Pollio, a friend and patron of Virgil and Horace, after taking an active and distinguished part in public affairs for twenty years, retired into private life and betook himself to literature, confining himself at first to dramatic writing. He subsequently undertook a history of his own times, and it was probably after hearing him read part of that work, that Horace addressed to him the following Ode. BROILS in Metellian consulate begun, The war's pretext, its crimes, and courses run, In baleful friendship leagued, and swords The fires of lurking embers glow. Let then the muse severe of tragic song Resume the grand dramatic strain, E'en now with trumpets' minatory growl I AD C. ASINIUM POLLIONEM. MOTUм ex Metello consule civicum Paullum severae Musa tragoediae Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum Terret equos equitumque voltus : And earth all bowed beneath controul Save only Cato's tameless soul. Juno, and Afric's other friendlier Gods, who un'venged had weakly quitted her, Send grandsons of his conqueror's host. Fattened with Latin blood, what field but bears Marks of our battles in its sepulchres? And of Hesperia's crash, whose sound Was heard within the Median's bound? What pool, what river is there, but has seen Our dismal wars? what sea that has not been Deeply by Daunian carnage stained? What coast but where our blood has rained? But do not, forward muse, abandoning Thy merry notes, in Cean dirges sing; By us, within Dionean grot, Be songs of lighter burthen sought. Caius Crispus Sallustius was grandnephew of the historian, and inheritor of his great wealth. Proculeius had behaved with remarkable generosity to his two brothers who had lost their property during the civil wars. Phraates, after his replacement on the throne of Parthia, was, or at least is represented by Horace as having been, maintained upon it by the influence of Augustus, to whom he restored the standards lost by Crassus. CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS, scorner of the bullion Et cuncta terrarum subacta Praeter atrocem animum Catonis. Juno et deorum quisquis amicior Afris inulta cesserat impotens Tellure victorum nepotes Rettulit inferias Jugurthae. Quis non Latino sanguine pinguior Quae caret ora cruore nostro ? Mecum Dionaeo sub antro Quaere modos leviore plectro. II. AD C. SALLUSTIUM CRISPUM. NULLUS argento color est avaris Crispe Sallusti, nisi temperato Splendeat usu. Through a long age shall flourish Proculeius, Wider dominion mayst thou have by bridling Greed, than although thou join'dst with distant Cadiz Libya, and though thyself of either Carthage Wert the sole master. Pestilent dropsy grows by self-indulgence, Nor its thirst quenches, till the cause of sickness Virtue, dissenting from the crowd, accounts not Using false terms. Him only she endows with Some of the scholiasts are in doubt whether Gellius should not be written instead of Dellius, Horace having had acquaintances of both names. The doubt suffices to show how vain would be the attempt to connect the subject of the Ode with the character of the person addressed. TEMPER serene in arduous circumstance, And, likewise, in prosperity's advance From glee's excess held under rein, Heedfully, Dellius, death-doomed, maintain : |