Cur aliquid vidi? cur conscia lumina feci?
Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?--Ibid.
* * * * * *
(180) Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector:
Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum. [279] De Trist. iii. 5.

It seems, therefore, to be a fact sufficiently established, that Ovid had
seen something of a very indecent nature, in which Augustus was
concerned. What this was, is the question. Some authors, conceiving it
to have been of a kind extremely atrocious, have gone so far as to
suppose, that it must have been an act of criminality between Augustus
and his own daughter Julia, who, notwithstanding the strict attention
paid to her education by her father, became a woman of the most infamous
character; suspected of incontinence during her marriage with Agrippa,
and openly profligate after her union with her next husband, Tiberius.
This supposition, however, rests entirely upon conjecture, and is not
only discredited by its own improbability, but by a yet more forcible
argument. It is certain that Julia was at this time in banishment for
her scandalous life. She was about the same age with Tiberius, who was
now forty seven, and they had not cohabited for many years. We know not
exactly the year in which Augustus sent her into exile, but we may
conclude with confidence, that it happened soon after her separation from
Tiberius; whose own interest with the emperor, as well as that of his
mother Livia, could not fail of being exerted, if any such application
was necessary, towards removing from the capital a woman, who, by the
notoriety of her prostitution, reflected disgrace upon all with whom she
was connected, either by blood or alliance. But no application from
Tiberius or his mother could be necessary, when we are assured that
Augustus even presented to the senate a narrative respecting the infamous
behaviour of his daughter, which was read by the quaestor. He was so
much ashamed of her profligacy, that he for a long time declined all
company, and had thoughts of putting her to death. She was banished to
an island on the coast of Campania for five years; at the expiration of
which period, she was removed to the continent, and the severity of her
treatment a little mitigated; but though frequent applications were made
in her behalf by the people, Augustus never could be prevailed upon to
permit her return.

(181) Other writers have conjectured, that, inste