For those of you who missed the beginning of this tale on pomesonpoets here is the experience Rob sent from Rome

ROBUTUS OVIDII AMICUS

Somewhere on the third hill
beside the railway line
above the Piazza Risorgimento -
home in on Google Earth
& you can just see it among the ruins
centuries old – the tomb of Robutus, my ancestor.

I found it, separate from the vaults,
a weathered slab, sloping encrustation,
almost erased th’inscription:

“Robutus Ovidii amicus
Corpus atque moenium generis muralis
Dithirambi et carmina pro Bachi pangabat
Coluit in Roma et in Roma
Ad suum moenium recurrit”

As I stood numbly trying to translate
I seemd to stumble, blankd – the empty world
replacd the full one, pod-like, dark
thousand-year preserver of seed.
stript of all photons a floating funnel
where Dante, Michelangelo and Fellini
could be heard laughing. Their
joyful giggles accompanied
my bumpy landing in a busy market
not far from… what recognised? Those toga’d
gents – such decorum at the Forum!

The speech I heard around me
not Italian, though it had the ring, was Latin.
That much I knew, marvelled how it bubbled
from their lips – mine also – my
hot lips! Spoke in Latin, for a day
down there.
Now, a touristo inglaisie
I transcribe these notes for you
my fine friends in Kentish Town;
I'm up among Fiats and Alfas again,
sipping a tamarindo in the Via Giadorno Bruno.

Forum Mole

I wish I could remember what the letter said:
with goatskin vino, hunk of bread and cheese.
I wish I'd had a photographic memory
seated at ease in oleander shade.
(Can still see my Chaucer notes 'bout Ars Amoris
can't recall Ovid's letter, held in my hands),
can just envision shadows on a page
of freshly folded parchment, bright sun in the square.
Two things are even odder: as I write these lines
in the Amato with my rum and coke
that messenger just rode by on a Ducati;
and - second - is the doubt within my mind
not about being there reading that antique,
my doubt is whether Ovid was the author.

The one bit I can recall went something like this:
"I've grown accustomed to my supper
of stewed potato roots and boiled bread,
I've grown accustomed to vile meals
washed down with spirit from the bitter plum."
Less like Ovid - more bureaucrat, I'd say.
His office must've overlooked the Tiber, as
he penned these lines with a sweaty stylus
to make great Ovid look penitently contrite;
sent them out to fool the literati
of which Robutus - oddly you might say - was one.