RELEGATING OVIDIUS TO TOMIS - AN ACT OF CLEMENCY OR A LEGAL ANOMALY?
RELEGATING OVIDIUS TO TOMIS - AN ACT OF CLEMENCY OR A LEGAL ANOMALY?

Summary/Abstract: At the end of October 8 AD, on the basis of an edict issued by Octavianus Augustus himself, Publius Ovidius Naso was sentenced to relegation and forced to leave Rome as soon as possible to embark for his relegation destination, the fortress of Tomis in Scythia Minor, on the western shore of the Euxine Pontus. Ovidius was not allowed to appear in court to defend himself in a public trial and was not told the reason for his banishment. The poet seems, however, to recognize the legality of Augustus's procedure, believing that the direct intervention of the emperor, in the absence of a decision by the senate or an elected judge, was not a legal anomaly but a sign of clemency. The jurist Ulpianus states that, in the absence of the possibility of defending himself in court, a relegatus was allowed to compose a defensive memorial and send it to the emperor in Rome, which Ovidius would do, composing Tristia II, and which can be considered, on the basis of its structure and content, a true defensive memorial. Unfortunately, Ovidius did not fulfill this wish during his lifetime and all the rhetorical props used in Tristia II were in vain.

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