seeking rest and refreshment 'in a cultivated place after the dangers and discomforts of the sea' (Munro, p. 13); and there he wrote the present poem (22 and 45)

The ship, which doubtless contained most of his effects, servants, etc. was sent on before him to Tomi, while he himself crossed over to Thrace in another vessel (48), landing near Tempyra (21), a town near the sea, and a military station on the Via Egnatia 1.

Starting from Tempyra, he performed the rest of the journey by land; just as conversely, P. iv. 5. 5, his letter is sent from Tomi by land through Thrace, and thence by sea to Rome; cp. T. iv. 1. 51.

Lines 24-42 contain a minute description of the ship's voyage from Samothrace to Tomi.

At the time that he is writing she has already probably arrived as far as the Thracian Bosporus (vasti ostia ponti [Euxini], 13); hence the use of the perfect tenses in 24, 25. The course of the passage is as follows:

She has passed through the Hellespont (24), with its famous narrow strait between Sestos and Abydos (27, 28), and has reached in turn Dardania (25), Lampsacus (26), Cyzicus, one of the most celebrated and picturesque cities of the Propontis (29), and Byzantium (31), which stood on the Thracian side, at the entrance to the Bosporus. Thence through the Symplegades (34) she is to sail into the Euxine, keeping along its west coast, past Cape Thynias and Apollonia (35), to Anchialus, a small town (arta moenia) a little north of Apollonia, of which it was a subject state (36); thence on northwards to Mesembria (now Missiori), and Odesus (now Varna), and Dionysupolis (38), a little town north-east of Odesus, called by the Greeks Cruni (Kpoûvoι = Wells; now Baltshik), and Bizone, between Tomi and Dionysupolis (39), and so finally to Tomi (41).

=

In lines 45-48 he offers a prayer to Castor and Pollux, the Twin Brethren, who were the special guardians of travellers by sea, to protect both himself on his short remaining voyage from Samothrace to Thrace (48), and his vessel on its journey to Tomi (47).

A careful comparison between Catullus iv. and this elegy, 'which Ovid has written with Catullus in his mind, probably in his hands,' has been instituted by Munro, Criticisms, etc., pp. 9-25. The poem of Catullus contains a description of a voyage taken by the poet in his

1 According to Strabo, vii. 48, Tempyra was a dependent town belonging to the Samothracians, which would explain why Ovid sailed thither from Samothrace, τὸ τῶν Σαμοθράκων πολίχνιον Τέμπυρα καὶ ἄλλο χαράκωμα, οὗ πρόκειται ἡ Σαμοθράκη νῆσος καὶ Ἴμβρος οὐ πολὺ ἄποθεν ταύτης.

yacht, conversely from Asia through the Aegean and Adriatic seas to the Po and his home on the Lake Benacus.

1. 1. tutela, see on 4. 8. Notice that the tutela, or image of the god under whose guardianship the vessel sailed,-which was always placed in the stern,—is distinguished here (as was usually the case, though we do find in Lucian, Navig. sen. vota, 5. p. 653, Didot, a ship whose 'insigne' and 'tutela' are both Isis) from the 'insigne' (napáσŋμov), or figure-head, which, as with us, was carved or, as here, painted on the bows, and might be a god or hero, or animal, or some other object, as here, a helmet. 'Cassis' was peculiarly appropriate to Minerva, who (i.e. Athena) is almost always represented as wearing one. In Verg. Aen. v. 116 the names and 'insignia' of some ships are enumerated, pristis (shark), chimaera, centaurus, scylla; ibid. x. 166, tigris ; 206, Mincius, a river-god; 209, Triton, a sea-god. In Aen. x. 171 Apollo is the 'tutela' of a ship. See Seneca, Ep. 76, ‘navis bona dicitur non quae pretiosis coloribus picta est ... nec cuius tutela ebore caelata. Hence we must not explain tutela here as either a thing protected,' i. e. under the protection of (Amerpach, followed by Paley on Prop. v. 8. 3 and L. and S.), or 'the person which protects' (Scheller); though probably the latter notion was also in the poet's mind, and the line certainly contains a prayer for the continued protection of Minerva.

flavae, 'flavus,' is found as an epithet of Minerva in Am. i. 1. 7; F. vi. 652; thus, though it is true that the epithet is more frequently applied to Ceres, there is no need of Haupt's most ingenious conjecture, - γλαυκωπίδος.

raval=

Translate: My guardian sign is yellow-haired Minerva, and long may it remain so, and my ship takes her name from a pictured casque.'

1. 2. et. The position of et as second word in the clause is very frequent with Ovid; instances in this book are 3. 96; 4. 10; 5. 11; 6.31; 7. 30. Haupt (Opuscula, i. 125) collects, besides passages from the Pontic Epistles, 26 examples from the Tristia. After more than one word it is somewhat rarely found; after two words, v. 7. 40; P. iv. 9. 131; 16. 33 (though here the text is doubtful); after three words, v. 7. 24; after four words, P. i. 4. 20.

11. 3-6. Cp. Catull. iv. 3, 'Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis Nequisse praeter ire, sive palmulis Opus foret volare sive linteo.' Apoll. R. iii. 345, ἶσον δ ̓ ἐξ ἀνέμοιο θέει καὶ ὅτ ̓ ἀνέρες αὐτοὶ Νωλεμέως χείρεσσιν ἐπισπέρχωσιν έρετμοῖς.

1. 3. ad='at,' on the occurrence of.

1. 6. egressas quamlibet ante, 'those that have started ever so long before her.' See supr. 9. 24 n.

1. 7. 'She smites the billows or the far spaces of the noiseless sea with equal deftness, and is not overmastered and waterlogged by the relent. less waters.' The ship being provided with oars as well as sails, could pursue her course in a calm just as well as in windy weather; and was so tightly built that there was no fear of her being water-logged; thus Catullus iv. 17 speaks of his yacht as having both 'imbuisse palmulas in aequore,' and 'tot per impotentia freta Erum tulisse.' The collocation pariter... atque (ac) is found in Cic. Paradox. vi. 46; Sall. Iug. 113, and often in the comic poets: see Holtze, ii. 336.

There is a strong Vergilian flavour about the couplet as restored in the text with ferit (the Homeric moλíŋv äλa túnтov špeтμoîs, Od. ix. 104) cp. Aen. iii. 290, 'Certatim socii feriunt mare et aequora verrunt;' with silentia longe cp. Aen. ix. 190, 'silent late loca;' with victa cp. Aen. i. 122, ' iam validam Ilionei navem ... Vicit hiemps;' with madescit cp. Aen. v. 697, 'semiusta madescunt Robora.'

1. 9. Cenchreis. See 3.92 n.

1. 12. numine, 'protection;' supr. 2. 8.

1. 15. mare Helles, Ελλης πόντος, Helle was the daughter of Athamas, son of Aeolus (hence Aeoliae) and Nephele, and the sister of Phrixus. She fled with her brother from the persecution of Ino, her stepmother, on the back of a ram, but fell off (vectae male virginis, 27), and was drowned in the strait named after her. The story is told in F. iii. 849, ff.; and more recently by Sir George Cox, Tales from Greek Mythology, p. 25, ff. For the position of the preposition see on 9. II.

1. 16. tenui limite, abl. of road by which; 'along a narrow track.' The tenuis limes is the narrow track or furrow made by the ship as it passes through the sea; cp. H. xviii. 133, 'Iam patet attritus solitarum limes aquarum, Non aliter multa quam via pressa rota' (i. e. the track through the sea pursued each day by Leander). So v. 6. 39, 'Quam multae gracili terrena sub horrea ferre Limite formicae grana reperta solent,' where gracili limite=the narrow track pursued by the ants.

(Burmann's explanation, usually adopted, that the course possible to a ship in crossing the Aegean was narrow because there were so many islands, is hardly satisfactory.)

1. 21. saltus (salio), as we say, 'you can almost jump across to Tempyra.' Merkel compares P. i. 5. 75, 'Per tantum terrae, tot aquas vix credere possum Indicium studii transiluisse mei.'

Join Tempyra contra 'from this isle for one making across for. Tempyra the passage is but a short one.' 'Contra' is an adverb.

petenti is a dat. of indirect object, and closely connected with

saltus (sometimes called a dat. of reference).

1. 22. hac... tenus, separated by tmesis, as in M. v. 642, 'thus far, i. e. as far as Samothrace, infr. 45.

=

1. 23. Bistonios Thracian, frequently so used in Ovid, see P. i. 3. 59; ii. 9. 54;. iv. v. 35; Ibis 379. Properly the Bistones were a Thracian tribe south of Mount Rhodope, near Abdera. Ovid's journey on foot through Thrace is alluded to again in iv. 1. 49, 'Iure deas igitur veneror mala nostra levantes, Sollicitae comites ex Helicone fugae; Et partim pelago partim vestigia terra Vel rate dignatas vel pede nostra sequi.'

1. 24. illa reliquit; the ship has by the time he is writing left the Hellespont behind it, passing through the strait between Sestos and Abydos,— for it ought by that time to be already in the Euxine (13),—and has reached (petit) Dardania and Lampsacus and Cyzicus, and the narrow entrance of the Euxine, where is Byzantium.

It is quite unnecessary, with all the editors, to reject the MSS. reading reliquit, for relegit, a conjecture of Micyllus, reported by Heinsius to be found in one very suspicious MS., if we thus bear in mind the force of the perfect tenses, and by transposing 27-28, 25–26, understand the former couplet as a further description of the Hellespont, added to explain that in it is the strait between Sestos and Abydos. The mention of this strait may have been suggested to the poet by its famous legendary associations, through the story of Hero and Leander. We must not press too strictly the order in which the towns are named; first, in 24, 27, 28 the Hellespontine sea is generally described; then in 25, 26 two of the chief towns on it are mentioned, Dardania at the western end, introduced no doubt on account of the Homeric associations of its name, and Lampsacus at the eastern.

(From Dardania is derived the modern name Dardanelles.)

1. 25. petit, perf. contracted for petiit, as in F. i. 109, ‘Flamma petit altum, propior locus aera cepit, Sederunt medio terra fretumque solo.' See Lucian Müller De re Metr. p. 399; Munro and Lachmann on Lucr. iii. 1042; Conington on Aen. ix. 9.

1. 27. Lampsacus was the special seat of the worship of Priapus, the god of gardens, and was renowned for its oysters (Verg. Geor. iv. 111; Catull. frag. ii. Ellis.)

auctoris nomen habentem. Dardania (which is oftener the name of the whole region), more commonly called Dardanus, or Dardanum (Dict. Geogr. i. 753 b), was a town in the Troad founded by (auctoris) Dardanus, the mythical ancestor of the Trojans. Dardanus Iwent with his followers from his original home in Samothrace to Phrygia, where he was received hospitably by the king Teucer, who gave him his daughter, Bateia, in marriage and a part of his territory. Troy itself was founded by Tros, the grandson of Dardanus; its walls

were built by Laomedon, the grandson of Tros, with the help of Apollo and Poseidon. As the genealogy of the founders of the Trojan race (from whom the Romans through Aeneas professed to trace their origin) is very perplexing; it is worth while to exhibit it in a genealogical table, based on the account of Apollodorus, iii. 12. 3. Cp. Hom. Il. xx. 215-240.

ZEUS Electra (one of the Pleiades)

1. 29. Cyzicus is graphically described as clinging to the shore of the Propontis, for the city was situated on an island, and only connected with the mainland by two bridges: Strabo, xii. 8. 11, čσtɩ dè vĥoos èv τῇ Προποντίδι ἡ Κύζικος συναπτομένη γεφύραις δυσὶ πρὸς τὴν ἤπειρον. Apoll. Rhod. i. 936 calls it an island, but speaks also of an isthmus: ἔστι δέ τις αἰπεῖα Προποντίδος ἔνδοθι νῆσος Τυτθὸν ἀπὸ Φρυγίης... εἰς