ABSTRACT
His desperate longing for Rome is crystallized in the poem in which he imagines the triumphal procession celebrated by Augustus in 12 CE. Sorrows 4.2 provides the fullest surviving description of the Roman triumphal procession (as discussed in Chapter 5.17-19), a description which Ovid conjures from his memory. The closing passage articulates his sense of loss:
All this, though exiled, I’ll see in my mind’s eye: it’s entitled to go where I cannot,
can freewheel over enormous distances, reaches heaven in its swift course, conveys my eyes
to the heart of the City, will not ever let them be deprived of so great a good: will find the means
whereby in spirit I’ll watch your ivory chariot – a brief return, at last, to my native land!
