=23. ACIES LIBYCAS ROMANAQVE PROELIA.= The poem may have concerned the Jugurthine war, or Caesar's African campaign; compare _Fast_ IV 379-80 'illa dies Libycis qua Caesar in oris / perfida magnanimi contudit arma Iubae'.

For the juxtaposition of opposing proper adjectives (_Libycas Romana_), see Tarrant on Sen _Ag_ 613-13a _Dardana tecto / Dorici ... ignes_.

=24. ET MARIVS SCRIPTI DEXTER IN OMNE GENVS.= For the phrasing compare _Tr_ II 381-82 '_omne genus scripti_ grauitate tragoedia uincit: / haec quoque materiam semper amoris habet' and _Tr_ II 517-18 'an _genus hoc scripti_ faciunt sua pulpita ['stage'] tutum, / quodque licet, mimis scaena licere dedit?'. _C_'s MARIVS SCRIPTOR and _B_'s SCRIPTOR MARIVS were no doubt induced by the hyperbaton of _scripti ... genus_.

Marius is not otherwise known.

=25. TRINACRIVSQVE ... AVCTOR.= In view of the following _auctor ... Lupus_, _Trinacrius_ should be taken as a proper name, and not as an adjective.

The adjectival form of the name is, however, suspicious, and may be a corruption far removed from what Ovid wrote.

=25. SVAE= seems strange, and is probably corrupt. Wheeler translated 'Trinacrius who wrote of the _Perseid_ he knew so well', while Andre ignored _suae_ altogether: 'l'auteur trinacrien de la "Perseide"'.

=25-26. AVCTOR / TANTALIDAE REDVCIS TYNDARIDOSQVE LVPVS.= Lupus (otherwise unknown) apparently wrote of the return of Menelaus and Helen to Sparta.

_Tantalides_ is used only here of Menelaus. Elsewhere in Latin verse it is used of Agamemnon, Atreus, and Pelops: see _OLD Tantalides_. Ovid is here using the diction of high poetry.

=27. ET QVI MAEONIAM PHAEACIDA VERTIT.= Tuticanus; his translation of the Phaeacian episode of the Odyssey is mentioned at xii 27-28. As that poem explains, his name could not be used in elegiac verse: hence the periphrasis in this passage.

=27. ET VNE= _HLB2_ ET VNe _M2c_ ET VNA _IT_ ET VNI _B1C_ IN ANGVEM _F_.

_Vne_ was liable to corruption because of the hyperbaton with _Rufe_ in the next line, and because of the rarity of the vocative of _unus_. For _unus_ in the sense 'unique, outstanding', compare Catullus XXXVII 17 'tu praeter omnes _une_ de capillatis' ('you outstanding member of the long-haired set'--Quinn) and Prop II iii 29 'gloria Romanis _una_ es tu nata puellis'.

=27-28. VNE / PINDARICAE FIDICEN TV QVOQVE, RVFE, LYRAE.= An imitation of Hor _Carm_ IV iii 21-23 'totum muneris hoc tui est / quod monstror digito praetereuntium / _Romanae fidicen lyrae_'.

=28. RVFE.= Otherwise unknown. Andre correctly points out that he is unlikely to be the Rufus addressed in _EP_ II xi, 'dont Ovid n'aurait pas manque alors de vanter le talent poetique'. Bardon (59) mentions that A. Reifferscheid ("Coniect. noua", _Ind. lect. Bresl._, 1880/81, p. 7) identified this Rufus with the Pindaric poet Titius of Hor _Ep_ I iii 9-10, thereby creating 'le tres synthetique Titius Rufus'. But there is nothing very compelling about the identification.

=29. MVSAVE TVRRANI.= The poet is not otherwise certainly known. Bardon (48) reports the conjectures of Hirschfeld ("Annona", _Philologus_, 1870, p. 27) identifying him with C. Turranius, _praefectus annonae_ at the time of Augustus' death (Tac _Ann_ I 7) and of Munzer (_Beitr. zur Quellenkritik_ 387-89), identifying him with the geographical writer Turranius Gracilis mentioned by the elder Pliny (_NH_ III 3, IX 11).

=29. INNIXA COTVRNIS.= The _coturnus_ was distinguished by its high sole; hence _innixa_ ('supported by'). Compare _Am_ III i 31 (of Tragedy) 'pictis _innixa coturnis_' and Hor _AP_ 279-80 'Aeschylus ... docuit magnumque loqui _nitique coturno_'.

=29. COTVRNIS.= As Brink at Hor _AP_ 80 points out, _coturnus_ (not _cothurnus_) is the spelling favoured by the best manuscripts of Virgil and Horace.

=30. ET TVA CVM SOCCO MVSA, MELISSE, LEVIS.= _H_ offers LEVI, also conjectured by Heinsius, which may be right: the epithet with _socco_ would provide a pleasing balance with the preceding _tragicis ... coturnis_. On the other hand, Professor R. J. Tarrant in support of _leuis_ cites _RA_ 375-76 'grande sonant tragici, tragicos decet ira coturnos: / usibus e mediis _soccus_ habendus erit' and Hor _AP_ 80 '_socci_ ... grandesque coturni'; in both passages _soccus_ has no adjective.

Propertius uses _Musa leuis_ of his verse (II xii 22); compare as well _Tr_ II 354 'Musa iocosa' (Ovid's amatory verse), _EP_ I v 69 'infelix Musa', Lucretius IV 589 & _Ecl_ I 2 'siluestrem ... Musam', and Quintilian X i 55 'Musa ... rustica et pastoralis' (the poetry of Theocritus).

_Leuis_ is used of comedy at _Fast_ V 347-48 'scaena _leuis_ decet hanc [_sc_ Floram]: non est, mihi credite, non est / illa coturnatas inter habenda deas' and Hor _AP_ 231 'effutire _leues_ indigna Tragoedia uersus'.

=30. MELISSE.= Thanks principally to Suetonius _Gram_ 21, we are comparatively well informed about Melissus (Schanz-Hosius 176-77 [-- 277]; Bardon 49-52). Brought up a slave (his father had disowned him at birth), he was given a good education by the man who accepted him, and was given to Maecenas, who manumitted him. He wrote one hundred and fifty books of _Ineptiae_. 'Fecit et nouum genus togatarum inscripsitque trabeatas'; it is no doubt these plays that Ovid is here referring to.

=31. VARIVS.= Possibly the famous author of the _Thyestes_ and editor of the _Aeneid_ (Schanz-Hosius 162-64 [-- 267]; Bardon 28-34; fragments at Morel 100-1 and Ribbeck 265). Riese objected to the identification on chronological grounds (the _Thyestes_ was produced in 29 BC), but the date of his death is unknown, and he may have survived to the time of Ovid's exile.

=31. GRACCHVSQVE.= The manuscripts omit the aspirate, and Ehwald cites _CIL_ VI 1 1505 for a mention of _Ti. Sempronius Graccus_, but in his discussion of the aspirate Quintilian makes it clear that _Graccus_ was an obsolete spelling (I v 20).

Gracchus (Bardon 48-49) is mentioned by Priscian, Nonius, and the author of the _De dubiis nominibus_, who among them preserve four fragments and three titles (Ribbeck 266). One of the titles is a _Thyestes_; Professor R. J. Tarrant plausibly suggests that Ovid may here be alluding to the plays by Varius and Gracchus on the theme with his words _cum ... darent fera uerba tyrannis_, Atreus being the archetype of the tyrant in tragedy.

Nipperdey proposed that Ovid's Gracchus was the Sempronius Gracchus implicated in the disgrace of Julia (Vel Pat II 100 5); see Syme _HO_ 196 and Furneaux on Tac _Ann_ I 53 4. The identification is however far from certain.

=32. CALLIMACHI PROCVLVS MOLLE TENERET ITER.= Proculus is otherwise unknown. Ehwald suggested (_JAW_ 43 [1885] 141) that he was a dramatic poet like Varius and Gracchus, citing a mention of the '[Greek: satyrika dramata, tragoidiai, komoidiai]' of Callimachus in the _Souda_. But Callimachus' primary reputation was hardly that of a tragedian; and _molle ... iter_ must be a reference to _Aetia_ 25-28: '[Greek: kai tod'

anoga, ta me pateousin hamaxai / ta steiben, heteron d' ichnia me kath homa / [_Hunt: _diphron el]ain med' hoimon ana platyn, alla keleuthous / [_Pfeiffer: _atripto]us, ei kai steinoteren elaseis]'.

For _mollis_ used specifically of elegy (the _Aetia_ were in elegiac verse), see _EP_ III iv 85 and Prop I vii 19 (cited by Andre); for the word in an overtly Callimachean context, see Prop III i 19 '_mollia_, Pegasides, date uestro serta poetae'.

_Tenere_ here has the sense 'keep to', as at _Met_ II 79 'ut ... uiam _teneas_' and Q Cic (?) _Pet_ 55 'perge _tenere_ istam uiam quam institisti [_Gruterus_: instituisti _codd_]'; Professor R. J. Tarrant rightly sees a suggestion of conscious artistic preference, and a faint allusion to the places where Augustan poets renounce the attractions of higher poetry.

=33. TITYRON ANTIQVAS PASSERQVE REDIRET AD HERBAS= _B1C_. For the many variants and emendations proposed, see the apparatus.

Housman has offered a defence of _B_ and _C_'s version of this line (937-39). He accepted Riese's printing of _Passer_ as a proper name ('M.

Petronius Passer' is mentioned at Varro _RR_ III 2 2), and took the passage to mean 'He wrote bucolics, or, as Ovid puts it, he went back to Tityrus and the pastures of old': the construction is 'cum Passer rediret ad Tityron antiquasque herbas'. In writing the line, Ovid resorted to three devices, 'each of them legitimate, but not perhaps elsewhere assembled in a single verse'. The first is the delay of the preposition _ad_ after _Tityron_, which it governs; the second is the delay of _-que_, which properly belongs with _antiquas_; and the third is the placing of the verb between its two objects. For each of these devices Housman furnishes convincing parallels.

Housman's argument is ingenious and informative, but I do not believe that he is right in defending the line: the accumulation of difficulties is suspicious, and the divergence of the manuscripts is greater here than at any other point in the book. Heinsius wrote of the line, 'haec nec Latina sunt, nec satis intelligo quid sibi uelint'. Like Heinsius, I believe the line to be deeply corrupted and, in the absence of further evidence, impossible to correct.

=34. APTAQVE VENANTI GRATTIVS ARMA DARET.= Compare Grattius 23 'carmine et arma dabo et uenandi [_cod_: uenanti et _Vlitius_] persequar artis'.

=34. GRATTIVS.= The manuscripts have GRATIVS (_CFLT_) or GRACIVS (_BMHI_); and _Gratius_ is what editors both of Ovid and Grattius printed until Buecheler pointed out (_RhM_ 35 [1880] 407) that _Grattius_ is the only form found in inscriptions, and is what is given in the oldest manuscript of Grattius, _Vindobonensis 277_ (saec viii/ix), which predates the manuscripts of _EP_ IV by at least four hundred years.

=35. NAIADAS= _C. P. Jones_ NAIADAS A _HLI2_ NAYADES A _MT_ NAIDAS A _BCFI2_. Ovid elsewhere invariably uses the dative of agent with _amatus_ (_Am_ I v 12, II viii 12, III ix 55-56, _AA_ II 80, _Tr_ I vi 2, II 400, III i 42, IV x 40).

As Professor Jones notes, following the interpolation of _a_, the shorter form _Naidas_ was introduced in _BCFI1_ to restore metre.

=35-36. FONTANVS ... CAPELLA.= Neither poet is otherwise known.

=36. IMPARIBVS ... MODIS.= See at 11 _imparibus numeris ... uel aequis_ (p 453).

=37-38. QVORVM MIHI CVNCTA REFERRE / NOMINA LONGA MORA EST.= Similar phrasing at _Met_ XIII 205-6 '_longa referre mora est_ quae consilioque manuque / utiliter feci spatiosi tempore belli' and _Fast_ V 311-12 (Flora speaking) '_longa referre mora est_ correcta obliuia damnis; / me quoque Romani praeteriere patres'.

=39-40. ESSENT ET IVVENES QVORVM, QVOD INEDITA CVRA EST, / APPELLANDORVM NIL MIHI IVRIS ADEST.= All editors, misled no doubt by 37, mispunctuate this passage, placing a comma before _quorum_ instead of after: this destroys the gerundive _quorum ... appellandorum_, leaving the pentameter without a construction.

Williams proposed excising this distich, the reasons being (1) the sudden change from _forent_ to _essent_, (2) the use of _inedita_, which is not found elsewhere, (3) the use of _cura_ in a sense, 'written work', that is found only in late Latin, and (4) the prose turn of _quorum ... appellandorum_. To which it can be replied that (1) _forent_ and _essent_ are equivalent, and metrical convenience alone could justify the change, (2) the use of negatived perfect participles such as _inedita_, _indeclinatus_ (x 83), and _inoblita_ (xv 37) is a hallmark of Ovid's style, (3) _cura_ is used in this sense by Tacitus (_Dial_ 3 3 & 6 5; _Ann_ III 24 4 & IV 11 5); its earlier use in verse is not surprising, and (4) gerundives were allowed in Latin verse; here, as at ix 12 '_salutandi_ munere functa _tui_', the hyperbaton compensates for any awkwardness.

=39. CVRA= _unus Thuaneus Heinsii_ CAVSA _BCMFHILT_. The same error in some manuscripts at _Her_ I 20 'Tlepolemi leto _cura_ nouata mea est', and _Fast_ I 55 'uindicat Ausonias Iunonis _cura_ Kalendas'; the inverse corruption at _Am_ II xii 17 and _Fast_ IV 368.

In 1894 Owen printed _causa_. The word can certainly have the meaning he attributed to it ('[Greek: hypothesis]', 'theme'), as at Prop II i 12 'inuenio _causas_ mille poeta nouas', but this does not seem appropriate to the context here. In his later edition Owen returned to the usual reading.

=41. APPELLANDORVM.= _Appellare_ used with the same sense (_OLD appello2_ 11) at III vi 6 '_appellent_ ne te carmina nostra rogas'; _nOminAre_ was not available for Ovid's use.

=41-44. COTTA ... MAXIME.= M. Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus[31]

(_Forschungen in Ephesos_ III 112 no. 22; cited by Syme _HO_ 117) was the younger son of Messalla, the patron of Tibullus; he was the recipient of six of the _Epistulae ex Ponto_ (I v, I ix, II iii, II viii, III ii & III v). He is undoubtedly the M. Aurelius or Aurelius Cotta recorded by Tacitus as consul for 20 (_Ann_ III 2 3 & 17 4). He was born much later than his brother Messalinus (the addressee of _EP_ I vii and II ii), who was consul in 3 BC; the chronology is confirmed by a mention of him as praetor in 17 (_Inscriptiones Italiae_ XIII i p. 298; see Syme _Ten Studies_ 52), and by Ovid's testimony that Cotta was born after Ovid had become acquainted with his family (_EP_ II iii 69-80).

Cotta was clearly a very close friend of Ovid; this can be seen particularly from _EP_ II iii, in which Ovid recounts how Cotta sent the first letter of comfort after his catastrophe (67-68) and tells how he confessed his _error_ to Cotta.

[Footnote 31: _PIR_1 A 1236; _PIR_2 A 1488; PW 11,2 2490 13]]

Tacitus gives some information on Cotta's public career. In AD 16, in the aftermath of the discovery of Libo's plot against Tiberius, Cotta proposed that Libo's image not be in his descendants' funeral processions (_Ann_ II 32 1). In 20, as consul, he similarly proposed penalties against Piso's family (_Ann_ III 17), and in 27 he is mentioned as attacking Agrippina so as to please Tiberius (_Ann_ V 3).

The most interesting mention of him is at _Ann_ VI 5 (AD 32), where Tacitus tells of how Tiberius himself intervened in favour of Cotta after he had been charged with _maiestas_; the eventual result was that charges were laid against Cotta's chief accuser.

=42. PIERIDVM LVMEN.= At _EP_ III v 29-36 Ovid asked Cotta to send him some of his poetry.

For the sense of _lumen_ here ('ornament'), _OLD lumen_ 11 cites among other passages Cic _Sul_ 5 'haec ornamenta ac _lumina_ rei publicae' and _Phil II_ 54 (of Pompey) 'imperi populi Romani decus ac _lumen_ fuit'.