OVID AS ETHNOGRAPHER IN THE EPISTULAE EX PONTO

Abstract

Ovid's second collection of letters from his place of exile exhibits new strategies to achieve his aims of staying in the public eye and making his case for recall back to Rome. One of these new strategies is to pose as a kind of ethnographer with a ground-level view of Tomitan and Thracian society on the Black Sea coast. In the Epistulae ex Ponto, Ovid poses as a mediator between Rome and the imperial fringe, informing his reader about the activities of the Pontic tribes, describing his alleged interactions with the people of Tomis, and addressing the client king of the region. By doing so, Ovid explores new metaphors of exile, and grants to elegy and the letter a novel utility that slightly empowers his exiled voice.