SABINUS IN OVIDS EXILE POETRY

Martin Helzle
Department of Classics, Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA
Abstract. Ovids exile poetry has been promoted as largely fiction, but it does contain
fragments of reality. His unfaithful friend, for example, is here identified as Sabinus from the
Amores. If this identification holds, some passages aquire a distinct poignancy. Ovids
Sabinus came from a poor family, achieved equestrian status late, and reportedly wrote prose
Fasti. His father, a poor contemporary of Ovid, switched allegiance once Ovid became
persona non grata.

After a century or more of focussing on Ovids exile poetry as a source of

information on Black Sea meteorology and Tiberian prosopography, scholarship
in its inexorable dialectic has recently thrown out the baby with the bath-water
and deliberately ignored any historical details contained in Ovids poems1 to the
point where the reality of his exile is seriously called into question.2 Largely
unnoticed has been Burkhard Chwaleks approach,3 based on Wolfgang Isers
theory of fiction,4 of reading the exile poetry as being created by what Iser calls
Akte des Fingierens which means that it contains a mixture of both imaginary
and real elements, what Iser calls Realittsfragmente. Relying on this theory of
the creative act as producing works that are at the same time imaginary and real,
I want to deal with some of these fragments of reality that went into the exile
poetry, namely the friends from the poets pre-exilic life that are mentioned in
the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto.

See, e.g., G. D. Williams, Banished Voices: Readings in Ovids Exile Poetry

(Cambridge 1994); G. D. Williams and A. Walker (edd.), Ovid and Exile (Bendigo 1997);
J. M. Claassen, Displaced Persons: The Literature of Exile from Cicero to Boethius (London
1999) 190-204.
2
A. D. Fitton-Brown, The Unreality of Ovids Tomitan Exile, LCM 10 (1985) 19-22;
H. Hofmann, The Unreality of Ovids Tomitan Exile Once Again, LCM 12 (1987) 23;
H. Hofmann, Ovid im Exil?, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Altphilologenverbandes,
Landesverband Baden-Wrttemberg 29 (2001) 8-19.
3
B. Chwalek, Die Verwandlung des Exils in die elegische Welt: Studien zu den Tristia
und Epistulae ex Ponto Ovids (Frankfurt 1996) 87-89.
4
W. Iser, Akte des Fingierens oder Was ist das Fiktive im fiktionalen Text?, in
D. Henrich and W. Iser (edd.), Funktionen des Fiktiven: Poetik und Hermeneutik 10
(Mnchen 1983) 121-51.

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Ovid mentions four of his friends in the Amores. There is Atticus, the
addressee of Amores 1.9, 5 C. Pomponius Graecinus in the prominent central
position of the second book of the Amores (2.10) and Macer (2.18).6 In the
poem addressed to the latter, we also hear of his poet and friend (meus my
friend, Am. 2.18.17) Sabinus, who wrote letters that answer each of Ovids
Heroides and may have given our poet the idea for writing the double epistles.7
The identity of the latter remains shrouded in mystery. Paul Brandt remarks in
his note: Freund des Ovid (meus), vielleicht derselbe, der Hor. ep. I 5,27
genannt wird, wird von Ovid noch ex Pont. IV 16,13 erwhnt als Verfasser
eines nicht sicher zu bestimmenden Epos.8 Neither the Horatian epistle nor the
passage from the Epistulae ex Ponto adds anything to our knowledge of
Sabinus identity other than that he was dead by the late teens AD.
The present paper tries to argue that Sabinus, as one of the four sodales
(poet-friends), that are mentioned by name in Ovids Amores, may be the
unfaithful friend who is mentioned in Tristia 1.8, 5.8, Epistula ex Ponto 4.3, and
possibly Tristia 3.11.9 Were it not for the fact that the legal scholar and amateur

On his identity: R. Syme, History in Ovid (Oxford 1978) 72; J. C. McKeown (ed.),
Ovid, Amores: Text, Prolegomena and Commentary 1-4 (Leeds 1989) 2.260; M. Helzle (ed.),
P. Ovidii Nasonis Epistularum ex Ponto Liber IV: A Commentary on Poems 1-7 and 16
(Hildesheim 1989) 29 showed that Ovids relationship with Tiberius was probably less than
perfect. I would rule out Curtius Atticus and opt either for the rhetorician Antonius Atticus
(Sen. Suas. 2.6) or Iulius Atticus, a provincial governor in Gaul (CIL 12.1854) and/or a writer
on viticulture (Columella, Rust. 1.1.14). The latter seems to me to be the most appropriate
addressee for a poem on the paradox of the lover being a soldier.
6
Amores 2.10 is either at the very centre of the book (assuming it contains nineteen
poems) orif one divides poem 9 into two piecesit is the tenth poem of a twenty-poem
collection. Syme [5] 73f. accepts the traditional identification of Ovids Macer as Pompeius
Macer (cf. RE 21.2276.15-2277.56), the son of Theophanes of Mytilene, a famous friend of
Pompey the Great. This identification has recently been seriously challenged by P. Green,
Pomepius Macer and Ovid, CQ 42 (1992) 210-18. McKeown [5] 382f. ad Ov. Am. 2.18
argues convincingly in favour of identifying Ovids Macer with the eponymous addressee of
Tibullus 2.6; see also E. N. ONeil, Tibullus 2.6: A New Interpretation, CPh 42 (1967)
163-67; D. F. Bright, Haec Mihi Fingebam: Tibullus and his World (Leiden 1978) 217f.;
P. Murgatroyd (ed.), Tibullus: Elegies 2 (Oxford 1994) 239f. is skeptical. For the purposes of
the present paper it is immaterial if the two are the same or if they are identical with
Pompeius Macer; what matters here is the fact that, in any case, Macer is a man of letters.
7
E. J. Kenney, in A. D. Melville (tr.), Ovid, The Love Poems (Oxford 1990) 200.
8
P. Brandt (ed.), P. Ovidi Nasonis Amorum Libri Tres (Leipzig 1911) 134 ad Am. 2.8.17.
9
The tone of the Ibis and of Tristia 4.9 is substantially more aggressive than that found in
the other letters to the faithless friend. It therefore seems likely that the enemy who is Ovids
target there is different from the former friend of Tristia 1.8, 3.11, 5.8 and Epistula ex Ponto
4.3 (cf. Helzle [5] 84. G. D. Williams, The Curse of Exile: A Study of Ovids Ibis (Cambridge

Sabinus in Ovids Exile Poetry, M. Helzle

45

writer Massurius Sabinus is reported as being still alive under Nero (Gai. Inst.
2.218), 10 he would make a suitable candidate for Ovids Sabinus. I would
therefore suggest that the poets friend was a Massurius Sabinus, the father of
the legal scholar, who left no trace other than in Ovids poems.
The four friends mentioned in the Amores are all sodales, presumably
because all of them are writers in their own right. C. Pomponius Graecinus (cos.
suff. AD 16) also has an interest in literature:
artibus ingenuis, quarum tibi maxima cura est,
pectora mollescunt asperitasque fugit . . .
(Ov. Pont. 1.6.7f.)
The liberal arts, about which you care greatly,
soothe the heart and dispel harshness . . .

Atticus, the other uetus sodalis (old friend, Pont. 2.4.33), had been consulted
by Ovid as a critic (Pont. 2.4.13f.) while Macer apparently wrote Posthomerica
which must be why he is dubbed Iliacus (Iliadic) at Epistula ex Ponto 4.16.6:
tu canis aeterno quidquid restabat Homero,
ne careant summa Troica bella manu.
(Ov. Pont. 2.10.13f.)
You sing whatever was left by immortal Homer
to prevent the Trojan War from lacking its final touch.

His traditional identification as Pompeius Macer, the son of Theophanes of

Mytilene, has recently been questioned.11 This, however, does not alter the fact
that he is a poet which is all that matters for the purposes of the present
argument. Sabinus, finally, wrote some form of Heroides (Am. 2.18.27-34),
Fasti (Pont. 1.16.15) and an epic whose subject hides behind a textually corrupt
word (trisomem or trisomen in the codices Monacenses) but which is most
likely to be Troezen.12 All four sodales therefore have something to do with the
writing or polishing of poetry. Two of them are addressed by name in the
1996) 7-29 while reviewing the issue unfortunately adds only negative answers to the
question of Ibis identity.
10
RE 1A.1600.38-1601.43; W. Kunkel, Herkunft und soziale Stellung der rmischen
Juristen (Weimar 1952) 119f.
11
See Syme [5] 73f.
12
Cf. Helzle [5] 186 ad Pont. 4.16.15, following Heinsius emendation to Troezena. The
poets named at Pont. 4.16 are clearly arranged in generic groups, starting with epic poets and
working down the hierarchy of genres. Sabinus appears at 4.16.16, firmly within the epic
section which lasts until line 26. Since his other works are Fasti and Heroides in Ovids
manner, a work in epic hexameters is called for in order for him to qualify for this section.

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Epistulae ex Ponto. Only Sabinus fades out of the picture until his death.13 Why
should he not be the recipient of a missive from Tomis? The most obvious
answer is that he deserted his friend Ovid in which case he would make a
suitable candidate for being the addressee of the letters to the unfaithful sodalis.
In Tristia 1.8, Ovid complains at length that the addressee, who has been
his long-standing friend, has unexpectedly not supported him in his downfall:
tantane te, fallax, cepere obliuia nostri,
adflictumque fuit tantus adire timor,
ut neque respiceres nec solarere iacentem,
dure, neque exequias prosequerere meas?
illud amicitiae sanctum et uenerabile nomen
re tibi pro uili sub pedibusque iacet?
quid fuit ingenti prostratum mole sodalem
uisere et adloquii parte leuare tui . . .
(Ov. Tr. 1.8.11-18)
Do you have such amnesia about me, you fraud,
was your fear to approach me in my demise so great
that you dont look back nor console downcast me,
heartless one, nor attend my funeral?
Do you trample on the sacred and venerable term friendship
as if it were something common?
What was so difficult about visiting a comrade knocked down
by a huge punch and lifting him up with a bit of your encouragement . . .

And a little further on he points out their long-standing association:

quid, nisi conuictu causisque ualentibus essem
temporis et longi iunctus amore tibi?
(Ov. Tr. 1.8.29f.)
What if I were not tied to you by strong bonds, our association,
and a long-standing friendship?14

If the addressee of this epistle is indeed Sabinus, then the intervening passage
acquires some piquancy in that Ovid could be alluding to his friends poetic
production and his answering letters in particular:

13

Ovid does, of course, address him again in fulsome terms after his demise (Pont.
4.16.13-16), but, somewhat ironically, within a list of poetic nobodies.
14
Quid, nisi cannot mean here what except (a favourite Ovidian formula: F. Bmer, P.
Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen: Kommentar Buch XII-XIII [Heidelberg 1982] 260 ad Met.
13.227; McKeown [5] 151f. ad Am. 2.7.15f.), analogous to nil nisi (nothing except).
Instead, the context requires it to be the negative version of the standing phrase quis si (what
would be the case if; OLD, quis 13a).

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47

quid fuit . . .
...............................
inque meos si non lacrimam demittere casus,
pauca tamen ficto uerba dolore loqui,
idque quod ignoti, factum male dicere saltem,
et uocem populi publicaque ora sequi,
denique lugubres uultus numquamque uidendos
cernere supremo dum licuitque die,
dicendumque semel toto non amplius aeuo
accipere et parili reddere uoce uale?
(Ov. Tr. 1.8.17-26)
How difficult was it . . .
...............................
even if you dont shed a tear over my fall,
nonetheless to say a few words with feigned grief
and at least to say what a shame!, which is what strangers say,
and to follow popular opinion and the word on the streets,
finally to see my sad face never to be seen again,
while it was allowed on the last day,
and to hear and return with like voice the farewell
which was to said once and no more in my entire life?

After all, ficto uerba dolore loqui (to say words with feigned grief, 1.8.20) is
exactly what a poet has to do when he is writing epistles like the Heroides.
Furthermore, considering the fact that Ovid repeatedly stresses Sabinus
answers to his Heroides (rediit, has returned, Am. 2.18.27; rettulit, brought
back, 28, rescripsit, wrote back, 31; rescribere, to write back, Pont.
4.16.13), the phrase parili rederre uoce (return with like voice, 26) could
contain a veiled allusion to something that Sabinus had been known for doing.
Ovid also stresses his age-old friendship with the addressee of Epistula ex
Ponto 4.3 who thought extremely highly of Ovid as a poet and with whom Ovid
joked around and (on the analogy of Catullus 5015) exchanged occasional verse:
ille ego sum, quamquam non uis audire, uetusta
paene puer puero iunctus amicitia,
ille ego, qui primus tua seria nosse solebam
et tibi iucundis primus adesse iocis,
ille ego conuictor densoque domesticus usu,
ille ego iudiciis unica Musa tuis . . .
(Ov. Pont. 4.3.11-16)
15

Cf. esp. Catul. 50.4-6: . . . scribens uersiculos uterque nostrum / ludebat numero modo
hoc modo illoc, / reddens mutua per iocum atque uinum (. . . writing little verses, each of us /
was playing, now in this metre, now in that / reciprocating verses amid laughter and wine).
On the poetics of this poem, see C. Segal, Catullan Otiosi: The Lover and the Poet, G&R 17
(1970) 25-31.

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I am the one who, although you do not want to hear it, has been tied
to you in friendship almost since we were boys,
I am the one who first used to know your serious problems,
and the first to share your delightful jokes,
I am your companion, your close friend,
I am a unique poet in your judgment . . .

The reason why there are parallels between this poem and Epistula ex Ponto
2.4 16 is not because Atticus is the addressee of Epistula ex Ponto 4.3, but
because the addressee of 4.3 has one essential thing in common with Atticus,
that is he is an old sodalis, mentioned in the Amores, with a keen interest in
poetry. The only one who fits this description is Sabinus. This identification
adds poignancy to Ovids second couplet:
nomine non utar, ne commendere querela
quaeraturque tibi carmine fama meo.
(Ov. Pont. 4.3.3f.)
I shall not use your name to prevent you from being commended by my
complaint and from gaining fame through my poem.

At first sight the phrase quaeraturque tibi carmine fama meo is literally
translated as [lest] fame be sought by you in my poem. Ovid refuses to name
his faithless friend in order to condemn his memory. But if Sabinus is the
addressee, carmine meo could also be an ablative of means: [lest] fame be
sought by you using my poems. After all, Sabinus had used Ovids idea of
writing elegiac epistles from heroines to their husbands and lovers to his own
advantage when he wrote his own sequel; today it would be called Heroides 2:
The Mens Story. No doubt Sabinus sequel was a poor rehash of the original, as
seems to be invariably the case today, which is probably why none of his letters
have survived.17
Yet there are two more interesting pieces of information we gain from
this missive. First, Sabinus in what seems to be an attempt to ingratiate himself
with the powers that be has taken up offending Ovid now that he is exiled.18
Ovid, however, warns him that Lady Luck can desert him, too (Pont.
4.3.29-58).19 One cannot help but get the impression that, whether it is Sabinus
or not, the addressee is something of an opportunist who attached himself to
16

Cf. C. Ganzenmller, Aus Ovids Werkstatt, Philologus 70 (1911) 274-311, 397-437.

The letters that purport to be his are well-known later forgeries; cf. E. Martini,
Einleitung zu Ovid (Leipzig 1933) 21f.
18
For parallels in the other poems to the unnamed antagonist see Helzle [5] 84.
19
Parallels for the locus de Fortuna (commonplace concerning Lady Luck) in this
group of exile poems and elsewhere are gathered at Helzle [5] 84, 98.
17

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49

Ovid when he was successful but has changed his tune after the poets disgrace
in order to save his own skin. Ovids threat that the present situation might
change any time goes hand in hand with his hope for Germanicus accession
and a subsequent recall for himself.20
The motif that the opponent casibus insultat (rejoices in my downfall),
is also mentioned at Tristia 5.8.4, which reads almost like an earlier version of
Epistula ex Ponto 4.3. This poem develops the locus de Fortuna
(commonplace concerning Lady Luck) at length at 5.8.17f. and entertains the
possibility of a recall as well as a reversal for the enemy at 23-38. Again, if
Sabinus is the addressee, the phrase restitui quondam me quoque posse puta
(consider that I may, one day, also be brought back, Tr. 5.8.34) could be quite
poignant: instead of Sabinus indulging in rescribere (to write back), Ovid
could be blessed with restitui (to be brought back). Be that as it may, our poet
obviously has a very low opinion of this individual since he opens his epistle by
pointing out that he couldnt fall lower than his opponent:
Non adeo cecidi, quamuis abiectus, ut infra
te quoque sim, inferius quo nihil esse potest.
(Ov. Tr. 5.8.1f.)
I have not fallen so low, although I am dejected, that I am
lower than you, compared to whom nothing can be lower.

We sense all the disgust and disappointment when Ovid calls him the lowest of
the low. This sentiment on my analysis is caused by Sabinus opportunism: first
he was one of Ovids friends, but now he has jumped on his opponents bandwagon.
Tristia 3.11 may very well be addressed to the same man. In spite of the
repeated indefinite address (quisquis es whoever you are, 1, 54; quicumque es
whoever you are, 63); the poem shares the motif of the mocking opponent
(insultes qui casibus . . . nostris, you who rejoice in my downfall, 1) with the
above mentioned missives to the faithless friend. It also mentions that he used to
know Ovid (me quoque, quem noras olim, non esse memento, remember, too,
that I, whom you used to know, no longer exist, 29). While these statements
could be true of a whole class of people,21 an apparently innocent passage like
ad te, quisquis is es, nostra querella redit (my complaint returns to you,
whoever you are, 56) could contain an allusion to Sabinus answering letters.
First Sabinus answered the Heroides letters, now Ovids complaint literally
comes back to him.
20

Helzle [5] 22-30.

Helzle [5] 84, following H. Frnkel, Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley
1945) 246 n. 6.
21

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Having collected the passages that suggest that the addressee of Tristia
1.8, 3.11, 5.8 and Epistula ex Ponto 4.3 is Ovids former friend, critic and
fellow-poet Sabinus, the question naturally arises who this particular Sabinus
might have been. Syme laconically states that . . . [t]he cognomen Sabinus is
too common to lead anywhere. 22 But is it? One good candidate emerges,
namely Massurius Sabinus,23 a renowned legal scholar who also had an interest
in non-technical literature. In fact, Bremers Iurisprudentia Antehadriana
readily provides fragments of Libri Memoralium, Libri Fastorum and
Commentarii de Indigenis, all in prose. The Libri Fastorum should make any
Ovidians ears prick up, for Ovids Sabinus is reported to have left an
imperfectum . . . dierum / . . . opus (an unfinished work about the calendar,
Pont. 4.16.15) upon his death. Epistula ex Ponto 4.16 contains a long list of
contemporary Tiberian poets. All but Sabinus seem to be still alive and all seem
to be complete nobodies. 24 The fact that Sabinus is reported as dead before
Ovids demise in AD 17 or 18 25 means that Massurius Sabinus 26 cannot be
Ovids former friend because he is on record as being still alive under Nero
(Gai. Inst. 2.218). However, following one of Symes favourite tricks, 27 one
could posit that Ovids Sabinus was his homonymous father who wrote a poetic
Fasti like Ovid. That could explain the sons interest in literature and even in
the Roman calendar.
A few remarks in Athenaeus proem also point this way, since there he is
characterised as a mnoj poihtj (unique poet) and also as one who toiatV
polumaqev k padwn sunetrfh mbwn d n poihtj odenj
deteroj, fhs, tn met' 'Arclocon poihtn (was raised with such broad
learning from childhood; they say that as an iambic poet he is second to none of
the poets after Archilochus, Ath. 1 Kaibel para. 2.4-9). No word here about
answering letters to Ovids Heroides nor anything about any Fasti, which
makes Sabinus the legal scholar an unlikely candidate for Ovids friend. But his
education as a polymath, which in this context means a man of letters rather
22

Syme [5] 75.

RE 1A.1598-602.
24
Helzle [5] 178-99.
25
Mommsen is quoted by F. P. Bremer, Iurisprudentiae Antehadrianae Quae Supersunt
(Leipzig 1896) 1.314 n. 2 (without an exact reference) as having rejected Gaius remark that
Sabinus lived until the reign of Nero as unbelievable. If that is so, then the Massurius Sabinus
on record could be a candidate for Ovids friend.
26
RE 1A.1600.46-50 s.v. Sabinus; see now also T. Giaro, Mas(s)surius Sabinus, in
H. Cancik and H. Schneider (edd.), Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopdie der Antike (Stuttgart
2001) 10.1191f.
27
Cf., e.g., Syme [5] 158: Between the consuls of 35 BC and AD 14 an intermediate
generation should be allowed for . . ..
23

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51

than just of high legal training, fits my conjecture very well. Massurius Sabinus
interest in literature was fostered by his upbringing in a home where poetry was
valued very highly. That would be the case if his father was indeed Ovids
Sabinus. The latters lack of success could, on the other hand, explain why the
son did not make this livelihood depend on creative writing but rather went for
what fathers even today prefer, namely a Brotstudium.
Further evidence recommends a hypothetical Massurius Sabinus, father
of the legal scholar. The latter is said to have come from a poor background,
reaching equestrian status only at the age of fifty.28 Because we know nothing
about his family we also do not know exactly how poor they were. Since they
were not of equestrian status their estate was below the minimum of
HS 400 000 required at the time. The equestrian minimum estate would yield an
annual income of about HS 24 000.29 If the family lacked this financial security
it probably depended on patronage.30 Since Ovid was an eques who even had
the required minimum capital for entering the senate, 31 he clearly had the
financial means to support Sabinus at least from time to time. Ovid may
therefore have provided not just a poetic model for Sabinus, but also financial
support and patronage.32 Consequently, his relegation was a life-changing event
for Sabinus as well, since he had to look for new patrons as well as tread
carefully around any other supporters he may have had who did not want to be
pulled into the vortex of Ovids exile. Sabinus, being suddenly left without
Ovids support, probably needed to look for new sponsors whose sensitivities
had to be celebrated. It seems, however, that this opportunism out of necessity
did not serve him well at all since it took his son until he was fifty years of age
to reach equestrian status.
On my analysis, then, Ovids nameless unfaithful friend in Tristia 1.8,
3.11, 5.8 and Epistula ex Ponto 4.3 was a Massurius Sabinus, a second rate poet
of Ovids generation, who tried to get ahead in life by imitating Ovid while he
was successful and at Rome, but who had to change his allegiance out of
necessity once Ovid had been relegated. It should not surprise us that none of
his poetry survives since we have hardly anything from the pens of the people
mentioned in Epistula ex Ponto 4.16. Ovid never forgave Sabinus for his change
of heart and condemned his memory by not naming him in his exile poetry.
28

RE 1A.1600.46-50; Giaro [26] 10.1191.

P. White, Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, Mass.
1993) 6f.
30
White [29] 16-18.
31
W. Kraus, Ovidius Naso, in M. von Albrecht and E. Zinn (edd.), Ovid2 (Darmstadt
1968) 69f.
32
White [29] 46f.
29