The Scapegoat: Ovid's Journey Out of Exile

The Scapegoat

OVID’S JOURNEY

OUT OF EXILE

Michael V. Solomon

To the memory of my mother,

and her almost hundred years of exile

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Preface

Prologue

PART ONE:The Gate

Expecting the Unknown

Orange Powder for Everything

The Price of Freedom

Keep Ovid Alive!

Same Poison in Different Quantities

The Unimaginable Life

Nowhere are People What They Seem to be

Scapegoat by Choice

Escape from Reality

Learning to Let Go

Fortune or Abundance

To Test Eternity

A Veil of Justice

Family Support

You Will Die Many Times

Freedom in Lust

Ships from the South

Facing Fears

Innocence and Energy

Farewell to a Son

Wine, the Reliable Friend

An Offer One Can Only Refuse

Provincial Politics

Recasting the Battle of the Gods

When Darkness Falls

Age Meets Youth

How a Princess Loves

A Spiritual Sisyphus

The Soldier, the Poet and the Children

Another Messenger of Death

Unwanted Help

Gaetic Poetry

Banished from Exile

PART TWO:Okeanos, the Great River of the North

At the Border of the Known World

The Experience of Freedom

The Crossroads

Two Obols

Preparing for Samhain, to Celebrate the Dead

The Crossing

An Outpost of Hyperborea

The Making of a Scapegoat

Ibis, the Bird

The Island Council

The Eleusian Smoke

The Sacred Shed

Fire Follows Water

The Argos

The Celtic Hercules

The Power of Denial

The Surprise

Slipping Away

The Iron Gates

Reunion

The Fugitive

Vestalis

Prisoners

The Way to Rome

PART THREE: Home

The Spymaster

Ovid, the Outlaw

Sejanus

Condemned to Life

Flight

Discovering Rome

Home

Tiro, the Publisher

Io Saturnalia!

The Pythagorean Temple

The Triple Mother Goddess

The Call for the Augustiada

The Plots

Roman Fog

The Way Home

Saving the Julio-Claudian Dynasty

Knowing More Than a Priest

A Visitor From Rome

Corinna

The Mirror

The Art of Freedom

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Map of Ovid’s Journey (Thomas Bohm)

Preface

The need to write this book began almost fifty years ago. In my teenage years I regularly visited my grandfather – an important political figure in Romania between the World Wars – in a forced labour camp in the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain where he had been banished, after many years of imprisonment. Just like Ovid, his punishment had come without even the semblance of a trial. During those summers I came to understand what exile is, what it means to be a scapegoat, and, most importantly, how freedom can take many different forms.

After university, for my first job I moved to Constanta, historically known as Tomis, the city where Ovid had been exiled. I began to research Ovid’s relegation to the Black Sea, and – inspired by the parallels I saw between the poet and my grandfather, and even myself – I wrote a play about him. Sadly, the project was rejected by the local theatre. They told me precisely why: the subject could be seen as a criticism of the local Communist authorities. I had never wanted to leave Romania more, to exile myself.

Years later that wish came true, and with the liberty to travel came a new understanding of freedom – and of exile. Twenty-five years passed as I pursued my engineering career, but Ovid was never far from my mind. Eventually, I began to write about him again. This time I decided it would be a novel. I travelled to his birthplace, Sulmona in the Abruzzi Mountains, to Rome, and finally back to Constanta, following in Ovid’s footsteps.

Back in London, a multi-layered story about exile – and the ways out of it – waited to be written. The novel was soon published, in Romanian, by one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Bucharest – Humanitas.

Then, during the pandemic, I went through the book again, and with new insights, rewrote it for an anglophone audience – an audience who, following years of lockdowns and isolation, understand freedom and exile perhaps more than ever before.

Prologue

The Palatine Hill, Rome, September, AD 8

Ovid’s attention, as he climbed the Palatine Hill towards Augustus’ palace, latched on to the pigeons taking flight around him. It was a bad sign, and if he believed in auguries he should heed it, flee Rome and make for Sulmo without a moment’s delay. His friends had warned him the moment they had heard of the Emperor’s summons. This meeting, they had said, will end in disaster.

The pigeons descended earthward once more, coming to settle on the palace’s fence, where they watched Ovid approach and pass though the Imperial Gateway. Two lictors stared at him with surly disregard as he neared. Either they did not recognise him or they did not care who he was.

‘Publius Ovidius Naso. Here by order of Emperor Augustus.’

One of the lictors looked at Ovid with mounting contempt and then gestured for him to follow them inside the palace and through a sequence of labyrinthine corridors. They came to a stop in a large hall.

‘Wait here’, they said in unison – as if Ovid had a choice – before leaving him alone.

Ovid looked about him. The hall was filled with statues of old men, all now dead. Some of them he had met, and only two he had liked. One of the latter was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, a staunch republican, his late patron and a good friend of the Emperor. Since his death last year, without his protection everything had changed for the worse for Ovid – his Ars Amatoria had been banned straight away, while the publishing of the Metamorphoses had been restricted. And now this meeting.

A soft-footed servant appeared. ‘Caesar Augustus is waiting in the study’, he said.

Ovid’s blood froze. The study. It was well known amongst the Roman elite that should the Emperor greet you there only trouble awaited. Few had ever seen it, and for those who had, not a single one would dare speak about it afterwards – with the exception of Corinna, the muse of his Amores, the woman whom he loved and abandoned to sex-obsessed Augustus to save his career. And who was now Ibis’ wife.

Ovid followed the servant out of the hall and through a door into the dreaded space. There, in the middle of the room, a laurel tree – full grown and enormous – rose up from the floor and out through the opened ceiling, where its branches reached freely towards the sky. Ovid’s breath quickened.

The Emperor’s low voice sounded from behind the laurel tree. ‘No greetings, Naso? Good. Spare them.’

Unsure how to reply, Ovid kept his mouth shut. Such was always the safest course of action around Augustus, who could misconstrue a single word with fatal consequences.

‘Do you like my tree?’

Ovid took a few steps to his left, so he could see the Emperor reclining on a couch pressed up against a back wall. The most powerful man in Rome did not seem to be in a hurry.

‘It’s Apollo’s love tree’, Augustus continued. ‘Like my patron god, I enjoy love very much. Yet I have banned your books about love. Interesting, no?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Now tell me: do you know why you are here?’

‘I am here’, Ovid said, keeping his voice meek, ‘because you called.’

Augustus nodded, satisfied by the answer. ‘Good. Then let us get this over with. I shall not ask you to betray any of your friends. They have already confessed more than I wanted to hear. I doubt you will have anything of interest to offer which might lessen your sentence.’

‘My sentence?’ Ovid spluttered before his voice caught in his throat. The burgeoning terror he had felt since disturbing those pigeons had been well founded. This was no meeting. This was a trial. But what on earth for?

‘We shall keep this short. You have three options. The first is obvious. Kill yourself.’

‘But Emperor, I do not know—’

‘Since you do not believe in the afterlife,’ Augustus interrupted, ‘you have nothing to fear.’

‘Please, I cannot understand—’

‘It is a good option, I believe. Die and I shall ensure that, in Rome, your dignity and your books – with a few exceptions – will be saved. You will have a grand funeral. What do you say?’

‘To suicide?’ Ovid sighed with exasperation. ‘Even were I to know the charges that are held against me – and I most assuredly do not – then I would still choose anything other than my own death.’

Augustus whistled through his teeth. ‘I thought that might be the case. There is honour in this kind of death, but you have never been a man of honour. You are too vain for that. No matter. Perhaps you will prefer your second option.’

‘Emperor, I must protest, I—’

‘Exile. On some Greek island. You will lose everything but your life.’ Augustus grinned. ‘Even you must agree that suicide is preferable to that.’

Ovid felt dizzy. His poems were in danger. Death or exile – what choice was that? ‘What if the jurors don’t find me guilty?’ he muttered.

‘Jurors? What jurors? There will be no trial. You should know better than that.’

Ovid gasped for air. He considered imploring the Emperor further for answers, but held his tongue. Anything he might ask would only be ignored or interrupted. Instead, he waited for the third option. It was all that was left him.

‘No thoughts, Naso? But you are normally so liberal with them.’ The Emperor took a moment to gaze at the backs of his hands. ‘All right. If you choose not to do the decent thing and kill yourself, and if you likewise choose not to settle on a Greek island, there is only one other alternative I can offer you.’ Augustus paused. ‘Relegation.’

‘Relegation?’ Ovid whispered.

‘Relegation. No confiscations. But you will be spirited away from Rome with immediate effect. And you will never return.’

‘Does that mean…’ Ovid composed himself. ‘Does that mean my poems will be safe? That they will not be banned from Rome’s libraries?’

The Emperor took a moment to consider this. ‘Yes. They shall remain. With the exception of the already outlawed Ars Amatoria, of course.’

‘And this relegation. Where will it be?’ Ovid could feel his hands begin to shake.

‘To a place where you will be given the chance to change. At the ends of the earth. I have been there myself. I am not ashamed to admit that I liked it.’

‘The ends of the earth?’

‘Not far from the gateway to Hyperborea. By the Black Sea.’

Ovid felt as if he were suspended over a bottomless ravine, neither falling nor able to fly away. ‘Pontus Euxinus’, he whispered.

The Emperor breathed in deeply, as if absorbing pleasant memories. ‘There is a port there, in front of the sacred island of Leuke, where Apollo has one of his finest temples. The priest there is a friend of mine. Truly, it is the best place on earth to experience transformations. And transform you must, Naso, for this… this…’ – he waved his hand up and down Ovid’s body with a dismissive snort – ‘this is no acceptable way for any man to be.’

‘But’, Ovid protested weakly, ‘it is outside of the Empire.’

‘Isn’t crossing boundaries one of your many talents?’ Augustus rose from the couch and began to dust the leaves of the laurel tree with the sleeves of his tunic. As the foliage danced around him it caught the sun’s rays, and Ovid felt as if a green-gold shower were falling from the ceiling.

For the first time since entering the study, he felt the sharp edge of rage. There is no reasoning with him, he thought. The bastard thinks himself a god. He cleared his throat. ‘I demand to know what charges have been brought against me.’

Augustus pursed his lips. ‘You are a nuisance, Naso.’

‘And for this, for being a nuisance, I must be punished?’

‘That is only one small aspect. Of course.’

‘Then what is the rest of it? Why? Why? Why am I to be exiled?’

‘Not exiled. Relegated.’

‘It is banishment from Rome—’

‘Or death’, Augustus snapped. ‘Now enough questions. Which is it to be? You have wasted too much of my time already. Shall I choose for you?’

Ovid stared into the eyes of his Emperor for as long as he dared. He could see, incontrovertibly, that there was nothing he could do to nudge Augustus away from the decision he had made. The man’s resolve was firm. Ovid’s choice was bleak, but simple – banishment or suicide. There was no other option. ‘I choose the Black Sea’, he said. ‘To save my poems. From my understanding of relegation, it means they will be not be confiscated. They will continue to be published. You will not interdict them.’

Augustus became impatient. ‘How many times do you need to hear the same answer? With the exception of Ars Amatoria, I will not ban them’, he said. ‘You know, without you, I truly believe that Rome will change for the better. Gods willing.’ He turned his attention to the laurel tree. ‘I shall have a branch of this tree dipped in gold for the temple on Leuke. You will give it to the high priest there, along with my regards.’

‘How long do I have?’ Ovid muttered, gazing down at the floor.

‘If you haven’t changed your mind and cut your veins by the end of the month, you will be escorted to Brindisum and placed on a boat for Tomis.’

So that was where he was to spend the rest of his life.

Tomis.

Ovid shuddered. Even the name sounded like a curse.

PART ONE

The Gate

Tomis, a port on the western coast of the Black Sea, six years later

Expecting the Unknown

The stone bench, too short to allow Ovid and his backgammon partner, the Aedile of Tomis, to recline in the customary manner, obliged both to stare at the board and only squint at each other. A bead of fresh sweat coursing down the Aedile’s forehead indicated that he had cheated again. Dice games always brought out the worst strategies in this city magistrate, but now was not the time for a confrontation. Any accusation, no matter how well founded, would devolve into argument. Ovid knew he would need the Aedile’s support as long as he were to remain in Tomis. Hopefully, that would not be for long. Rome’s envoy, General Gaius Julius Vestalis, had arrived the day before and was due to pay him a visit. Finally, he hoped, the Emperor’s pardon.

‘Is there anything you will miss from Tomis?’ the Aedile asked.

‘The six years I lost.’ Ovid threw the three dice from the leather cup, made his move, and then sat back, squeezing the armrest of the bench – the head of a stone lion. Thankfully the beast did not bite back.

All of a sudden a silence settled over the garden, smothering like imminent death. For three days the nerve-itching rhythms of clashing bronze pots had filled the air, and finally they had reached their conclusion. Outside Tomis’s city walls, this year’s Lemuria festival had ended. Ovid had avoided this particular celebration, as he had most of them since his arrival. Unlike the city’s citizens, he took no pleasure in appeasing the lemures, those spectres of the restless dead that now, though somehow comforted, could wander freely for another year.

A gust of wind rustled along the wall from one forsythia shrub to another until it reached the lilac tree, which shivered warnings. The violet bells, hundreds of them, released their sweet spring fragrance, which would have filled Ovid with joy were it not tempered by the perpetual salty smell of rotten algae. He had never liked the sea, and this particular one – the Black – which began just two streets away from his house, he hated. He gazed over at the lilac tree, and smiled. He was not afraid of lemures. Indeed, he wished for their existence. It would give proof to the notion of afterlife, would mean that death was not death, that there was something waiting for them all beyond this earth. If there were any truth in such thoughts, it would at last free him from his fears of dying, but he knew there was not.

The sun disappeared behind a cloud, casting a shadow over the garden. A hedgehog appeared from beneath a shrub and began to nose around the stationary feet of Spiros, Ovid’s only slave, who stood under the wooden portico.

The Aedile had taken his turn – if there was further trickery, it went unnoticed – and it was Ovid’s go once more. He threw the dice with a generous flick of his arm, and when they tumbled to a standstill all sides showed six. The highest of the Vultures!

‘Unbelievable. You know, the locals claim you are a magician’, the Aedile said. ‘Perhaps they are right.’ He leaned back into the stone bench, conceding the game.

Rather than try to explain sheer luck, Ovid instead pointed towards the moss-covered statues which rested on a pedestal built into the garden wall. ‘Blame my house gods.’

‘Them?’

Ovid allowed a smile to creep across his lips. ‘When I get pardoned, these you can have.’

‘I’d rather have your slave.’

‘He is not for sale.’

‘Shall we bet on him?’

‘No. You could get lucky.’

A loud banging echoed through the courtyard. It was the front door.

The general, thought Ovid. Only Romans knock with their foot.

The house came to life. It was the first time in a long while that he had seen his four lazy servants so animated, as they swarmed about each other in a clumsy pantomime. It was almost enough to make him laugh.

‘I expect you will be leaving now’, Ovid said to the Aedile.

‘No. I must make my amends to the General.’ The magistrate’s tone was sincere. ‘Last winter, when barbarians launched a large offensive across the frozen Danube, General Vestalis – who was chief centurion at the time – pushed them back and saved Scythia Minor and Tomis with it. Yet Tomis, as usual, failed to offer its gratitude.’

‘Perhaps now is not the time for this… business.’

‘Tomis is my business. Be generous. You will be out of here soon.’

Ovid nodded. The Aedile was right. Soon he would leave Tomis, and perhaps the magistrate might never have such an opportune time to speak to the General again. ‘Fine’, he said. ‘But forgive me while I retire for a moment. I must prepare.’ Turning on his heel, he made his way out of the garden towards his study.

As soon as Ovid was out of sight, Spiros approached the Aedile. ‘I can’t believe that you tried to bet on me. I told you I don’t want to be anyone’s slave. I want to be free. I don’t want to stay in Tomis.’

The Aedile looked at Spiros with contempt. ‘You want too many things. All at once. Help him to get dressed. And for once, don’t be quick.’

Orange Powder for Everything

In the semi-obscurity of his study, Ovid marvelled at the rays that pierced the cracks in the window shutters and turned the dust particles into thousands of miniscule worms of light. They reminded him that miracles did exist, even if the afterlife did not.

A knot began to form in his stomach, restricting his breathing, as if he were being strangled from inside. He knew this discomfort, knew it well, and began to search for the only treatment that worked. The General would have to wait. There it was: the small leather pouch of orange powder, bitter and choking. Unlike the other mood-changing mixtures he had tried, this powder, provided by Antipater, the best doctor in Tomis, had never failed. Ovid thrust his tongue inside the container, and with the dexterity of a lizard flicked the concoction into his mouth. It did not take long for that familiar warmth to course through his body, and he breathed out contentedly. He had again escaped death. At least, for now.

Planting his feet firm and wide apart, his body straight and balanced, he imagined himself gripping the polished handrail of a racing chariot. He could feel the jolting racetrack beneath him, could hear the cries of the driver, see the obelisk of Apollo, there, directly before him. There could be no mistake. He was back in Rome. He had entered the Circus Maximus. Around him, the excited crowd cheered. Had they been waiting for him? The driver waved to the public, but Ovid kept his hands on the rails, his attention caught by the Palatine. Augustus had not yet finished building his huge white palace when Ovid had been relegated to the Black Sea, but now it appeared complete, resplendent in its opulence.

A voice – distinct, recognisable – drifted out from the crowd. ‘The General is waiting.’

The wild cries and low hums of the Circus Maximus slowly began to vanish, fading away to reveal nothing but his study and, stood before him, Spiros. ‘The General is waiting’, he repeated.

Ovid nodded, allowing the hallucination to recede.

Spiros held out a folded garment, which lay draped across his arms like a fainted maiden. ‘The toga with the purple border’, he said. ‘As you requested.’

‘It had better be clean.’ Ovid checked for pigeon excrement. ‘And no moths.’ He began to dress himself, surprised that, after so many years, the toga still fit him well.

Spiros held up a silver mirror.

‘Take that away.’ The last time Ovid had looked closely into that glass, the yellow spots he had seen on his face made him fear his liver was damaged. In Tomis no one polished mirrors.

Turning his back on Spiros, he was relieved to feel that his heart rate had subsided. Piece by piece, he rehearsed the protocol that accompanied a noble appearance – the gestures, the posture, the voice, the pace. The more he practised, the closer he felt to Rome.

‘Open the door’, he ordered, and stepped into the atrium.

The General was obscured from view by the supplicating Aedile. ‘General, our association to honour god Augustus and goddess Roma begs for your protection. We would be delighted if you were to accept the patronage of our association.’

God Augustus, Ovid thought. In my house? He should have been disgusted by the idea, but instead he felt sympathy for the magistrate, and for all the provincials like him. Living so far out on the periphery of things, they had to work hard to attract attention.

The Aedile, spotting Ovid, held up his hand. ‘Publius Ovidius, let me introduce General Gaius Julius Vestalis.’

The General, a lean young man already with grey hair, dressed in a plain woollen tunic, his military background betrayed only by his sandals, advanced and offered his hand. Ovid remained still. He let the man wait with his hand outstretched. In his house, only he decided with whom to shake hands.

The Aedile, always quick to understand a delicate situation, chose to intervene. ‘Ovid, the General is the hero from Aegissos I told you about. It was he who last year saved Scythia Minor and, by extension, Tomis.’

Ovid smiled. ‘Be welcome in my house, General’, he said at last, holding out his hand so that their forearms met in a loud clap. Only now he realised how much he had missed this Roman handshake, and for a brief moment a sensation of camaraderie, of belonging, coursed through his veins. The orange powder had not suppressed every emotion.

‘It is time for me to leave.’ The Aedile backed away from the General and, as he made his exit, stopped beside Ovid and gently touched his shoulder. ‘Thank you. I’ll arrange you a quick passage out of Tomis, once you get the pardon.’

The Price of Freedom

As soon as the Aedile left, Spiros ceremoniously opened the double doors and invited the General inside. The stifling silence, which had filled the garden earlier, now moved into the house and took possession of the rooms.

Vestalis sauntered up to the set of small imperial statues which depicted Augustus, Livia and Tiberius, a strange gift Ovid had once received from his friend Cotta Maximus – the son of Messalla, his long-time patron who had passed away a few month before Ovid’s exile – and which Spiros had displayed unsolicited on the house altar. ‘Even from here’, the General said with a half-smile, ‘you’re keeping an eye on them.’

And vice-versa, thought Ovid, but abstained from commenting. These pieces belonged in a box, and would remain in Tomis after he had left.

‘That golden laurel branch. I have seen those only in the temples of Apollo.’

Ovid stared at the branch. What was it that he had been told to do with it? He shook his head, searching for the memory, but it would not come. All he knew was that taking it back to Rome would mean another affront to Augustus, and throwing it away would be an affront to Apollo. What an idiot Spiros was to display all these items, believing that they would impress a military man.

He hoped the conversation would turn soon to the matter of his pardon. Vestalis, however, seemed to be in no hurry. He pointed at the mosaic walls with their dark and imposing mountains. ‘This landscape is a good substitute for the real thing’, he said, switching from Greek, Tomis’s language, to an impeccable Latin.

‘Perhaps. Although I’ve never quite felt that the pieces of the mosaic belong together’, Ovid said. He turned to look at the General. ‘Have you really recaptured the Danube Delta from the Scythians?’

‘Sort of.’

‘We were never told that it had been lost.’

‘The first casualty of every war is truth. You must know it. It is not much different with art.’ Vestalis looked again at the mosaic. ‘Art really is a curious thing, isn’t it? We see not only what is present but also what is absent.’

Ovid wondered how much this General truly knew of art and illusion. Yet, again, it was a conversation he did not want to have. It would only serve to delay the purpose of this visit. Pardon. Release. Freedom. Ovid pulled apart the heavy crimson curtain to the dining room. ‘Can I invite you for lunch? It will be frugal, I’m afraid, but you are welcome to it.’

‘Would you be offended if I stayed only for a drink?’

Offended, Ovid thought. Hand me over the pardon and you can clear off immediately. ‘You’ll like the wine’, he said, tempering his thoughts. ‘But I should warn you that the water here is miserable.’

The two men entered the dining room. On the low, square table surrounded by couches, two silver drinking goblets stood proud. In perfect order around them sat the best silverware, which Spiros had laid with care. A servant came forward to wash their feet, and what should have been a mere formality turned into a thorough cleanse, which Vestalis seemed to enjoy. At least he can see that I’ve maintained standards, Ovid thought as he watched the General sigh with pleasure. Spiros poured the wine and delivered it to the men’s hands. They toasted Rome.

‘Do you know,’ Vestalis said, ‘few believe you are still in Tomis. Fewer still believe you were ever here at all.’

Ovid leaned forward. He had thought that this rumour must have faded away by now. It had floated around Rome since his relegation. In his letters, his friend Greacinus joked about it. Cotta as well. What if this General was visiting him not to bring the pardon, but for some other reason? ‘Have you come to check on me?’ The wine gave him courage – or perhaps it was the orange powder.

‘Most people think that you struck a deal with the Emperor. That he let you live wherever you chose if you just got out of his way.’

‘Augustus doesn’t make deals. For that matter, neither do I.’

Vestalis took a long and measured gulp of the wine. ‘I read some of your latest poems about exile’, he said.

‘What did you think of them?’

‘They deal with places that don’t exist, where the snow hasn’t melted for years and where the wine freezes into icicles. I wondered why. Why do this? Any of it?’

Ovid laid his cup down and looked Vestalis square in the eye, being sure to keep his voice level. ‘What’s your message, General?’

Vestalis placed his cup down beside Ovid’s. ‘How much do you admire Germanicus?’ he said.

Admire? The truth of it was this – not at all. But that could not be said aloud about Rome’s most successful General. After all, he was Livia’s grandson, of imperial blood. ‘General,’ Ovid said, ‘I’ve heard that you are a Celt. My knowledge of your kind is that you are direct and honest. So don’t mince your words. Relay your message, whatever it is. And make it short, I beg of you. Have you brought my pardon?’

‘No.’

The answer felt like a blow to the testicles. Ovid reached out to grab his cup and managed to lift it to his mouth. Once he had drained it, Vestalis picked up the jug and performed the refill. Ovid drank that down too. Sobriety was far from him, a dozen drinks back in a timeless past, and yet he knew the oblivion he craved would refuse to come close. Instead, he would need to balance through the torture of his scattered thoughts – the forgotten outcast suffering his slow death amongst these freezing winters and that horrible, ever-present sea. Life had