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Pauca abeo et revocas nono post mense jubesque
Esse in amicorum numero. Magnum hoc ego duco,
Quod placui tibi, qui turpi secernis honestum,
Non patre praeclaro, sed vita et pectore puro.
Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis
Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si
Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos,
Si neque avaritiam neque sordes aut mala lustra
Objiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons,
Ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis ;
Causa fuit pater his, qui macro pauper agello
Noluit in Flavi ludum me mittere, magni
Quo pueri magnis e centurionibus orti,
Laevo suspensi loculos tabulamque lacerto,
Ibant octonis referentes idibus aera ;

Sed puerum est ausus Romam portare docendum
Artes, quas doceat quivis eques atque senator
Semet prognatos: vestem servosque sequentes,
In magno ut populo, si qui vidisset, avita
Ex re praeberi sumptus mihi crederet illos.
Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes
Circum doctores aderat. Quid multa? pudicum,
Qui primus virtutis honos, servavit ab omni

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from which a fine breed of carriage-horses came.-69. Purus et insons belongs to the clause with si in the next line.-71. Pauper; that is, etsi pauper erat.-73. Centurionibus, answering pretty nearly to our 'sergeants,' who occupy a somewhat important position in a regiment, though generally men of humble birth and little education; in a provincial town, however, they are men of consequence, whence they are here called magni.-74. Suspensi loculos, etc. See Gram. § 259, I. Suspensi is construed in the same way as accincti often is. Loculi et tabula are the satchel and reckoning-table, the materials for counting, which was the elementary branch of instruction. The ancients, not being acquainted with the decimal system of notation necessarily had a different mode of counting from us. They used a reckoning-table, with lines for the units, tens, hundreds, &c., and counters or reckoning-stones (calculi.) These calculi were carried in the loculi.75. Referentes aera, paying their school-fees.' Aera Idibus singulos asses singulis Idibus, for we know that the children at elementary schools paid an as monthly, and always on the ides. In the higher schools payment was made for the session. The ides are called octonae, because there were eight days between the nones and them.-77. Doceat docendos curet.-78. Semet prognatos = filios suos.-79. Ut in magno populo, 'as is necessary in a large city.' He thus excuses his father's apparent extravagance.-82. Connect (pudicum=purum) ab omni—facto,

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Non solum facto, verum opprobrio quoque turpi;
Nec timuit, sibi ne vitio quis verteret, olim
Si praeco parvas aut, ut fuit ipse, coactor

Mercedes sequerer: neque ego essem questus; at hoc

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Laus illi debetur et a me gratia major.

Nil me poeniteat sanum patris hujus; eoque
Non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars,
Quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentes,
Sic me defendam. Longe mea discrepat istis
Et vox et ratio; nam si natura juberet
A certis annis aevum remeare peractum,

Atque alios legere ad fastum quoscumque parentes,
Optaret sibi quisque; meis contentus honestos

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Fascibus et sellis nollem mihi sumere, demens

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Ire licet mulo, vel si libet usque Tarentum,

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Mantica cui lumbos onere ulceret atque eques armos;

Objiciet nemo sordes mihi, quas tibi, Tilli,

Quum Tiburte via praetorem quinque sequuntur
Te pueri lasanum portantes oenophorumque.

Hoc ego commodius quam tu, praeclare senator,

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-85. Olim, as frequently, = aliquando, referring to the future.-86. A praeco and a coactor, as to which latter compare the introduction, had mean trades, which incapacitated them for holding any office, even in the smaller towns of Italy.-87. Connect hoc with major, the greater.' —89. Poeniteat me here, as often, 'I am discontented with.'—90. Dolo suo, a judicial expression for sua culpa.-93. Ratio, opinion.'-95. Ad fastum, according to, or to satisfy, his pride.'-96. Connect honestos (= honoratos) fascibus et sellis (curulibus.)-98. Tuo judicio, Maecenas himself having a great disinclination to take office.-100. Res, 'property.' -101. Salutandi. This refers to the well-known Roman custom of paying a visit (salutatio) to great men regularly in the morning. A person striving after office had to comply with this custom.-104. Curto, here lean,' for there is no trace in antiquity of the modern custom of cutting horses' tails.-107. Sordes,' miserliness.' Tilli. See line 24.-109. The slaves carried these articles with them, that the praetor might not need

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Milibus atque aliis vivo. Quacumque libido est,
Incedo solus; percontor, quanti olus ac far;
Fallacem Circum vespertinumque pererro
Saepe forum; adsisto divinis; inde domum me
Ad porri et ciceris refero laganique catinum.
Coena ministratur pueris tribus, et lapis albus
Pocula cum cyatho duo sustinet; adstat echinus
Vilis, cum patera guttus, Campana supellex.
Deinde eo dormitum, non sollicitus, mihi quod cras
Surgendum sit mane, obeundus Marsya, qui se
Vultum ferre negat Noviorum posse minoris.
Ad quartam jaceo; post hanc vagor, aut ego lecto
Aut scripto, quod me tacitum juvet; ungor olivo,
Non quo fraudatis immundus Natta lucernis.
Ast ubi me fessum sol acrior ire lavatum
Admonuit, fugio campum lusumque trigonem.
Pransus non avide, quantum interpellet inani
Ventre diem durare, domesticus otior. Haec est
Vita solutorum misera ambitione gravique ;

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to go into an inn.-111. Milibus atque aliis; that is, atque aliis milibus, atque milibus aliorum hominum. Observe the poetical variation of the construction with the comparative, first quam tu, then the ablative.113. The Circus Maximus is called fallax, because it contained the booths of the fortune-tellers, astrologers, in short, of all those who in the next line are called divini. Vespertinum forum is · forum vespere, the adjective for the adverb, as afterwards, in line 128, domesticus otior. Zumpt, § 682.-116. Lapis albus, a common marble table with three feet, = mensa marmorea.-117. Duo pocula. Each guest received two cups, that with the little cyathus he might prepare for himself a stronger or weaker mixture of wine. The echinus (properly 'hedgehog') was probably an instrument with pegs, for hanging up the cyathus or the lamps.-118. Cum patera guttus, both vessels used in sacrifice. The guttus had a long, narrow neck, from which the wine or oil fell in drops. Campana supellex; that is, of clay, the finest kind of which was found in the neighbourhood of Nola in Campania.-120. Marsya. In the Roman Forum there was a statue of Marsyas, with the one hand elevated. From the punishment which was inflicted on him by Apollo, he was an emblem of judgment. Hence Marsya = forum.-121. Noviorum minoris, an usurer, as the scholiasts tell us.-123. Ungor olivo, for some gymnastic game on the Campus Martius, especially for ball, as is indicated in line 126 by lusum trigonem, which is lusum trigonis. -124. Natta, a man often mentioned as notorious for his avarice. He used the same oil for anointing as for burning in his lamps: hence Horace says that he stole it from the lamps.-127. Quantum interpellet inani ventre diem durare, as much as keeps me from passing the whole day with an empty stomach.' Prandium must be distinguished from the coena mentioned in line 116. The former is breakfast.

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His me consolor victurum suavius ac si

Quaestor avus, pater atque meus patruusque fuisset.

130

SATIRA VII.

A TALE, composed by Horace for the amusement of Maecenas and his friends. P. Rupilius Rex, a native of Praeneste, and a Roman eques, was, in 52 B. C., director of the publicani in Bithynia; in 43 B. C. he became praetor; but in the same year, at the instigation of Octavianus, he was proscribed, and fled into Greece to M. Brutus, who received him as his companion (comes.) Persius was a native of Clazomenae in Asia Minor: his father was an Asiatic, and his mother a Roman, for which reason he is called Hybrida, a half-breed.' The affair is said to have taken place in the camp of M. Brutus.

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PROSCRIPTI Regis Rupili pus atque venenum
Hybrida quo pacto sit Persius ultus, opinor
Omnibus et lippis notum et tonsoribus esse.
Persius hic permagna negotia dives habebat
Clazomenis, etiam lites cum Rege molestas,
Durus homo, atque odio qui posset vincere Regem,
Confidens tumidusque, adeo sermonis amari,
Sisennas, Barros ut equis praecurreret albis.
Ad Regem redeo. Postquam nihil inter utrumque
Convenit: (Hoc etenim sunt omnes jure molesti,
Quo fortes, quibus adversum bellum incidit. Inter
Hectora Priamiden animosum atque inter Achillem
Ira fuit capitalis, ut ultima divideret mors,
Non aliam ob causam, nisi quod virtus in utroque
Summa fuit; duo si discordia vexet inertes,

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1. Regis Rupili. In Horace's time it was not uncommon to put the cognomen before the nomen. The poet, moreover, has a particular reason for the transposition here, the point resting in the sense of the word rex.-3. Lippis et tonsoribus. The tabernae medicorum, shops of apothecaries and empirics, as well as those of barbers, are still centres for gossip.-6. Odium here is an active quality, 'ill temper, bitter hostility.' 8. Sisenna here seems to be merely some man notorious for his vituperative language. As to Barrus, compare i. 6, 30. Equis praecurrere albis is a proverbial expression for to surpass by far,' white horses being considered in antiquity the fleetest.-10. Construe thus: Omnes molesti sunt hoc jure quo fortes; that is, all litigants (for these are strictly molesti) stand to each other in the same relation (hoc jure) as men who wage war with one another.-13. Ut ultima divideret mors, so that death alone at last separated them;' namely, when Achilles slew Hector.-15. Inertes, men uninfluenced by the desire of glory.—

Aut si disparibus bellum incidat, ut Diomedi
Cum Lycio Glauco, discedat pigrior, ultro
Muneribus missis); Bruto praetore tenente
Ditem Asiam, Rupili et Persi par pugnat, uti non
Compositum melius cum Bitho Bacchius. In jus
Acres procurrunt, magnum spectaculum uterque.
Persius exponit causam; ridetur ab omni
Conventu; laudat Brutum laudatque cohortem,
Solem Asiae Brutum appellat stellasque salubres
Appellat comites, excepto Rege; canem illum,
Invisum agricolis sidus, venisse; ruebat
Flumen ut hibernum, fertur quo rara securis.
Tum Praenestinus salso multoque fluenti
Expressa arbusto regerit convicia, durus
Vindemiator et invictus, cui saepe viator
Cessisset, magna compellans voce cuculum.
At Graecus, postquam est Italo perfusus aceto,
Persius exclamat: 'per magnos, Brute, deos te
Oro, qui reges consueris tollere, cur non

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Hunc Regem jugulas? operum hoc, mihi crede, tuorum est,'

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16. Disparibus, 'men unequal in valour,' as were Diomedes the Greek and Glaucus the Lycian (Il. vi. 119).-18. Praetore, a general expression for governor, since Brutus was properly proconsul of Macedonia.19. Construe thus: uti Bacchius cum Bitho, non melius compositum (par.) Bithus and Bacchius were two gladiators, who at last killed each other. -23. Conventus here is the judicial assembly, formed of the Roman citizens settled in the place, and the companions of Brutus (cohors), by whom the quarrel between Persius and Rupilius was to be decided. -25. Canem. Horace, keeping to the figure of the stars, has here a good pun, in the double sense of canis, a low dog (scoundrel),' and the dogstar,' Sirius.-27. Fertur quo rara securis, to which an axe seldom comes.-28. Salso multoque fluenti. As we can say in poetry salsus et multus fluit, so here participially.-29. The regular custom among vine-dressers was to prune the vines before the cuckoo was heard that is, before the spring equinox. When a traveller observed a vine-dresser engaged in pruning operations at a later period of the year, he called out derisively' Cuckoo;' which, consequently, became a slang word for 'vine-dresser.' Arbustum, properly a shrubbery,' but here 'a vineyard.' ―30. Vindemiator is to be read as a word of four syllables, the second being long; thus, vindēmiator. Compare Carm. iii. 4, 41.-35. Operum hoc tuorum est, this is a part of thy business, is a proceeding suitable for thee.' Hence the wit lies in the name Rex, which, as well as Regulus, occurs often in Roman families.

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