In 1896 Rudolf Ehwald published his monograph _Kritische Beiträge zu Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto_. I am often indebted to Ehwald for references he has collected; my notes on i 15 _ad summam_ and xiii 48 _quos laus formandos est tibi magna datos_ could not have been written without the assistance of his monograph. This said, the fact remains that Ehwald's judgment and linguistic intuition were exceptionally poor. He had not relied on Korn's apparatus for his knowledge of _B_, but had collated it himself; and the intent of his monograph was to establish _B_'s authority as paramount. A typical example can be seen at ix 71. Here _FILT_ offer _cum ... uacabit_ and _MH_ have _ut ... uacabit_, while the reading of _B_ and _C_ is _quod uacabit_. In one of the examples Ehwald adduces, _Fast_ II 18, _uacat_ is found in only a few manuscripts, and it can easily be seen how it arose from _uacas_; all the other examples are instances of _quod superest_ or _quod reliquum est_. The cumulative effect of these examples is to demonstrate that _quod ... uacabit_ is not a possible reading. This insensitivity to the precise meaning of the passages he discusses is usual with Ehwald, and his book, although useful, is an extremely unsafe guide to the textual criticism of the poems. It has unfortunately exercised a decisive influence on all succeeding editions. The first of these editions was Owen's 1915 Oxford Classical Text of the poems of exile. In the preface Owen acknowledges the influence of Ehwald: "adiumento primario erat R. Ehwaldi, doctrinae Ouidianae iudicis peritissimi, uere aureus libellus ... in quo excussis perpensisque codicibus poetaeque locutione ad perpendiculum exacta rectam Ponticarum edendarum normam uir doctus stabilire instituit' (viii). In most instances Owen follows Ehwald's recommendations, altering _in_ to _ab_ at i 9, _prospicerem_ to _aspicerem_ at ix 23, and at ix 44 abandoning Korn's _decretis_ for the manuscripts' _secretis_. Owen's reliance on Ehwald was noticed by Housman (903-4) in his short and accurate review of Owen's edition: 'In the _ex Ponto_ Mr Owen had displayed less originality [than in his 1889 and 1894 editions of the _Tristia_] and consequently has less to repent of. Most of the changes in this edition are made in pursuance of orders issued by R. Ehwald in his _Kritische Beiträge_ of 1896; but let it be counted to Mr Owen for righteousness that at III.7.37 and IV.15.42 he has refused to execute the sanguinary mandates of his superior officer'.