=24. DEQVE PARVM NOTO CONSVLET OFFICIO.= 'Will be asking advice about his unfamiliar office'. It still being winter, Pompeius would not have been very long in office, and so would not yet have been very familiar with his duties. Burman objected to this notion ('nec Ovidium tam adulandi imperitum fuisse puto, ut ignorantiam aut seruitutem tam imprudenter obiiceret Pompeio') and conjectured DEQVE PATRVM TOTO CONSVLET OFFICIO, that is, 'consulet Caesares, _quale uelint esse officium_ totius senatus'. But the conjecture is unattractive, and the problem not as great as Burman thought: both Ovid and Pompeius would wish to emphasize the importance of the Caesars. =25. AB HIS VACVVM.= A prose usage, paralleled in Ovid by _EP_ I i 79 alone 'inque locum Scythico _uacuum_ mutabor _ab arcu_'. Elsewhere Ovid has nine instances of _uacuus_ with the simple ablative and two instances of _uacuus_ with the genitive, while Virgil never has _uacuus_ with a complement. ET HIS VACVVM, given by _B_ and _C_, is perhaps an attempt to restore normal poetic idiom. =26. A MAGNIS ... DEIS.= 'After the great gods'--Augustus and Tiberius. Dio says that it was remarked after Augustus' death that both of the consuls for the year were related to the emperor (LVI 29 5); it is strange that Ovid nowhere mentions Pompeius' link with the imperial family. For the sense of _ab_, compare for example _Ecl_ V 48-49 'nec calamis solum aequiperas, sed uoce magistrum: / fortunate puer, tu nunc eris alter _ab illo_' and Statius _Theb_ IV 842. =27. CVM TAMEN ... REQVIEVERIT.= After it has arrived in Rome, the poem should not vex Pompeius by approaching him when he is busy. At _Tr_ I i 93-96 Ovid in the same way advises his book when it should approach Augustus, and at _EP_ III i 135-40 gives similar directions to his wife. Compare as well _Met_ IX 572-73 (a messenger carries Byblis' declaration of love to her brother) 'apta minister / tempora nactus adit traditque fatentia [_H. A. Koch_: latentia _codd_] uerba' and _Met_ IX 610-12 (Byblis' explanation of the failure of her suit) 'forsitan et missi sit quaedam culpa ministri: / non adiit apte, nec legit idonea, credo, / tempora, nec petiit _horam animumque uacantem_'. =27. A TVRBA RERVM.= 'De ces multiples affaires' (André). Heinsius conjectured CVRA, citing ix 71 (addressed to Graecinus as consul) 'cum tamen _a rerum cura_ propiore uacabit'. The conjecture is elegant enough, but the manuscript reading seems sufficiently supported by _Her_ II 75-76 (Phyllis to Demophoon) 'de tanta _rerum turba_ factisque parentis / sedit in ingenio Cressa relicta tuo' and _EP_ III i 144 'per _rerum turbam_ tu quoque oportet eas'; compare as well Columella XI 2 25.