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fatal transaction, which, if divulged (184) to the world, Augustus would
reprobate as a false and infamous libel, and punish the author
accordingly. Ovid, on his part, was sensible, that, should he dare to
violate the important but tacit injunction, the imperial vengeance would
reach him even on the shores of the Euxine. It appears, however, from a
passage in the Ibis, which can apply to no other than Augustus, that Ovid
was not sent into banishment destitute of pecuniary provision:

Di melius! quorum longe mihi maximus ille,
Qui nostras inopes noluit esse vias.
Huic igitur meritas grates, ubicumque licebit,
Pro tam mansueto pectore semper agam.

The gods defend! of whom he's far the chief,
Who lets me not, though banished, want relief.
For this his favour therefore whilst I live,
Where'er I am, deserved thanks I'll give.

What sum the emperor bestowed, for the support of a banishment which he
was resolved should be perpetual, it is impossible to ascertain; but he
had formerly been liberal to Ovid, as well as to other poets.

If we might hazard a conjecture respecting the scene of the intrigue
which occasioned the banishment of Ovid, we should place it in some
recess in the emperor's gardens. His house, though called Palatium, the
palace, as being built on the Palatine hill, and inhabited by the
sovereign, was only a small mansion, which had formerly belonged to
Hortensius, the orator. Adjoining to this place Augustus had built the
temple of Apollo, which he endowed with a public library, and allotted
for the use of poets, to recite their compositions to each other. Ovid
was particularly intimate with Hyginus, one of Augustus's freedmen, who
was librarian of the temple. He might therefore have been in the
library, and spying from the window a young female secreting herself in
the gardens, he had the curiosity to follow her.

The place of Ovid's banishment was Tomi [282], now said to be Baba, a
town of Bulgaria, towards the mouth of the Ister, where is a lake still
called by the natives Ouvidouve Jesero, the lake of Ovid. In this
retirement, and the Euxine Pontus, he passed the remainder of his life, a
melancholy period of seven years. Notwithstanding the lascivious
writings of Ovid, it does not appear that he was in his conduct a
libertine. He was three times married: his first wife, who was of mean
extraction, and (185) whom he had married when he was very young, he