Now as Bentley's allowance of time for the first and second books of Odes runs down as low as B. c. 25. the disagreement in this solitary example might not be valid (or might not be pleaded) against his chronology. But it is far more candid and ingenuous at once to confess, that where any difficulties, created by the details of biography, depend on the authority of Hieronymus alone, I am rather reluctant to submit; partly, because the author of the Fasti Hellenici has himself in cases of that kind detected several inaccuracies; and partly on a more general ground of reasonable doubt. Mistakes in the dates of birth or death, &c. in a distant age, where private persons are concerned, may well be expected and excused; because without some public event or other to rest upon, such dates must often float loose as it were for want of anchorage. 3. A remarkable instance of error in the biographical dates of Hieronymus, occurs in his account of Lucilius the Poet as born B. c. 148, and as dying in 103. With this date of his birth two well attested facts are grossly at variance the one on the authority of Velleius Paterculus, II. 9, 4. "Celebre et Lucilii nomen fuit qui sub P. Africano Numantino bello eques militaverat," B. c. 134. in which year Lucilius, so dated, must have been a boy under age; and the other, told by Horace of his personal friendship, when already known as a bold Satirist, with the younger Scipio, who died in B. c. 129. 2 S. 1. 62-74. Quid? cum est Lucilius ausus Nugari cum illo, et discincti ludere, donec Now all this could never be true of Lucilius, if he had been then, as the calculation would make him, barely in his nineteenth year. Mr. H. F. Clinton is led by these and other considerations to " assume that the birth of Lucilius was a few years earlier, and his death a few years later, than the date of Hieronymus." Additions and Corrections to Vol. 111. given in Vol. 1. pp. 426, 7. 4. Still, however, supposing these points in biography to be cleared up, as we trust they are, yet on the other hand if Bentley's Chronology can be any where shown to be incompatible with well ascertained facts of history, there can be nothing left for us but to surrender at discretion. First of all, however, a very important caveat may well claim to be admitted here. Historical language is precise, direct and plain, free from all question or ambiguity. The allusive language of Poetry, especially where the Poet's eye is at all frenzied with pride and patriotism, beholds the future in the present and transmutes symptoms into successes. On this hint let me have the indulgence to speak. In the year B. c. 20, and not before, F. H. p. 240. (1 E. xviii. 55. Sub duce, qui templis Parthorum signa refigit | Nunc, &c.) the standards of Crassus were actually restored by the Parthians; that is the declaration of history: but as early as B. c. 34, and long before any thing was effected about the standards, the language of Horace might lead one to suppose that satisfaction was even then on the point of being obtained. 2 S. v. 62. Tempore quo juvenis Parthis horrendus....and in the Ode (2 c. 1x.) Non semper imbres .... more distinctly still. vv. 18-22. --et potius nova Medumque flumen gentibus additum Horace in B. c. 25. at the latest, seems to refer to the great and memorable submission from the East as already acquired and if it be so taken, that date of the Ode cannot be true. But then we know the gall of bitterness in which the Roman people for so many years reflected on the disaster of Crassus; 1 C. 11. 21, 2. Audiet cives acuisse ferrum, Quo graves Persæ melius perirent, &c. 2 C. 1. 29-32. Quis non Latino sanguine pinguior Campus sepulchris impia prælia Testatur, auditumque Medis Hesperiæ sonitum ruinæ ? We may imagine the zeal therefore with which the rumours, even of any chance to retrieve that disaster, would be quickly' caught up and cherished. Generally speaking, the Roman marched only to conquer; and an expedition meditated or threatened was a conquest achieved. It is in this light accordingly we understand the prayer of Horace, 1 C. xxxv. 29-32. Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos Orbis Britannos, et juvenum recens Examen Eois timendum Partibus Oceanoque rubro. and the boast at a later day, but long enough before its accomplishment, 3 C. v. 1-4. Cœlo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare: præsens Divus habebitur Augustus, adjectis Britannis Imperio gravibusque Persis. History with correct simplicity assures us (F. H. p. 238.) that in B. c. 23. Tiridates being then at Rome, on an embassy arriving from Phraates, Augustus seized the occasion, among other peremptory points, to demand the restitution of the standards: and to the natural expectation of prompt compliance which such a demand would create, Mr. Clinton thinks may be referred the splendid stanza last quoted where hope is at once converted into certainty. Only then allow it probable, that in an earlier year than B. c. 23. some loud and sudden report might arise from similar causes at work in that oriental scene (Geo. 11. 496. Infidos agitans discordia fratres) between the two rival princes, 1 C. xxvI. 5. Quid Tiridaten terreat... 2 C. II. 17. Redditum Cyri solio Phraaten.. Allow this probability: and after all, the nova Augusti tropea (never literally gained, for no war ensued) may rather have been anticipated by the Poet, than require to be earlier dated by the Chronologist. 5. The localities of Horace are closely entwined with the dates of his writings; and without much scruple therefore, the following and final question here may be allowed admission, at the close of others more immediately falling under the head of Chronology. 3 C. XIII. O Fons Bandusiæ, &c. M. de Chaupy in his Decouverte de la Maison de Campagne d'Horace, à Rome. 1769. T. 1. p. 364. first announced the discovery of the words...in Bandusino fonte apud Venusiam, &c. in a grant from Pope Pascal II. A.D. 1103; and he was not a little proud, after his manner, to demonstrate, that this fountain must have been (and that no other could be) the Fons Bandusiæ of Horace's Ode. And Mr. Hobhouse in his Illustrations of Lord Byron's Childe Harold, 1818, pp. 42, 3, rather delights in adopting so brilliant a detection. "The Bandusian fountain is not to be looked for in the Sabine valley, but on the Lucano-Apulian border where Horace was born. "The vicissitude which placed a Priest on the throne of the Cæsars, has ordained that a Bull of Pope Pascal the Second should be the decisive document in ascertaining the site of a fountain which inspired an Ode of Horace." About so minute a concern long disquisitions here would be tedious and unnecessary. For in the first place, Mr. Dunlop's solution (History of Roman Literature. 1828. Vol. 1. p. 213.) seems calculated to set the matter at rest very easily. "The probability is, that Horace had named the clearest and loveliest stream of his Sabine retreat, after that fountain which lay in Apulia, and on the brink of which he had no doubt often sported in infancy." And secondly, in confirmation of Mr. Dunlop's conjecture, I may be forgiven for inserting part of a Letter of my own on this very point of difficulty, familiarly written in the year 1824. "Let the Fons Bandusia (now the Fonte Bello) of the Sabine valley, flow on with all its honours! "For as to the Ode of Horace (3 C. x111.), it tallies admirably with the idea of his christening what had no name before, after the romantic spring, which had a name, not far from Venusia, and which he had loved when a child." "From 1 E. xvi. 12. Fons etiam rivo dare nomen idoneus, you may perhaps gather that this fountain had no name whatever, till Horace gave it one. The rivus lower down was certainly called Digentia, now Licenza. 1 E. XVIII. 104. Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, &c. The classical verisimilitude of my conjecture that Horace called his Sabine fountain, from natural love and liking, |