tranquillity of Athens, and attended closely to his studies. He attempted also the composition of Greek verses; but gave it up, seeing that in Greek poetry no laurels were now to be won, whereas the Latin literature of his time had but few great poets to point to (Sat. i. 10, 31.) His quiet was broken in upon by the civil war; of which the republican party, under Brutus and` Cassius, transferred the seat to Greece. Young Horace was enthusiastic for liberty, whose representative Brutus was considered to be. He therefore joined the republican army as a volunteer, and was soon advanced by Brutus to the rank of tribunus militum. This was a high honour for the son of a freedman to obtain, especially one who had no great fortune; consequently envious enemies were not wanting, but still he was able to maintain his position. He seems to have visited Asia Minor with Brutus at least if he was an eye-witness of the occurrence which he describes in Sat. i. 7. In 42 B. C., however, he returned to Greece, and took part in the battle of Philippi. After this battle-in which the republicans were defeated, and the leaders fell by their own hands-the greater part of the troops entered the service of the triumvirs, the officers were dismissed, and only a few continued the war under Sex. Pompeius and Domitius Ahenobarbus. Horace, in Odes, ii. 7, 9, describes himself as having been among the fugitives, saying that he had left his Ishield on the field of battle. As soon as the state of politics permitted, he returned to Italy, and went to Rome, where alone he could hope to rise by his abilities.

His patrimonial estate, which had never been large, had during the civil war been quite lost (Epist. ii. 2, 50), not by the proscriptions, by which the triumvirs had attempted to alter the condition of Italy-for Horace was too humble to be affected by thembut by the general calamities of the country. The triumvirs had to reward the soldiers who had assisted them against the republican party, and this could be done only by granting them small estates. In the most flourishing cities of Italy the owners of land were obliged to give up their property to the soldiers. Compensation in money was promised indeed, but could not be given at once, because the state treasury had been too thoroughly drained during the constant wars of the period; and it is very doubtful whether full payment was ever made. Octavianus settled a colony of veterans at Venusia, and Horace's estate was one of those assigned to them. How was he now to live? The bloody and desolating nature of the wars had, after the battle of Philippi, which secured peace for a while, produced a reaction: people began to rejoice in peace, and feel a longing after its arts. But eloquence, which Cicero had carried to such a pitch of excellence, could not be awakened under a tyranny; history, amid the still

smouldering ashes of political rancour, would have to let slip the truth, and flatter the ruling party. Under these circumstances, men of ability took refuge in poetry and the regions of fancy; and little else was heard now in the intellectual circles of Rome but recitations of poetry and criticisms thereon. Among the distinguished poets of the time we may mention especially Virgil, whose charming pastorals had delighted all, and gained for him the favour and patronage of Octavianus; also Varius, who had recommended himself by a poem on the death of Cæsar; and many others, to whom Horace occasionally alludes. Horace, too, felt an inclination towards poetry: he says (Epist. ii. 251) that poverty, which impels men to bold undertakings, had driven him to attempt verse-making. He sought in poetry the means of subsistence, by writing occasional verses. These were not directly paid for, but presents were sent in acknowledgment of them, and they gained for him the patronage of wealthy men, on whose bounty he lived. He soon became known to his brother poets at Rome; and first Virgil, then Varius, spoke of him to Maecenas. The latter invited Horace to visit him, and asked him a few questions about his family. Horace answered timidly and modestly. Maecenas then dismissed him without any definite promise; and it was not till nine months thereafter that he again summoned him, and made him one of his friends (amici.) This happened probably in the beginning of the year 40 B. C.

Maecenas has been richly repaid for his kindness to Horace by the praises which the latter everywhere bestows upon him, and which have made his name a current word for a patron of literature.' He was one of the most influential men in Rome; not from his rank or birth; but purely from his political skill and sagacity. He was descended from an ancient but not a noble family; for none of his ancestors had held any curule office in Rome. He was a simple Roman knight, and inclined to remain so: though often invited to take office, he always declined, preferring the quiet of private life, which his wealth enabled him to enjoy, to the activity of a bustling political career. He was the friend and confidant of Octavianus, whom he aided with his advice and co-operation in the most critical situations; and to whom he was so much attached, that at the time of the battle of Actium (30 B. c.), and previously, when Octavianus was obliged to be absent from the city, he undertook the responsible and laborious office of praefectus urbi. This confidence of Octavianus in Maecenas, being well known to all, raised the latter in actual power above most men in the state, and all aspirants to the emperor's favour flocked to pay their homage to Maecenas. He was at the same time well acquainted with, and had a fine taste for literature, and took the deepest interest in it. He attempted poetry himself too,

not unsuccessfully. Horace, as it appears, became the chief literary assistant of Maecenas: he gave him information about new books, helped him in his own compositions, and wrote poems for his gratification and amusement. A great part of the Satires, for instance, was undoubtedly intended primarily for Maecenas and the intellectual circle that he had drawn around him. Horace acted also as his secretary in such state affairs as he had to attend to. This is apparent from the sixth Satire of the second book, where a person requests Horace to obtain the signature of Maecenas to a paper, asking his assistance quite in the style in which one addresses the secretary of a great man. In one passage, also, Horace complains that the amount of business which he has to go through at Rome prevents him from having any leisure. The favour of Maecenas soon obtained for our poet the means of making a sufficient livelihood: he became a scriba. This he himself indicates in Sat. ii. 6, 36; and his biographer Suetonius says, scriptum quaestorium comparavit-he bought for himself a clerkship to the quaestors.' These scribae formed by no means an uninfluential class in Rome. They were the under-secretaries in all the government departments, and the affairs of the state were in a great measure managed by them. The chief secretaries were changed annually, and consequently could be but very imperfectly acquainted with the duties of their office, which therefore devolved necessarily on the scribae, they holding their posts for life. The state required from the scribae security for good conduct and integrity, and thus it happened that they formed a strong and exclusive corporation; and their offices became saleable, like commissions in the British army. As to how Horace contrived to unite his new duties with his employments at the house of Maecenas, we can only form conjectures. Either he was allowed to perform the duties of scriba by proxy, or he performed them at the house of Maecenas, since the latter, being often engaged in state affairs, could not dispense with the attendance of his secretary. This, however, is certain-that Horace gradually withdrew himself from business, and gained leisure enough to follow his poetical inclinations undisturbed.

At first, perhaps, Horace lived in the house of Maecenas, and was treated as a dependant; but as the latter became more acquainted with the poet's merits, he gave him greater freedom and independence. Let us now imagine to ourselves Horace's condition and mode of spending his time. He has his own house in town, with three servants to wait upon him. He has his own particular friends and associates, but he goes, perhaps daily, at a certain hour, to the house of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill; and to a special invitation from his patron even a promise made to another must give way. Out of Rome, Horace possesses a

small estate-either a direct present from Maecenas, or obtained by his influence, as compensation for the patrimonial property which had been assigned to the veterans. This estate is the pride and joy of the poet's heart: here he feels happy in rural seclusion and simplicity; and hither he invites (repeatedly in his Odes) his particular friends, if they wish to enjoy country life. He is in Rome only during the time when he must be there-namely, the beginning of the year. He returns to his Sabine farm as soon as he possibly can, and lives there for the remainder of the year; except when he goes, as the state of his health often obliges him to do, to the warm baths of Baiae, or to the sea-bathing at some town in southern Italy.

The situation and appearance of this celebrated farm may be pretty well determined from the notices which he gives in Epist. i. 14, 16, and 18; and Sat. ii. 6. We cross over to the right bank of the Anio at Tibur (the modern Tivoli), and then go up along the river, following the via Valeria, as far as the little village of Varia (now Vicovaro.) This village lies to the left of the public road, on a hill above the Anio, eight Roman miles from Tibur. Horace's estate was in the district connected with this village; and had, in earlier times, when landed property in Italy was distributed among more persons, sufficed for the support of five families now it was cultivated for Horace by eight slaves. It was situated in a valley, which lay in the direction from north to south; so that the hill on the right was gilded by the beams of the morning sun, that on the left by his evening rays. A considerable rivulet, called the Digentia (now Licenza), flows through the middle of the valley, falling into the Anio about a mile above Varia. Thus far the locality is certain, and can at present easily be found; but the exact place where the villa stood it is scarcely possible to fix, since it was certainly not so magnificent or lasting that traces of it should remain till now. Horace, in Odes iii. 13, mentions a fons Bandusiae as springing up near his farm. If this was the largest of the numerous brooks which bubble up on the slope of the hill on the right side of the Digentia, then the villa must have been situated some three miles up the valley. There was connected with this house in the country a house in Tibur, according to a custom which still holds in the smaller towns of Italy, that to each house a certain piece of land belongs, on which again may be a villa. The poet, therefore, often praises Tibur as his darling residence, where the Muses favoured him most, and where he wished that he might remain in his old age. Suetonius, in his biography of Horace, says, Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini: domusque ejus ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum. Now the grove of Tiburnus, an old local god of Tibur, must have been in, or at least very near, the town. For these

external advantages Horace was indebted to the favour and friendship of Maecenas: the literary friends whom he met at his house encouraged him to poetical activity and to improvement in the art; and there, too, he became acquainted with many men of power and influence in the state. It would have been easy for him to alter his position in regard to Maecenas, and to strike out for himself a path to honour and authority; but how little he thought of this appears from his conduct to Augustus. Maecenas had spoken of Horace to the emperor, and had given him a copy of his poems; with which, being a man of taste, and from disposition as well as from political motives a patron of literature, he expressed himself as delighted. He wanted a secretary to write letters for him, and asked Maecenas to give up Horace to him. Maecenas consented; but Horace pleaded the weak state of his health, to escape taking the office, which would have given him much influence, but at the same time much trouble. Augustus admitted the excuse, and was not angry; but he wished that Horace would speak of his exploits in his poems, or rather that he would write a poem upon them, and he felt hurt that the poet had not mentioned him in any previous production. But Horace declined to attempt any such panegyric, his reason being either that which he gave-namely, that he had no talent for epic poetry-or, as is more probable, that he hated flattery. He had in his youth belonged to the republican party; and though in his maturer years he felt and acknowledged that the restoration of the republic was impossible, and the government of Augustus beneficent, still he was unwilling to act in such a manner as indirectly to depreciate the merits of those heroes who had formerly been the gods of his idolatry. But he often praised the administration of Augustus, which had, in truth, induced contentment and excited gratitude in allextolling him for having given to Italy and the Roman Empire the long wished-for blessings of peace; for having, by successful battles, extended and secured the boundaries of his dominions; and for labouring most zealously, by good institutions and wise laws, to elevate the moral condition of the people. It was not till after pressing requests from Augustus, which he could not refuse without giving great offence, that Horace resolved to celebrate in two odes the victories of Tiberius and Drusus, the stepsons of the emperor, and for this reason to add a fourth book of Odes to the three which were already in the hands of the public. The epistle to Augustus (Epist. ii. 1) was written on the

same occasion.

Maecenas, particularly when he grew old, and fell into bad health, also made demands upon the poet which he could not reconcile with his principles; and this was probably the reason