Two Ovidian Miscellanies: Ovid's Contribution to the History of Literature and the Historicity of his Exile
Abstrakt
This paper deals with two minor Ovidian issues. Ovid's reference to Antony and Brutus' literary writings is argued not to have necessarily pointed to all of them, but only those could have been in Ovid's mind in which invectives against Octavian were contained.
At least two late antique accounts of Ovid's exile certainly come from Suetonius' De poetis. This is not a mere supposition: it can be convincingly argued for.
Hence the thesis that Ovid's exile was a fiction must eventually be defended allowing that even Suetonius could have been mistaken about its historicity, or the facts called to attention here must be explained away. In the Epitome de Caesaribus perhaps even the content of the edict imposing on Ovid his banishment may be mirrored, but this cannot be proved likewise sufficiently.