NOTES.

ODES.-BOOK I.

ODE I.

'Men have different ideas of glory and happiness- -success in the Olympic games, civic honours, wealth. The farmer will not turn trader for any prospect of riches, nor the trader give up the sea for any danger. One likes a life of ease; another the excitements of war or sport. My taste is lyric poetry, and my glory that you should rank me with the lyric poets of Greece.'

The Ode is clearly written as an introduction. (Cp. the tone of Od. 3. 30, when the work is done.) It is dedicated to Maecenas-as is the first of the Epodes, the first of the Satires, the first of B. i. of the Epistles. See Introd. to Books i-iii. § 11. 2.

Compare also Od. 4. 3, which recalls the main thoughts of this Ode, though its confident tone and the absence of a patron's name point the change which had by that time come upon the poet's circumstances. There is no need in either Ode to trace the 'incongruous' mention of the Olympic games as among the natural objects of ambition to the remembrance of any special Greek original, such as Pind. Fr. 201 :-

ἀελλοπόδων μέν τιν ̓ εὐφραίνοισιν ἵππων

τίμια καὶ στέφανοι τοὺς δ' ἐν πολυχρύσοις θαλάμοις βιοτά, κ.τ.λ. The purpose is to give the feeling of a wide survey of human life, and Horace does not draw a strong line between the Greek life which survived in literature and the actual Roman life of his own day. The apology for poetry, as one among the various tastes of mankind, is as old at least as Solon (2. 43-52), and Horace would remember the end of Virg. G. 2, esp. vv. 503 foll. For the same thoughts in a less poetical

form, cp. Sat. 2. 1. 24 foll. 'Quot capitum vivunt totidem studiorum Milia me pedibus delectat claudere verba,' &c.

Metre First Asclepiad.

Line 1. See on 3. 29. 1 Tyrrhena regum progenies.' In neither case is there the special purpose in the address which there is in Sat. 1. 6. 1. Compare Od. 1. 20. 5 with 3. 16. 20. It is, however, a little more than a pleasing compliment; in connection with the next line it has the force of 'so far above us, yet whose power is my protection, and whose glory is my pride.' The Cilnii, Maecenas' ancestors on his father's side, are named (Liv. 10. 3) as a powerful family at Arretium in the fourth century B.C

atavis, ancestors,' cp. Virg. Aen. 7. 56 Turnus avis atavisque potens.' When contrasted with other compounds of 'avus, atavus': Tinаnos, the fifth ancestor- pater, avus, proavus, abavus, atavus,' Plaut. Pers. 1. 2. 6.

edite, Virg. Aen. 8. 137 Electram maximus Atlas Edidit.'

2. Cp. Od. 2. 17.4 'mearum Grande decus columenque rerum'; Epp. 1. I. 103 rerum tutela mearum'; Virg. G. 2. 40 O decus, O famae merito pars maxima nostrae.' Notice that here, as with the corresponding word in the other passages, 'meum' is in the emphatic place, 'to me.'

3. sunt quos. . iuvat. 'Sunt qui' may take either a Subjunctive, in which case 'qui' has its consecutive force: sunt qui dicant,'' there are people to say': or an Indicative, in which case 'sunt-qui,' like 'nescio quis,' becomes a new pronoun, the subject of a definite categorical statement. The former is the more Latin construction, more consonant with the usages of the Relative, and is preferred in prose, although the Indicative is also found, as in Sall. Cat. 19. 4, where see Kritz' note. Horace, swayed perhaps by his love of Greek constructions, prefers the Indicative, after the model of eiciv of. Cp. Od. 1. 7. 5, Sat. 1. 4. 24, 2. 1. 1, &c. But he uses the Subjunctive also, Sat. 1. 2. 28, 1. 4. 74, Epp. 1. 1. 77. In Epp. 2. 2. 183 Sunt qui non habeant, est qui non curat habere,' he seems to use the two constructions as a means of contrasting the vagueness of a general statement with the definiteness of a known particular instance. There are who have not, I know one who cares

not to have.'

curriculo may mean either the course,' as in Cic. Mur. 27' quadrigarum curriculum,' or the 'chariot,' as in Ov. Trist. 4. 8 'curriculo gravis est facta ruina meo.'

4. collegisse. On comparison with Sat. 1. 4. 31 pulvis collectus turbine,' perhaps rather to have raised a cloud of dust' than 'to have become dusty.' The perf. may be regular, see on 3. 4. 51.

NOTES.

ODES.-BOOK I.

ODE I.

'Men have different ideas of glory and happiness—success in the Olympic games, civic honours, wealth. The farmer will not turn trader for any prospect of riches, nor the trader give up the sea for any danger. One likes a life of ease; another the excitements of war or sport. My taste is lyric poetry, and my glory that you should rank me with the lyric poets of Greece.'

The Ode is clearly written as an introduction. (Cp. the tone of Od. 3. 30, when the work is done.) It is dedicated to Maecenas-as is the first of the Epodes, the first of the Satires, the first of B. i. of the Epistles. See Introd. to Books i-iii. § 11. 2.

Compare also Od. 4. 3, which recalls the main thoughts of this Ode, though its confident tone and the absence of a patron's name point the change which had by that time come upon the poet's circumstances. There is no need in either Ode to trace the 'incongruous' mention of the Olympic games as among the natural objects of ambition to the remembrance of any special Greek original, such as Pind. Fr. 201 :--

ἀελλοπόδων μέν τιν ̓ εὐφραίνοισιν ἵππων

τίμια καὶ στέφανοι τοὺς δ ̓ ἐν πολυχρύσοις θαλάμοις βιοτά, κ.τ.λ. The purpose is to give the feeling of a wide survey of human life, and Horace does not draw a strong line between the Greek life which survived in literature and the actual Roman life of his own day. The apology for poetry, as one among the various tastes of mankind, is as old at least as Solon (2. 43-52), and Horace would remember the end of Virg. G. 2, esp. vv. 503 foll. For the same thoughts in a less poetical