sed multo magis extremis iudiciis tali ad Augustum elegio: 'Horati Flacci, ut mei, esto memor.' Augustus' offer to him of the post of Private Secretary. Augustus epistolarum quoque ei officium obtulit, ut hoc ad Maecenatem scripto significat: 'Ante ipse sufficiebam scribendis epistolis amicorum : nunc occupatissimus et infirmus Horatium nostrum a te cupio abducere. Veniet igitur ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc regiam, et nos in epistolis scribendis adiuvabit.' Ac ne recusanti quidem aut succensuit quicquam aut amicitiam suam ingerere desiit. Extracts from letters of Augustus to him. 'Sume tibi aliquid iuris apud me tanquam si convictor mihi fueris recte enim et non temere feceris, quoniam id usus mihi tecum esse volui si per valetudinem tuam fieri possit.' 'Tui qualem habeam memoriam poteris ex Septimio quoque nostro audire : nam incidit ut illo coram fieret a me tui mentio : neque si tu superbus amicitiam nostram sprevisti ideo nos quoque ἀνθυπερφρονοῦμεν. 'Pertulit ad me Dionysius libellum tuum, quem ego, ut ne accusem brevitatem, quantuluscunque est, boni consulo. Vereri autem mihi videris ne maiores libelli tui sint quam ipse es. Sed si statura deest, corpusculum non deest. Itaque licebit in sextariolo scribas, ut circuitus voluminis tui sit ỏykwdéσtaTOS sicut est ventriculi tui.' Cp. Hor. Epp. 1. 4. 14, I. 20. 24. The Composition of the Carm. Sec., Book IV of the Odes, and Book II of the Epp. Scripta eius usque adeo probavit [Augustus] mansuraque perpetuo opinatus est ut non modo seculare carmen componendum iniunxerit, sed et Vindelicam victoriam Tiberii Drusique privignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus carminum libris ex longo intervallo quartum addere; post sermones vero lectos quosdam nullam sui mentionem habitam ita sit questus: Irasci me tibi scito quod non in plerisque eiusmodi scriptis mecum potissimum loquaris. An vereris ne apud posteros infame tibi sit quod videaris familiaris nobis esse'? Expressitque eclogam illam cuius initium est 'Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus,' etc. Of Horace's country houses. Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini ; domusque eius ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum. [The first clause might be interpreted as merely giving two alternative designations of the Sabine Farm, but the second distinctly recognizes the belief that he had besides a villa at Tibur itself, as the 'Tiburni luculus' can hardly be other than the 'Tiburni lucus' of Od. 1. 7. 13; cp. Stat. Silv. I. 3. 74. The form, however, of the statement, 'the house is still shown,' is quite compatible with the idea that it is an addition to the original text interpolated after the tradition of a second Tiburtine villa had grown up. The passages in which he speaks of Tibur (e.g. Od. 2. 6. 5, 4. 2. 31, Epp. 1. 8. 12) are quite enough to account for such a tradition, and quite inadequate to substantiate it; see Burn's Rome and the Campagna, p. 428.] Of spurious Writings attributed to him. Venerunt in manus meas et elegi sub eius titulo, et epistola prosa oratione, quasi commendantis se Maecenati: sed utraque falsa puto: nam elegi vulgares, epistola etiam obscura, quo vitio minime tenebatur. His Death. Decessit quinto Kal. Decembres C. Marcio Censorino et C. Asinio Gallo coss. post nonum et quinquagesimum annum (this is a mistake, as Suetonius himself puts his birth in the consulship of L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus, i.e. in B.C. 65, which would make him fifty-seven in B.C. 8) herede Augusto palam nuncupato, cum urgente vi valetudinis non sufficeret ad obsignandas testamenti tabulas. Humatus et conditus est extremis Esquiliis iuxta Maecenatis tumulum. QUINTI HORATII FLACCI CARMINA, CARMEN SECULARE, EPODON LIBER. INTRODUCTION TO BOOKS I-III OF I. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE ODES. § 1. THE general period during which the greater number of the Odes of Books i-iii must have been composed can be fixed with some certainty. The later limit will be discussed presently. The earlier limit is fixed by the Battle of Actium. Epod. 9 was written when the news of the victory first reached Rome, while even the direction of Antony's flight was still unknown. Od. 1. 37 is written on Cleopatra's death in the following autumn, B.C. 30. It is of course possible that some of the Odes may have been composed before the Epodes were finished, but there is none that bears any clear mark of it. Milman, who holds that some of the Odes must have been among Horace's earliest compositions, attaches much weight to the consideration that the verses which his poverty drove him to write (Epp. 2. 2. 51), and which would have been his introduction to Virgil and Varius, and their ground in speaking of him to Maecenas (Sat. I. 6. 54), must have been 'something better than one or two coarse Satires and perhaps a few bitter iambics.' Franke, on the other hand, sees in the first passage rather an explanation of the bitterness of his early writings, the writings of a man who had lost all he had and was angry with himself and the world, 'vehemens lupus, et sibi et hosti Iratus pariter, ieiunis dentibus acer,' 15 1. c. v. 30. And for the second argument, Epod. 16, to which all Horatian chronologists give a very early date, would have given Virgil as good an idea of his disposition and poetical powers as any of the less important Odes. Franke's conclusion is at least a safe one : Since there is no Ode which can be proved indisputably to have been written before the battle of Actium, while I will not indeed assert positively that one or two may not possibly have been composed earlier, I yet think that we should be very chary of separating without clear cause any single Ode from the epoch common to the others.' § 2. The second limit, the latest date at which the Three Books as a whole can have been published, is fixed mainly by the reference in Od. 1. 12. 45-48. Marcellus died in the autumn of B.C. 23. It is inconceivable that these lines should be (as Ritter suggests) a complimentary allusion to one already dead; an assurance to Augustus that at least the fame of his son-inlaw survived all that the author of the dirge on Quintilius could offer to match Virgil's 'Tu Marcellus eris.' And it is almost equally impossible that, written before his early death, they should have been published (as from other considerations it would be necessary to conclude) within a year or two of that great disappointment of the hopes of Rome and of the Emperor. An argument, second only in weight to this, is founded upon the Odes (2. 10 and 3. 19) which have reference to Licinius Murena, the brother of Terentia, Maecenas' wife (see also on Od. 2. 2. 5). Murena was executed for participation with Fannius Caepio in a conspiracy against Augustus in B.C. 22. The presumption seems very strong that even if Horace's feelings would have allowed him to publish these poems, and especially Od. 2. 10, after his friend's catastrophe, he would have been deterred by the knowledge that the reminiscences must be displeasing to Maecenas as well as to Augustus. Franke recalls the story of Virgil's striking out the praises of Gallus from the end of Georg. iv on somewhat similar grounds. The arguments for postponing the publication of the Odes to a later date are not such as can really be set against these con siderations. They turn mainly on Od. 1. 3, which is taken to refer to the voyage of Virgil to Athens in the last year of his life, B.C. 19 and on the supposed allusions (the strongest case is Od. 2. 9) to the expedition of Tiberius into Armenia, and the restoration of the standards by the Parthians in B.C. 20. Some remarks on these points will be found in the Introductions to Od. 1. 3 and 2. 9. There remains the possibility that these (and if these, then other) Odes may have been inserted after the first publication. It will be seen that this is not likely to have been the case with 1. 3; and the theory of any such insertions is perhaps hardly compatible with that pause in lyric composition between the publication of Books i-iii and the commencement of Book iv, which is implied in Suetonius' statement, and in Horace's own words, Od. 4. 1. 1, Epp. I. I. I-10., § 3. When we pass from the general epoch to the date of special Odes we are on less safe ground. A very few can be fixed with exactness. Such are 1. 31, which is written for the dedication of the temple of Apollo Palatinus in B.C. 28; 2. 4, which Horace dates himself in B.C. 25, by reference to his own age ; 1. 24 and 3. 14, both of which are fixed to B.C. 24, the one by the known date of the death of Quintilius, the other by the return of Augustus from Spain. We may perhaps add a few, though in their case of course more latitude must be given, which speak in terms of near anticipation of political events which can themselves be dated. Such are 1. 35, which represent Augustus as on the point of starting for Britain, a purpose for which we know that he set out from Rome in B.C. 27 (see Introd. to that Ode, Dio Cassius 53. 22, 25); and 1. 29, which seems to refer to preparations more or less immediately preceding Aelius Gallus' expedition into Arabia Felix in B.C. 24. Such again are the Odes (2. 15 and 3. 6) in which we can hardly doubt the reference to the restoration of temples which Augustus undertook in the year 28. § 4. Those who would go much beyond this in fixing with accuracy the date of single Odes have to lean a good deal on Horace's references to events on the frontier and beyond it, movements of the Cantabrian, the Scythian, the Parthian. In |