intervened, from the death of Mecaenas to the banishment of Ovid, a period of eleven years; an observation which fully invalidates the conjecture above-mentioned.
Having now refuted, as it is presumed, the opinions of the different commentators on this subject, we shall proceed to offer a new conjecture, which seems to have a greater claim to probability than any that has hitherto been suggested.
Suetonius informs us, that Augustus, in the latter part of his life, contracted a vicious inclination for the enjoyment of young virgins, who were procured for him from all parts, not only with the connivance, but by the clandestine management of his consort Livia. It was therefore probably with one of those victims that he was discovered by Ovid. Augustus had for many years affected a decency of behaviour, and he would, therefore, naturally be not a little