Meander's Nod

• The Nature of Ovid’s Exile
• Short Answer
• Long Answer
• Was Ovid Exiled?

The Nature of Ovid’s Exile

Technically, Ovid’s punishment was not exile (Latin exsilium) but relegation (relegatio). Relegatio was a milder form of exile that did not involve, for instance, siezure of Ovid’s assets.

Short Answer

We don’t know and we probably never will!

Long Answer

The only information about Ovid’s relegation comes from his own works, the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. At Tristia 2.207 he gives the reason’s for his punishment, while avoiding the details:

Though two crimes, a song and mistake, have destroyed me,
on the cause of the one deed I have to remain silent
for I am not worthy of reopening your wounds, Caesar,
It is more than enough that you have been pained once.
The other charge remains: I am accused of becoming
by a shameful song a teacher of obscene adultery.

The carmen was his Ars Amatoria, but Ovid gives us very few hints about the error, implying only that he saw something he shouldn’t have: "Why did I see anything? Why did I make my eyes guilty? Why did I recklessly learn of a sin?" (Tristia 2.103-104). Whatever this error was, Ovid admits to knowledge of it but strenuously denies that he was involved in any crime.