[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'.
=2. HABVISSE= could have the usual past sense of the perfect infinitive, but more probably is equivalent to _habere_: compare ix 20 'gauderem lateris non _habuisse_ locum' and see at viii 82 _imposuisse_ (p 282).
=3-4. CAELESTI CVSPIDE FACTA ... VVLNERA.= 'Wounds inflicted by no human weapon'. The _cuspis_ is attributed to Mars at _Am_ I i 11, to Neptune at _Met_ XII 580, and to Athena at _Fast_ VI 655. At Sen _Ag_ 368-71 'tuque, o magni nata Tonantis / inclita Pallas, / quae Dardanias saepe petisti / cuspide terras', R. J. Tarrant cites _HF_ 563 (Dis), _HF_ 904 & _Phaed_ 755 (Bacchus), _HO_ 156 (Hercules), and Juvenal II 130 (Mars). Professor Tarrant points out to me that the _cuspis_ does not seem to be attributed to Jupiter, no doubt because the _fulmen_ was too firmly established as his weapon. Ovid is therefore not making his customary specific equation of Augustus with Jupiter.
=4. FOVISTI.= _Fouere_ was a technical term in medicine for bathing something in a liquid (Cato _Agr_ 157 4, Celsus IV 2 4, Columella VI 12 4). The word occurs in this sense in poetry: see _Met_ II 338-39 'nomen ... in marmore lectum / perfudit lacrimis et aperto pectore _fouit_', _Met_ VIII 654 (perhaps spurious; the passage is one where textual doublets occur), _Met_ X 186-87 (Hyacinthus has just been struck by Apollo's discus) 'deus conlapsos ... excipit artus, / et modo te _refouet_, modo tristia uulnera siccat', _Met_ XV 532 'et lacerum _foui_ Phlegethontide corpus in unda', and _Aen_ XII 420 '_fouit_ ea uulnus lympha longaeuus Iapyx'.
