broad. Any one whose landmark was removed had an actio termini moti against the person who did it.

40. Pergit, etc., persists in not restoring money deposited with him. In this case the aggrieved party had an actio depositi. 41. Repeated from xiii. 137.

42 sq. I shall have to wait for the year in which the suits of a whole people begin (literally, which begins the suits, etc.). "These suits would be brought before the centumviral court. Suits could be begun only in the half year from the 1st of March to the 1st of September (Mommsen, Histor.-Philolog. Gesellsch. Breslau, 1857, i. 2, 1). If the suit was not brought to an end within a magistrate's year, praescriptio, or limitation ensued. To avoid this, it was necessary to await the beginning of a new magistrate's term of office, in order to obtain at least the longest possible time for the action. (Keller, Litis Contestation, 135 sq.) "

43. Tunc quoque

si litibus inchoatis petitori praetor formulam dedit, i. e. causam recepit.

45. Sternuntur. I. e. with cushions.

45 sq. The court is broken up on some pretext or other, just as Caedicius is taking off his cloak to plead, or Fuscus is preparing himself for a long speech.

47. Lenta.. harena, and we contend only with the retarding sand of the forum. Instead of a contest jure et disceptatione fori, we have only the trouble of going away. (Weidner.) Others translate, "and the forum is but a slow arena for our combat."

49. Agendi, of going to law.

51 sqq. "According to Roman law, all the property amassed by a son during his father's lifetime belonged to the latter (was in his potestas), and could be disposed of by him only. The early emperors, with a view to making military service popular, allowed an exception to this law in the case of the earnings of soldiers. The castrense peculium was the private property of the soldier and at his disposal." 53. In corpore census, incorporated in the private fortune; a part of the property which was under the father's control.

54. Omne regimen, unlimited control. — The name Coranus may be borrowed from Hor. Sat. ii. 5, 55 sqq.

56 sq. Hunc —labori, such an one deserved favor advances, and returns its due rewards to his honorable service. - Favor is a conjecture of Ruperti's, now generally adopted. The MSS. give labor.

60. The satire breaks off abruptly, and was evidently left unfinished.

THE FIFTH SATIRE OF PERSIUS.

THIS satire is addressed by Aulus Persius Flaccus, - the young Etruscan nobleman, whose pure morals, attractive character, and untimely death excite an even greater interest than the few works he left behind him, - to his friend and teacher, the philosopher, grammarian, and rhetorician Lucius Annaeus Cornutus. Persius went to this distinguished master at the age of sixteen (A. D. 50 or 51) to be instructed in the Stoic philosophy, and afterwards, it appears, received him into his house, leaving him at his death (A. D. 62) his library and a large sum of money, of which the former only was accepted by Cornutus.

"In style no less than in matter" the fifth is generally regarded as "facile princeps amongst the Satires of Persius." I give the Argument in the words of Pretor.

ARGUMENT.

1-4. 'O that I had a hundred tongues!' says Persius.

5-18. Why so?' (asks Cornutus): 'they are not needed by the Satirist.'

19-51. 'True enough: but I require them to enable me to sing your praises worthily, that I may leave a fitting record of my gratitude to you (21-29), of your kindness to me (30-40), and of our mutual friendship (41-51).

52-61. Men's lives are varied, but most men feel when life is ending that they lack something.

62-72. You supply that want by bidding them seek philosophy betimes;

73-90. which alone can give a liberty far surpassing that of the slave set free by the magistrate, or of the self-styled 'independent'

man;

91-104. for no magistrate can impart to you a knowledge of the

real duties of life, and no man may do just what he pleases, but only that for which nature has fitted him.

105-114. If philosophy has taught you to distinguish between virtue and vice, and to free your soul from the dominion of the passions, you are really and truly free;

115-123. but, if you are not entirely in the right, you must be altogether in the wrong.

124-131. You are thinking only of bodily slavery, and forget that you may be the slave of your passions:

132-141. as of Avarice;

142-153. of Luxury;

154-160. (from one or other of which you are seldom altogether free;) 161-174. of Love;

175-179. of Ambition;

180-188. of Superstition.

189-191. Tell all this to a captain in the army, and he'll laugh at us for our pains.'

1, 2. Vatibus hic mos est, this is a way bards have. Examples are familiar and abundant; cf. Hom. Il. ii. 488 sqq.; Verg. Aen. vi. 625; Georg. ii. 43; Ov. Met. viii. 532. Valerius Flaccus (vi. 36) thinks a thousand mouths too few.-In carmina, for the purposes of song (Conington).

3. Ponatur, is set on the stage. Others, is taken in hand.

4. Parthi may be either subjective or objective genitive; the wounds may be those he inflicts, drawing his scimitar from (near) his groin, or those from which he suffers, as he drags the dart that shot him from his groin. The last interpretation is much to be preferred. 5 sq. Quantas... niti, what lumps of solid poetry are you cramming, so big that you require to strain a hundred throats?

7. Nebulas Helicone legunto, gather fogs on Helicon (Macleane). 8,9. If there be any who are going to set Progne's or Thyestes's pot a boiling, to be the standing supper of poor stupid Glycon (Conington). Glycon was a tragic actor of those days, who could not understand a joke. He was probably too tragic, and seemed as if he had really 'supped full of horrors,' in spite of the frequent repetition of the process."

10-13. But you are not squeezing wind with a pair of panting bellows, while the ore is smelting in the furnace, nor with pent-up murmur croaking hoarsely to yourself some solemn nonsense, nor straining and puffing your cheeks till they give way with a “plop." -Stloppo. A word occurring nowhere else, perhaps coined by Persius. The scholiast says, "stloppo dixit perapo,ik@s, a ludentibus

pueris, qui buccas inflatas subito aperiunt, et totum simul flatum cum sonitu fundunt." Stloppo here represents the explosion of the poetic bombast which in the two preceding lines has been represented as gathering. Some MSS. read scloppo, and so Jahn (1868).

14. Verba togae, the language of every-day life at Rome, especially the simple and easy, but refined, language of good society. — Junctura callidus acri, "with dexterous nicety in your combinations." Cf. Hor. A. P. 47 sq.: dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum reddiderit junctura novum; A. P. 242 sq.: tantum series juncturaque pollet, tantum de medio sumptis (cf. "verba togae") accedit honoris. 15. Ore teres modico, with diction well-turned and smooth. - Pallentis radere mores, to rasp unwholesome morals. Pallentis, pale from vice and its consequent diseases.

16. Et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo, and carry off vice on your lance, in sport that's fit for gentlemen.

17. Mycenis. Dative. "Leave Mycenae its feasts."

18. Capite et pedibus. These were reserved to convince Thyestes of the real character of the food he had been eating.

Plebeia prandia. The full opposition is between banquets of an unnatural sort in the heroic ages at Mycenae, known in these days only as stage-horrors, with no lesson for life, raw head and bloody bones," as Dryden renders it, and every-day meals (prandia, not cenae) of the simplest kind, in common society at Rome, which show ordinary men as they are. (Conington.) Mensa is contrasted with prandia (cf. Sen. Ep. 83, 6: sine mensa prandium) as banquet with meal, Tafel with Tisch. (Gildersleeve.)

Noris. The subjunctive used imperatively. Novi has no imperative of its own. And Persius does not hesitate to connect imperatives and imperative subjunctives; cf. Sat. iii. 73: disce nec invideas.

19. Bullatis nugis, “air-blown trifles," "frothy nothings."

22. Excutienda, to be sifted thoroughly. (Conington and Pretor.) The metaphor is from shaking out the folds of a robe, to see if anything was concealed in them.

24. Ostendisse. Once for all. (Gildersleeve.)

Pulsa, strike it, knock against it; (to judge of its solidity by the ring.) 25. Pictae tectoria linguae, the stucco of a painted tongue, for "painted tongue-stucco." (Conington, "the mere plaster of a varnished tongue.")

=

26. Hic in hac re. Others read his, which would mean ad haec. Deposcere. Notice the determination that lies in deposcere. (Gildersleeve.)

Y

27. Sinuoso in pectore, "in the very recesses of my breast." 28. Voce pura. Opposed to pictae linguae.

29. Fibra, "heart-strings."

30. "When first the purple resigned its dreaded guardianship over me.” — Pavido. I. e. trembling under those who watched over me.— Purpura. I. e. the toga praetexta, with its purple border, which was worn by boys, but laid aside when they took the toga virilis. On the praetexta as a symbol of sanctity, cf. Quint. Decl. 340: sacrum praetextarum, quo sacerdotes velantur, quo magistratus, quo infirmitatem pueritiae sacram facimus ac venerabilem.

31. On the day when the toga virilis was assumed, the boy dedicated to the gods his bulla, his playthings, and his long locks.

Persius calls the Lares succincti, girt up, in allusion to the cinctus Gabinus, in which they were always represented; the free movement of the body which this style of dress allowed befitted them as deities ever ready to act and help.

32 sq. Cum blandi comites, when companions were enticing.-Totaque... Subura, and my new toga virilis allowed me to go freely in every part of the town. - The Subura was the most thronged and the busiest part of Rome. Cf. Juv. iii. 5; xi. 51. — Jam candidus. No longer with the purple border, but now all white,—toga pura, the toga virilis. — Umbo, the gathering of the folds of the toga over the breast; here put for the whole toga.

34. Iter, the way of life.-Vitae nescius error, ramblings, through ignorance of life.

35. Deducit. Certainly the right reading, although Jahn (1868) adopts diducit. Gildersleeve cites Schlüter's neat distinction: homines in compita ubi viae diducuntur, deduci dicuntur.—Trepidas, bewildered.-Ramosa in compita, to the fork where the roads branch off. Persius alludes to the old image of the two diverging paths, which represent the alternative offered to youth of virtue or vice, at the end of the unconscious life of infancy and childhood.

36. Me tibi supposui, "I threw myself as a son into your arms." (Gildersleeve.) "I put myself under your teaching." (Macleane.) 37 sq. Fallere... sollers, your ruler, skilful to surprise, straightens my moral twists to which it is applied.—Intortos mores, "my warped nature."

39. Premitur, is moulded. Or, is broken in; cf. Verg. Aen. vi. 80.- Vincique laborat, and struggles to be subdued.

40. Artificem, artistic, finished. — Ducit, takes on; "like saxa.. ducere formam (Ov. Met. i. 402).”