The conversation then turned to other topics: the games, the new drains, the theatre of Balbus, the Naumachia, and the debated question whether the Emperor was right in having caused Vedius Pollio’s crystal beakers to be broken because the latter had condemned a slave, who had accidentally dropped one of them, to be thrown into his pond of lampreys and eaten. The sentence would have been carried out had not the Emperor interfered and caused the slave to be released. Horatius said that Vedius Pollio deserved to be eaten by lampreys himself, but Ovidius and Ludius considered the punishment to be out of all proportion to the crime. Agrippa could not understand his minding the goblet being broken, as there were plenty of goblets in the world. Vergilius thought that Pollio’s act was monstrous. Cinna said that the slave was his own. Maecenas considered that although it was a reprehensible act (and such deeds created dangerous precedents) nobody but a collector knew how terribly severe the punishment was. We sat talking till late in the night. I cannot write any more, but I have just heard a piece of startling news. Ovidius Naso has been banished _for life_ to some barbarous spot near Tauris. The reason of his disgrace is unknown. Hail! THE CAPREAE REGATTA, A.D. 27 _Letter from Sabina to Chloe_ CAPREAE, _August_. We arrived late the night before last from Rome, and never have I seen Capreae so crowded. There are hundreds of yachts here, and many from Egypt, Greece, and Asia, and the whole fleet has arrived, and is drawn up ready for inspection. Clothes are, of course, a difficulty, because one is expected to be elegant, and if one wears anything beautiful it is certain to be spoilt when one gets in and out of boats. Clodia looks too absurd in Egyptian silks and gold chains, just as if she were going to the Games, and Lesbia looks sillier still dressed up as a Greek sailor boy. I have tried to steer a middle course between the two extremes, and I have got a plain white peplum with brown sandals; this all looks cool and summer-like, but it is really substantial enough for the fickle, breezy weather. Yesterday we went with Sejanus to be shown over one of the ships, the _Servius Tullius_. It was one of the new kind, with three decks and four of what they call turrets. The officers on board were very proud of themselves because in their “battering practice,” which they had just been doing in some outlandish place, they had successfully destroyed the _boom_ (which is a kind of mast sticking out from the ship) of the dummy ship on which they practise. Julius says that these experiments are a waste of money, because each of these dummy ships costs I don’t know how much money. But then Julius is a Little Roman, and I always tell him that if everybody thought as he did, we should have the barbarians in Rome in no time.