# Ovid at Tomis: the poet's exile and the city's memory

*Tomis, 8 – 17 or 18 AD · Constanta today*

In 8 AD, Augustus relegated Ovid to Tomis, on the Black Sea shore. He never came back: from 8 until his death, in 17 or 18, he wrote 9 books of verse about cold, longing, and a fault summed up only as a poem and an error. Today his 1887 statue stands over Ovidiu Square in Constanta.

From the Tristia and the Letters from the Black Sea · checked on 2026-09-19

## The road to Tomis

Book 1 of the Tristia includes poems of departure and travel: storms in the Adriatic, boarding at Cenchreae, the narrows, Samothrace, then the Pontic coast down to Tomis. The chart below shows 8 reconstructed editorial stages after Tristia 1.10–1.11, not 8 stopping places named as such in the poem.

Ovid was still on the road and writing in December; the journey is usually placed in the winter of 8/9, with arrival at Tomis in 9. As the crow flies, Rome and today's Constanta, on the site of Tomis, stand 1,330 km apart; by sea and on foot, his road ran far longer.

### 1. Rome

The night of departure, Tristia 1.3. Augustus orders him out of Italy.

### 2. The Adriatic

Editorial waypoint: storms and verses written on the waves, Ovid says he was writing in December, Tristia 1.2, 1.4, 1.11.

### 3. Corinth, Cenchreae

Here he says he boards Minerva's ship, Tristia 1.10.

### 4. The Hellespont

Editorial waypoint: the narrows, past Troy, Tristia 1.10.

### 5. Samothrace

Here he says he leaves the ship and walks through Thrace, Tristia 1.10.

### 6. Byzantium

The ship, without Ovid, gone on foot, is prayed to pass Byzantium, at the mouth of Pontus, Tristia 1.10.

### 7. The western Pontic coast

Editorial waypoint grouping the towns on the ship's wished route: Apollonia, Anchialus, Mesembria, Odesos, Dionysopolis, Callatis, Tristia 1.10.

### 8. Tomis

Arrival, in 9. He dies here in 17 or 18, never recalled.

## Six poems, three tongues

Each poem shows its date, the Latin text, and the Romanian and English renderings: A. S. Kline's English (2003), the editor's Romanian.

### The night of departure (Tristia 1.3.1–2, on the road to exile, winter 8/9)

Tristia 1.3 opens the book with the last night in Rome.

> Cum subit illius tristissima noctis imago,
> quae mihi supremum tempus in urbe fuit,

> When the saddest memory comes to mind,
> of that night, my last hour in the city,
> Când îmi răsare în minte imaginea acelei nopți atât de triste,
> ceasul meu din urmă în cetate,

### The fault (Tristia 2.207–208, Tomis, probably 9–10)

Tristia 2, a plea of 578 lines addressed to Augustus. Here he sums up his motives as a poem and an error, without disclosing the error.

> Perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
> alterius facti culpa silenda mihi:

> Though two charges, carmen et error, a poem and an error,
> ruined me, I must be silent about the second fault:
> Două învinuiri m-au pierdut, poemul și greșeala,
> vina celei de-a doua fapte trebuie s-o trec sub tăcere:

### Winter (Tristia 3.10.37–38, Tomis, probably 9–10)

Tristia 3.10. Ovid claims he saw the frozen Pontus and walked on the ice.

> Vidimus ingentem glacie consistere pontum,
> lubricaque inmotas testa premebat aquas.

> I’ve seen the vast waters frozen with ice,
> a slippery shell gripping the unmoving deep.
> Am văzut Pontul uriaș închegat de gheață,
> cum o coajă lunecoasă apăsa apele nemișcate.

### The epitaph (Tristia 3.3.73–76, Tomis, probably 9–10)

Tristia 3.3. He dictates his own tombstone inscription.

> hic ego qui iaceo tenerorum lusor amorum
> ingenio perii Naso poeta meo;
> at tibi qui transis ne sit grave quisquis amasti
> dicere Nasonis molliter ossa cubent.

> I LIE HERE, WHO TOYED WITH TENDER LOVE,
> OVID THE POET BETRAYED BY MY GENIUS:
> BE NOT SEVERE, LOVER, AS YOU PASS BY,
> SAY ‘EASY MAY THE BONES OF OVID LIE’
> Aici zac eu, cel ce m-am jucat cu gingașele iubiri,
> Naso, poetul, pierdut de propriul meu talent;
> iar ție, trecătorule, oricine ești care ai iubit,
> să nu-ți fie greu să spui: lin să se odihnească oasele lui Naso.

### Who he was (Tristia 4.10.3–4, Tomis, probably 11–12)

Tristia 4.10, the autobiography. Sulmona, 90 miles from Rome, about 133 km apart.

> Sulmo mihi patria est, gelidis uberrimus undis,
> milia qui novies distat ab Vrbe decem.

> Sulmo’s my native place, rich in icy streams,
> and ninety miles distant from the City.
> Sulmona îmi e patria, bogată în unde reci,
> la nouăzeci de mile depărtare de Roma.

### The Getic poem (Ex Ponto 4.13.19–20, Tomis, after the death of Augustus; Ovid calls it the sixth winter)

Ex Ponto 4.13. Ovid claims verse written in the local tongue, a lost work, an uncorroborated event.

> A! pudet et Getico scripsi sermone libellum
> structaque sunt nostris barbara uerba modis:

> Ah! Shameful: I’ve even written a work in Getic,
> where savage words are set to Italian metres.
> Ah, rușine: am scris până și o cărticică în grai getic,
> iar vorbele barbare le-am clădit în măsura versului nostru:

## Ovid's Tomis

Tomis was, in Ovid's etiological account in Tristia 3.9, a Milesian colony among the Getae. On the traditional dating, a Milesian colony founded around the 6th century BC, today's Constanta stands on the site of Tomis.

Much of ancient Tomis lies under the modern city, and the visible remains come chiefly from later Roman phases. The ancient pavement of the mosaic edifice is estimated at about 2,000 m² of mosaic, of which about 400 m² survive in situ. The edifice was raised at the end of the 3rd or the start of the 4th century.

Ovid claims he learned the local tongue and reports that his Getic listeners nodded and murmured approval at his verses in their speech, Ex Ponto 4.13.19–38, a lost work, an uncorroborated event. In Tristia 3.10, Ovid claims he saw the frozen Pontus.

## The statue of the man who never wished to stay

In 1887, almost 1,900 years after the poet's death in 17 or 18, Constanta raised his statue in Ovidiu Square. Its author is the Italian Ettore Ferrari; in 1925, an identical replica was placed in his native Sulmona, 38 years later.

Ovid had asked in verse not to be forgotten. The poet's plea to be remembered takes monumental form at Constanta in 1887.

## Why he was sent to Tomis

The edict of Augustus does not survive, and no source precisely identifies the error. Ovid mentions it often and never names it. Here is where knowledge parts from guesswork.

### What is known

**A poem and a fault.** That is how Ovid sums up his motives, in Tristia 2.207–208, adding that the guilt must pass over in silence. Scholars usually identify the poem with the Art of Love; the error stays unknown. The name of the fault appears nowhere in the 96 exile poems, in the Kline division.

**Relegated, not exiled.** The edict of Augustus was harsh, but mild in naming the penalty: Tristia 2.135–137. Ovid kept his citizenship and his property, but was compelled to remain far from Rome.

**Never recalled.** Augustus died in 14, Ovid in 17 or 18, still at Tomis. The years of hope under Tiberius brought no pardon.

### What is guessed

**The Art of Love.** Scholars usually identify the poem with the Art of Love, published years before 8, so many think Augustus used it only as a pretext. Ovid himself defends the book at length in Tristia 2.

**A family scandal.** Links with scandals in the imperial house have been proposed, including the exile of Julia the Younger in 8, but there is no consensus and no direct evidence connects Ovid with them.

**Perhaps never there.** The hypothesis, proposed by J. J. Hartman in 1923 and revived by G. D. Fitton Brown in 1985, stays marginal; biographies and specialist studies routinely treat the relegation to Tomis as historical fact.

## Six claims, true or false

- Ovid lost his Roman citizenship by sentence. | False. The edict calls him relegated, not exiled (Tristia 2.135–137): he kept his citizenship and his property, but was compelled to remain far from Rome.
- Ovid names his fault in verse. | False. He says only this: a poem and a fault (Tristia 2.207–208), and the guilt must pass over in silence.
- The exile produced 9 books: 5 of Tristia and 4 of Letters from Pontus. | True. 5 books holding 50 elegies and 4 books holding 46 letters, 96 poems in all in the Kline division.
- Ovid says he wrote a poem in the Getic tongue. | True. Ex Ponto 4.13.19–20: a booklet in Getic speech, in the winter Ovid calls his sixth at Tomis.
- Augustus pardoned him before dying. | False. Augustus died in 14, Ovid in 17 or 18, still at Tomis, after 9 or 10 years of exile.
- The Constanta statue dates from 1887. | True. Ettore Ferrari, Ovidiu Square; the Sulmona replica was placed in 1925, 38 years later.

## Sources and how the claims were checked

### The ancient text

- Ovid, *Tristia* 1–5 and *Epistulae ex Ponto* 1–4, Latin text (The Latin Library, uncritical text; numbers counted from the book) (https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid.html)
- Ovid, *Poems from Exile*, English translation by A. S. Kline, 2003 (tables of contents give the 96-poem division) (https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Ovidexilehome.php)
- J. B. Hall, *Tristia*, Teubner, 1995: critical edition splitting six transmitted units (1.5, 1.9, 3.4, 4.4, 5.2, 5.7), so any total depends on segmentation ()
- Peter Green, *Ovid: The Poems of Exile*, University of California Press, 2005: modern translation and commentary ()

### Context

- Gareth Williams, “Ovid's exile poetry”, in *The Cambridge Companion to Ovid*, ed. Philip Hardie, Cambridge UP, 2002, pp. 233–245: carmen et error, the second unknown (https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521772818.016)
- William Smith (ed.), *Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology*, Ovid entry: relegatio, not exilium; citizenship retained (Perseus) (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=p-ovidius-naso-bio-1)
- Ovid, 43 BC – 17 AD, Sulmo–Tomi: biographical note (Open Book Publishers, *Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511–733*, ch. 1) (https://books.openedition.org/obp/3610)
- Jeremy Dimmick, “Ovid in the Middle Ages”, in *The Cambridge Companion to Ovid*, 2002: unbroken medieval reception ()
- The Roman mile, about 1.48 km: 1,000 paces of 5 feet (Royal Albert Memorial Museum, measures handout) (https://rammuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Measuring-Numbers-and-Treasure-v2.pdf)

### The places

- Constanța History and Archaeology Museum: Tomis, a Milesian colony of the 6th century BC (short history) (https://minac.ro/scurt-istoric-tomis/)
- Constanța History and Archaeology Museum: the mosaic edifice, about 2,000 m² estimated, about 400 m² surviving, built at the turn of the 3rd–4th centuries (https://minac.ro/edificiul-roman-cu-mozaic/)
- Tomis, a Milesian colony probably founded in the 6th century, under the modern city (*Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites*, Perseus) (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0006:entry=tomis)
- The Ovid statue, Ettore Ferrari, 1887; replica placed at Sulmona in 1925 (Heritage Constanța, historic monument CT-III-m-A-02928) (https://heritageconstanta.com/en/listings/statue-of-ovidiu/)