=21. AMICIVS ARVVM.= The same phrase at _Met_ XV 442-43 (Helenus to Aeneas) 'Pergama rapta feres, donec Troiaeque tibique / externum patrio contingat _amicius aruum_'. The use of the adjective _amicus_ of things rather than person is in the main a poetic usage, but compare Cic _Quinct_ 34 'breuitas postulatur, quae mihimet ipsi _amicissima_ est', _ND_ II 43 'fortunam, quae _amica_ uarietati constantiam respuit', and _Att_ XII xv 'nihil est mihi _amicius_ solitudine'; other instances in the elder Pliny and Columella. =22. REMQVE TVAM PONAS IN MELIORE LOCO.= Compare _EP_ I iii 77-78 'liquit Agenorides Sidonia moenia Cadmus / poneret ut muros _in meliore loco_'. =24. NVMINA PERPETVA QVAE PIETATE COLIS.= Tiberius and Germanicus are meant. For Pompeius' devotion to Germanicus, compare v 25-26 'tempus ab his uacuum Caesar Germanicus omne / auferet; a magnis hunc colit ille deis'. =25-26. ERRORIS NAM TV VIX EST DISCERNERE NOSTRI / SIS ARGVMENTVM MAIVS AN AVXILIVM.= This distich does not belong in the text: it is in itself unintelligible, and interrupts a natural progression from 24 to 27. I am not certain that the distich is a simple interpolation, since there is nothing in the context to which it is an obvious gloss. Possibly it has been inserted from another letter from exile, in which its meaning would have been clear from context. _Argumentum_ is difficult. Wheeler translates, 'For 'tis hard to distinguish whether you are more the proof of my mistake or the relief', and notes 'Apparently Pompey could prove (_argumentum_) that "error" which Ovid regarded as the beginning of his woes'. But this seems a strange thing to say, for Ovid's _error_ was hardly in need of demonstration. _Auxilium_ is used in its medical sense, _erroris_ being equivalent to _morbi_ or _uulneris_; compare _RA_ 48 'uulneris auxilium' and the passages collected at _OLD remedium_ 1. =25. DISCERNERE.= Gronovius argued (_Obseruationes_ III xiii) that DECERNERE (_MI1_) should be read here, since _decernere_ has the required sense 'uel decertare uel iudicare et certum statuere', whereas _discernere_ means 'separare, dirimere, distinguere, diuidere'. On the evidence of the lexica, however, Gronovius' distinction breaks down, since _discernere_ meaning 'decide, determine, make out' is common enough: compare Sallust _Cat_ 25 3 'pecuniae an famae minus parceret haud facile _discerneres_', Cic _Rep_ 2 6 'ne nota quidem ulla pacatus an hostis sit _discerni_ ac iudicari potest', Varro _LL_ VII 17 'quo _discernitur_ homo mas an femina sit', and Livy XXII 61 10 'quid ueri sit _discernere_'. I therefore let _discernere_ stand.