Some stylometric remarks on Ovid's Heroides and the Epistula Sapphus.

This article investigates the authenticity and composition chronology of Ovid's Heroides, a collection of twenty-one elegiac epistles, focusing particularly on the contested Epistula Sapphus (ES, letter 15) and the Double Heroides (letters 16–21). Employing computational stylometry—analyzing lexico-grammatical and poetic features such as meter, caesura, and rhyme—within a broader corpus of classical elegy, the study finds strong stylistic evidence supporting the Ovidian authorship of all Heroides, including the ES and the Double Heroides. The analysis further suggests that the ES is correctly positioned within the collection and that the Double Heroides were composed later, likely during Ovid’s exile. These findings contribute positive evidence to longstanding philological debates by demonstrating that the Heroides’ style is distinct yet consistent with Ovid’s oeuvre, highlighting the potential of computational methods in classical authorship studies.