ABSTRACT
In that classicists were considerably, though rather late, influenced by N e w Cri t ic ism and have hence been extremely sensitive to questions of persona (although perhaps not in a very even manner)3 it is unlikely that O v i d would, at least recently, have been pilloried as attempting to eradicate the indigenous culture of T o m i . In fact classicists have even more recently come to terms wi th the possibility that O v i d never even went to T o m i , that not only does he offer an exile-persona but also that his is a fictional setting.4
