Ter quinque: Tracce di divisione delle Heroides singole in tre libri nella tradizione manoscritta

This article revisits Th. Birt’s hypothesis that Ovid’s Heroides 1-15 consisted of three books of five epistles each. In favour of this proposition, arguments both literary and, in particular, philological are put forward: the traces of division found in the manuscript transmission are to be interpreted as authentic and not as a medieval innovation. The structure in three books of five epistles each also validates the place of the Epistula Sapphus in the collection as recorded in the Florilegium Gallicum.