illudo1 chartis. hoc est mediocribus illis 1 incumbo, II: Röhl conjectures includo. 140 " Horace toys with his papers by jotting down his random thoughts. For the eagerness of the Jews to proselytize cf. St. Matthew xxiii. 15. с Among the numerous articles that contain a discussion of this Satire, reference may be made to the following:— papers." This is one of those lesser frailties I spoke of, and if you should make no allowance for it, then would a big band of poets come to my aid-for we are the big majority-and we, like the Jews, will compel you to make one of our throng. G. L. Hendrickson, "Horace, Sermones i. 4. A Protest and a Programme," A.J.P. xxi. pp. 121 ff.; "Satura -the Genesis of a Literary Form," C.P. vi. pp. 129 ff.; Charles Knapp, "The Sceptical Assault on the Roman Tradition concerning the Dramatic Satura,” A.J.P. xxxiii. pp. 125 ff.; H. R. Fairclough, "Horace's View of the Relations between Satire and Comedy," A.J.P. xxxiv. pp. 183 ff.; B. L. Ullman, "Horace on the Nature of Satire," A.P.A. xlviii. pp. 111 ff.; “Dramatic Satura,” C.P. ix. pp. 1 ff. V A JOURNEY TO BRUNDISIUM THIS Satire is modelled upon one by Lucilius, who in his third book had described a journey from Rome to Capua and thence to the Sicilian straits. Horace's journey was associated with an embassy on which Maecenas and others were sent in 38 B.C. by Octavian, to make terms with Marcus Antonius, who, notwithstanding the so-called treaty of Brundisium, made between the rivals of two years earlier, was again somewhat estranged. The travellers left Rome by the Appian Way, and made a night-journey from Appii Forum to Anxur by canal-boat through the Pomptine marshes. From Capua their road took them over the Apennines into the Apulian hill-country of Horace's birth, whence they passed on to Italy's eastern coast, reaching Brundisium in fifteen days. The journey had been pursued in a leisurely fashion, for if necessary it might have been covered in less than half that time. Although the mission of Maecenas was a political one, Horace steers clear of political gossip. The account reads like a compilation of scanty notes from a diary, and yet leaves a delightful impression about the personal relations of men distinguished in literature and statesmanship. Some of the character istics of the sketch are doubtless due to Horace's adherence to the satiric type. Thus the encounter of the two buffoons (51-69) is a dramatic scene, treated in a mock-heroic fashion, where the comparison made between Sarmentus and a unicorn recalls the Lucilian i description of a rhinoceros with a projecting tooth, rinoceros dente adverso eminulo hic est (117 f. ed. Marx.) while the four disfiguring lines (82-85) are parallel to a similar incident recorded by Lucilius. This close dependence of Horace upon Lucilius throughout is clearly shown by both Lejay, in his introduction to this Satire, and by Fiske in his Lucilius and Horace, pp. 306 ff. Professor Tenney Frank, in Classical Philology, xv. (1920) p. 393, has made the plausible suggestion that Heliodorus, the rhetor, Graecorum longe doctissimus, of 11. 2 and 3, is really Apollodorus, who was chosen by Julius Caesar to be the teacher of Octavian, and who is called by Wilamowitz "the founder of the classical school of Augustan poetry." The name Apollodorus cannot be used in hexameters, and Helios would be an easy substitution for Apollo. This scholar would have been a not unworthy member of the distinguished literary group who accompanied Maecenas to Brundisium. V. Egressum magna me accepit1 Aricia Roma hospitio modico; rhetor comes Heliodorus, Graecorum longe2 doctissimus: inde Forum Appi, differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis. hoc iter ignavi divisimus, altius ac nos › praecinctis unum: minus est gravis Appia tardis. hic ego propter aquam, quod erat deterrima, ventri indico bellum, cenantis haud animo aequo ? expectans comites. Iam nox inducere terris umbras et caelo diffundere signa parabat. tum pueri nautis, pueris convicia nautae ingerere "huc appelle!" : 66 ohe, 5 10 trecentos inseris." 15 iam satis est." dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur, tota abit hora. mali culices ranaeque palustres avertunt somnos, absentem ut3 cantat amicam multa prolutus vappa nauta atque viator certatim. tandem fessus dormire viator incipit ac missae pastum retinacula mulae 1 excepit D, II. 2 linguae K, II. 3 ut omitted by CDK. a The " Market of Appius," for which see Acts xxviii. 15, was at the head of the canal which ran through the Pomptine marshes to Feronia. bi.e. from Rome to Appii Forum, nearly forty miles. The phrase altius praecinctis means literally "higher girt,” cf. the Biblical "gird up your loins." |