The poem is a letter of condolence to the famous rhetor Junius Gallio, an old friend of Ovid (see at 1). Ovid starts the poem by saying that Gallio should certainly be mentioned in his poetry, because he helped Ovid at the time of his catastrophe (1-4). This one misfortune should have been enough for him, but now he has lost his wife (5-8). Ovid wept on receiving the news, but will not attempt to comfort him, since by now the grief is in the past, and he would risk renewing it (9-20). Also (and he hopes this will turn out to be the case), Gallio may already have remarried (21-22). The poem is one of the shortest in Ovid's canon (_Am_ II iii is shorter), and has few parallels with his other poems. The one that comes closest is _EP_ I ix, addressed to Cotta Maximus, which describes Ovid's reaction on hearing of the death of Celsus. There are some verbal parallels as well with _EP_ I iii, Ovid's answer to Rufinus' letter of consolation on his exile. In the commentary I cite passages from Ser. Sulpicius Rufus' famous letter to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia (_Fam_ IV v) and from Seneca's treatises of consolation; Ovid was clearly making use of the common topics of the genre. =1. GALLIO.= Junius Gallio[24], adoptive father of the younger Seneca's elder brother, is often cited by the elder Seneca, who considered him one of the four supreme orators of his time (_Contr_ X praef. 13). At _Suas_ III 6-8, Seneca discusses Gallio's fondness for the Virgilian phrase _plena deo_ (which, oddly, is not found in our text of the poet), and quotes Gallio as saying that his friend Ovid was also very fond of the phrase. Quintilian and Tacitus did not share Seneca's high opinion of Gallio: Quintilian criticizes the lack of restraint in his style (IX ii 92), while at _Dial_ 26 1 Tacitus has Messalla say how he prefers 'G. Gracchi impetum aut L. Crassi maturitatem quam calamistros ['curling irons' = 'excessive ornament'] Maecenatis aut tinnitus Gallionis'. [Footnote 24: _PIR_1 I 493; _PIR_2 I 756; PW X,l 1035 26; Schanz-Hosius 349 (§ 336)] In AD 32 Gallio proposed in the Senate that ex-members of the Praetorian guard be permitted to use the theatre seats reserved for members of the equestrian order; this resulted in a bitter and sarcastic letter from Tiberius to the Senate attacking Gallio's presumption; he was first exiled, then brought back to custody in Rome after it was decided that Lesbos, chosen by him, was too pleasant a place of exile (Tac _Ann_ VI 3; Dio LXVIII 18 4). =1. EXCVSABILE.= The word is extremely rare, and is not found in verse outside the _Ex Ponto_: compare I vii 41-42 'quod nisi delicti pars _excusabilis_ esset, / parua relegari poena futura fuit' and III ix 33-34 'nil tamen e scriptis magis _excusabile_ nostris / quam sensus cunctis paene quod unus inest'.