=15. DETECTAE ... CVLPAE= _scripsi_ DECEPTAE ... CVLPAE _codd_. _Me decipit error_ is a phrase used by Ovid to mean 'I am making a mistake'; see _EP_ III ix 9-12 'auctor opus laudat ... iudicium tamen hic non _decipit error_ ['I do not make this error of judgment'], / nec quicquid genui protinus illud amo'. Ovid uses the expression very often for the "mistake" which led to his exile: see _Tr_ I iii 37-38 (Ovid to his friends on the night of his exile) 'caelestique uiro quis me _deceperit error_ / dicite pro culpa ne scelus esse putet', _Tr_ IV i 23 'scit quoque [_sc_ Musa] cum perii quis me _deceperit error_', and _EP_ II ii 61 'quasi me nullus _deceperit error_'. He uses _decipere_ once when speaking of the other cause of his exile: 'o puer [_sc_ Amor], exilii _decepto_ causa magistro' (_EP_ III iii 23). Wheeler took _deceptae_ to refer to Ovid: 'Augustus had begun to pardon the fault I committed in error'. This kind of extreme hypallage, with the true modified noun not expressed, does not however seem to be Ovid's practice, although found in the Silver poets: Statius _Theb_ IX 425 'deceptaque fulmina' means 'the thunderbolts thrown by Jupiter at the request of Semele, who had been _deceived_ by Juno'. Professor J. N. Grant suggests DECEPTI to me; but the genitive of the first person is rare in Ovid, and the perfect participle without expressed noun seems difficult. Owen saw the difficulty with _deceptae_, and in his second edition referred to Livy XXII 4 4 'id tantum hostium quod ex aduerso erat conspexit; ab tergo ac super caput _deceptae_ insidiae'. But _deceptae_ (which has been variously emended) there means _occultae_, as explained by Housman (521-22), who cited Prop II xxiv 35-36 'Phrygio fallax Maeandria campo / errat et ipsa suas _decipit_ unda uias' and Sen _HF_ 155 for the same sense; and _occultae_ is clearly not the meaning here required, since Ovid's misdemeanour was all too visible. Being unable to explain _deceptae_, I have conjectured _detectae_. Ovid seems to have committed his _error_ in two stages. First he committed the original misdemeanour; then he kept silent about it when it might have been better for him to speak. Compare _Tr_ III vi 11-13 'cuique ego narrabam secreti quicquid habebam, / excepto quod me perdidit, unus eras. / id quoque si scisses, saluo fruerere sodali'. Later this misdemeanour was discovered: for the arrival of the news of this discovery when Ovid was visiting Elba with Cotta Maximus, see _EP_ II iii 83-90. It is to this discovery that _detectae_ refers: 'Augustus had begun to forgive the misdemeanour that had been revealed'. For this use of _detegere_ compare _Met_ II 544-47 'ales / sensit adulterium Phoebeius [_coruus_, the raven], utque latentem / _detegeret culpam_, non exorabilis index, / ad dominum tendebat iter' and Livy XXII 28 8 'necubi ... motus alicuius ... aut fulgor armorum fraudem ... detegeret'.