Publica paene via (Nux 60). Un'esperienza di vita nel Ponto Sinistro

The fortunes of Ovid at Tomis permit us to look at the Romanity from outside the Empire. About this singular experience we gather information – apart from the rhetorical strategies of self-pity and suasory – by means of Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, and some feeling is also evoked by the elegy Nux (either Ovid’s or Ovidian imitation). From the geographical, political and administrative situation of Tomis the poet was induced to give up Romano-centrism and other leitmotifs of imperial propaganda, such as the pax Augusta and security assured by the pater patriae. With the due time, new acquaintances and contacts with different people and cultures led the exiled Ovid to change his evaluation criteria also about the locals and their daily trials, in a restless country, where different nations met each other, like along a publica via. Apart from the riddle of Ovid’s punishment, his relegatio into an area recently under Roman sovereignty could be influenced by political opportunity for establishing, into a Hellenistic town, not only a military or fiscal Roman presence, but a culturally qualified one.