WIVES OF THE C.ESARS. 589 



puberty since the crimes of the triumvirate ; if so, the effects of such 

 superb laudation were inestimable to the hopes of an usurper, who 

 had risen to power by artifice and bloodshed who had recalled in 

 the meridian of his life the blessings of prosperity, security, and 

 peace, to a country long distracted by the ravages of civil discord 

 and who stood in need of all the accessories of renown, to make the 

 dispositions of his illegitimate authority the rule and guidance of the 

 Roman people, when, in the slavish language of his parasite, he was 

 called to the " Assembly of the Gods." But if his favour and pro- 

 tection were engaged by literary merit, they were denied on trivial 

 grounds, indeed, to the unfortunate and exiled Ovid; on grounds * 

 so inconsistent with the anger of Augustus, that they at once prescribe 

 our incredulity. Was it probable that he, who was the author of the 

 filthy and unmanly epigram on Fulvia that he, who could retire 

 from the triclinium with a consular lady,t in the presence of her hus- 

 band, and lead her back into the self-same presence, suffused with 

 burning blushes, to her supper that he, to whom Mark Antony 

 addressed the infamous, yet famous letter "quid te mutavit?" etseq. 

 that he, who was a member of that company where 



" Sexque Decs vidit Mallia, sexq. Deas ; 

 Impia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit, 

 Dum nova divorum caenat adulteria"* 



was it probable that such a person would condemn a glorious poet 

 to interminable exile for the warm and glowing pictures of the Ars 



* Aldus Pius Minutius, in the life of Ovid, collated from his works, has cited 

 all the passages adverting to the causes of his exile. He reasonably rejects the 

 poet's passion for Corinna and the Ars Amoris as the grounds of Caesar's perse- 

 cution. Ovid's lamentation on his accidental knowledge of a fact unnamed, 

 " alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est," may partly guide our inferences, though 

 it cannot gratify our curiosity : 



" Cur aliquid vidi ? Cur noxia lumina feci ? 

 Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est ? 

 Inscius Actaeon vidit sine veste Dianam ; 

 Praeda fuit canibus non minus ille suis." 



DeTRisT. 

 Again : 



" Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector : 

 Peccatumq : oculos est habuisse meum. 

 Non equidem totam possum defendere culpam ; 

 Sed partem nostri criminis error habet." 3 Eleg. 5. 



Scaliger, in his concise and bold address (loquitur ipse Ovidius ad Augustum), 

 at once declares the infamy of Caesar, and reproaches Ovid with the shame of 

 having deservedly applauded him : 



" Impia flagitiis squalent penetralia diris ; 



Damnati superant nomina faeda rei 

 * * * * 



Cum telaudarem, tune sum mentitus ; ob unum hoc 

 Exilii fuerat debita paena mihi." 



f M. Antonius super festinatas Liviae nuptias objecit, et fieminam consularem 

 e triclinio viri coram in cubiculum abductam rursus in convivium rubentibus 

 auriculis incomtiore capillo reductam." SUETON. in Aug. 69. 



$ These verses were notorious in Rome r but their author was unknown. 



