difficult metrically, so here Ovid calls them Iazyges, while at Tr III xii 30 (cited in the previous note) he calls them Sauromatae. At EP I ii 77 he solves the difficulty through hendiadys: 'quid Sauromatae faciant, quid Iazyges acres'.
11. ASPICIS. Ovid here uses verbs of seeing in an interesting way. At 7 and 9 he has uides; then aspicis suggests continuity but at the same time movement toward a new subject, and with a military detail introduced so as to introduce Vestalis' experience of war; then in 13-14 the emphasis is changed by the contrary-to-fact past optative utinam ... spectata fuisset.
11. ASPICIS ET MITTI SVB ADVNCO TOXICA FERRO. 'You behold how poison is hurled on the barbed steel' (Wheeler). The telum of 12 should be taken to be a spear, since mittere never seems to be used of arrows. At Ibis 135 the hasta is mentioned as the special weapon of the Iazyges.
11. ADVNCO. The spear had hooks. Compare Met VI 252-53 'quod [sc ferrum] simul eductum est, pars et pulmonis in hamis / eruta cumque anima cruor est effusus in auras', where Bömer cites among other passages Curtius IX 5 23 'corpore ... nudato animaduertunt hamos inesse telo nec aliter id sine pernicie corporis extrahi posse quam ut secando uulnus augerent' and Prop II xii 9 'et merito hamatis manus est armata sagittis'.
13-14. ATQVE VTINAM PARS HAEC TANTUM SPECTATA FVISSET, / NON ETIAM PROPRIO COGNITA MARTE TIBI. A similar opposition at Met III 247-48 (of Actaeon) 'uelletque uidere, / non etiam sentire canum fera facta suorum'.
15. TENDITVR Owen TENDITIS codd. The number of tenditis is inappropriate to the context. Owen's tenditur, independently conjectured two years later by Ehwald (KB 84), seems a somewhat more elegant solution to the problem than Merkel's TENDISTI. It puts the weight of the line on ad primum ... pilum rather than on Vestalis himself; the pentameter, with its emphasis on the honor, suggests that this is right.
15. PRIMVM PILVM. Compare Am III viii 27-28 'proque bono uersu primum deducite pilum! / nox [A. Y. Campbell: hoc uel hic codd] tibi, si belles [Madvig: uelles codd], possit, Homere, dari'. The primipilaris was the commander of the first century of the first cohort of the Roman legion, and hence first in rank among the legion's centurions.
17. PLENIS is the reading of all but two of the manuscripts collated. For this sense of plenus ('abundant'), compare Am I viii 56 'plena uenit canis de grege praeda lupis', Nux 91-92 'illa [the tree that is not near a road] suo quaecumque tulit dare dona colono / et plenos fructus adnumerare potest', Hor Sat I i 57, and Cic Sex Rosc 6 'alienam pecuniam tam plenam atque praeclaram'. Ehwald read PLENVS (FacI), joining ingens with uirtus in the following line, arguing that the honour would not seem a great one to a member of a royal family. But Ovid devoted four lines to describing Vestalis' new rank: he must have believed that Vestalis would consider it a very great honour indeed. As well, if ingens is connected with titulus, uirtus ... maior gains point.
17. PLENIS ... FRVCTIBVS. For the wealth of the primipilaris, see Am III viii 9-10 'ecce recens diues parto per uulnera censu / praefertur nobis sanguine pastus eques'. In that poem the newly-rich primipilaris, Ovid's rival in love, is given a character very different from that of Vestalis.