In 3-14 Ovid expresses at length his wish to be sent anywhere, even the Syrtes, Charybdis, or the Styx, as long as he can escape Tomis. Such complaints as these have caused the Tomitans to be angry with him (15-22). But he has been misunderstood: he was complaining not of the people but of the land. Hesiod criticized Ascra, Ulysses Ithaca, and Metrodorus Rome, all with impunity, but Ovid's verse has once more caused him trouble (23-44). The Tomitans have been as kind to him as the Paeligni would have been: they have even granted him immunity from taxation, and publicly crowned him (45-56). After this lengthy account of the Tomitans, he moves to an unexpectedly quick summing-up: Tomis is as dear to him as Delos is to Latona (57-60). This conclusion is immediately undercut by the final distich: his only wish is that Tomis were not subject to attack, and that it had a better climate. This type of undercutting is paralleled elsewhere in Ovid's verse: I discuss these passages at 61-62. At ix 97-104 Ovid had mentioned the Tomitans' sympathy for him; but the present poem is unique for the praise Ovid bestows on them, and furnishes a striking contrast to the horrific picture of Tomis in, for instance, _Tr_ V x. A primary purpose of Ovid's poetry from exile was to secure recall, and so he no doubt intentionally emphasized his hardships; it is clear enough from this poem that at the same time he was in fact reaching an accommodation with his new conditions of life. =3. VTCVMQVE.= 'Somehow (in spite of my hardships)'. The word is used by Ovid only in the poetry of exile, and only in this sense: compare _Ibis_ 9-10 'quisquis is est (nam nomen adhuc _utcumque_ tacebo), / cogit inassuetas sumere tela manus' and _EP_ III ix 53 'postmodo collectas [_sc_ litteras] utcumque sine ordine iunxi'. This is a prose sense of _utcumque_, common in Livy; when the word is used in verse, it generally means 'whenever' (Hor _Epod_ XVII 52, _Carm_ I xvii 10, I xxxv 23, II xvii 11, III iv 29 & IV iv 35) or 'however' (_Aen_ VI 822; the only instance of the word in Virgil). =4. TE= _Berolinensis Diez. B. Sant. 1, saec xiii Bodleianus Rawlinson G 105ul_ ME _BCMFHILT_. _Me_ seems unlikely to be right, for the phrase 'nil me praeterea quod iuuet inuenies' would not only be awkward in itself, but would also be in apparent contradiction with the following 'ipsa quoque est inuisa salus', where _salus_ refers back to _utcumque ualemus_. =4. INVENIES.= See at ii 10 _Alcinoo_ (p 164). =5. VLTIMA VOTA.= 'My utmost wish'. For this sense of _ultimus_ compare Cic _Fin_ III 30 'summum bonum, quod _ultimum_ appello', Livy XXVII 10 11 'aurum ... quod ... ad _ultimos_ casus ['the greatest emergencies'] seruabatur promi placuit', Hor _Carm_ II vii 1-2 'O saepe mecum tempus in _ultimum_ / deducte Bruto militiae duce' (_tempus_ has the same meaning as _casus_ in the passage from Livy), and Petronius 24 'non tenui ego diutius lacrimas ... ad _ultimam_ perductus tristitiam'.