utere Pompeio Grospho et, si quid petet, ultro defer; nil Grosphus nisi verum orabit et aequum. vilis amicorum est annona, bonis ubi quid deest. Ne tamen ignores, quo sit Romana loco res, Cantaber Agrippae, Claudi virtute Neronis Armenius cecidit; ius imperiumque Phraates Caesaris accepit genibus minor; aurea fruges Italiae pleno defudit1 Copia cornu.

a

1 defudit мss.: defundit VA2.

According to the scholiast, fish are here mentioned as costly fare in contrast to a simple diet. In trucidas, however, Horace makes a humorous allusion to the Pythagoreans, whom Empedocles followed in regard to the doctrine of transmigration of souls, for he asserted that he himself had once been a fish (eiv åλì λotos ixoús, Fr. 11 Müll.). eat a fish, therefore, might mean murder. This ban on living things was extended even to vegetables, cf. Sat. ii. 6. 63 above, and Juvenal's well-known verse

Το

onions that you butcher," receive Pompeius Grosphus as a friend, and if he asks aught of you, give it freely: Grosphus will sue for nothing but what is right and fair. The market-price of friends is low, when good men are in need.

25 Yet, that you may not be ignorant how the world wags in Rome, the Cantabrian has fallen before the valour of Agrippa, the Armenian before that of Claudius Nero. Phraates, on humbled knees, has accepted Caesar's imperial sway. Golden Plenty from full horn has poured her fruits upon Italy.

porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu

(15. 9), with Mayor's note.

The Cantabrians were conquered by Agrippa in 19 B.C., shortly after Armenia had submitted to Tiberius. In connexion with the latter event, Phraates, the Parthian king, restored the Roman standards taken long before from Crassus at Carrhae.

XIII

TO VINIUS ASINA

HORACE is sending Augustus a copy of his poems, probably the Odes, Books i., ii., iii., which were published in 23 B.C. The volume is carried to court by a messenger, one Vinius, whose cognomen is presumably Asina (1. 8), though the usual form of the name is Asellus.

Instead of writing a formal note to the Emperor to accompany the gift, Horace indulges in the fiction of sending a letter of instructions to the messenger, in which he humorously expresses his anxiety about the reception of the poems.

XIII.

Ut proficiscentem docui te saepe diuque, Augusto reddes signata volumina, Vini,1 si validus, si laetus erit, si denique poscet; ne studio nostri pecces odiumque libellis sedulus importes opera vehemente minister, si te forte meae gravis uret2 sarcina chartae, abicito potius, quam quo perferre iuberis clitellas ferus impingas, Asinaeque paternum cognomen vertas in risum et fabula fias.

Viribus uteris per clivos, flumina, lamas. victor propositi simul ac perveneris illuc, sic positum servabis onus, ne forte sub ala fasciculum portes librorum ut rusticus agnum, ut vinosa glomus3 furtivae Pyrria lanae, ut cum pilleolo soleas conviva tribulis. neu1 volgo narres te sudavisse ferendo carmina, quae possint oculos aurisque morari Caesaris. oratus multa prece, nitere porro.

5

10

15

vade; vale; cave ne titubes mandataque frangas. 1 vinni or venni мss. (but inscriptions favour the form Vinius). 2 urit E: urat Priscian. 3 glomos φιλι.

4

neu a: nec E: ne, II.

a i.e. the books. These, of course, could not be heavy in themselves, though they might make "heavy reading."

This is said to be an allusion to a scene in one of the plays of Titinius.

The tribulis, a humble man whom for political purposes a richer member of the same tribe has invited to dinner, has