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EPODE VI.

AGAINST CASSIUS.

It is by no means clear who is the unlucky object of these verses. Acron says he was a satirical poet of the name of Cassius, upon the strength of which the scholiast in Cruquius assumes him to have been the not uncelebrated orator Cassius Severus, who was banished by Augustus, and died in poverty and exile about sixty-three years after the

Why snap at the guests who do nobody harm,
Turning tail at the sight of a wolf?

O cur! thy vain threats why not venture on me,
Who can give back a bite for a bite?

Like mastiff Molossian or Sparta's dun hound,

Kindly friend to the shepherd am I;

But I prick up my ears, and away through the snows,

If a wild beast of prey run before;

But thou, if thou fillest the woods with thy bark,

Art struck dumb at the sniff of a bone.

Ah, beware! I am rough when I come upon knaves,
Ah, beware of a toss from my horns!

I'm as sharp as the wit whom Lycambes deceived,
Or the bitter foe Bupalus roused;1

date

Dost thou think, when a cur shows the grin of his teeth, That I'll weep, unavenged, like a child?

Archilochus, to whom Lycambes refused his daughter Neobule, after having first promised her to him. The poet avenged himself in verses so stinging, that Lycambes is said to have hanged himself. Bupalus was a sculptor, who, with his brother artist Athenis, ridiculed or caricatured the uncomely features of Hipponax, and his verses are said (though not truly) to have had the same fatal effect on the sculptor that those of Archilochus had upon Lycambes.

date of this ode. This supposition is not tenable, for Cassius Severus, as Orelli remarks, must have been a boy, or a youth of about twenty, when the ode was composed; nor is there any authority on record that Cassius Severus was a poet. Other commentators have supposed the person meant was Mævius or Bavius. If the right name be Cassius, nothing is known about him; nor is it of any importance. Horace's invective, for what we know to the contrary, might have been as unjust and inappropriate as the lampoons of irritable young poets generally are. Ritter conjectures the person therein satirised to have been Furius Bibaculus, notorious for the bitterness of his iambics, and who included Octavian Cæsar in his attacks.

CARM. VI.

Quid immerentes hospites vexas, canis,
Ignavus adversum lupos ?

Quin huc inanes, si potes, vertis minas,

Et me remorsurum petis?

Nam, qualis aut Molossus, aut fulvus Lacon,

Amica vis pastoribus,

Agam per altas aure sublata nives,

Quæcunque præcedet fera :

Tu, cum timenda voce complesti nemus,

Projectum odoraris cibum.

Cave, cave namque in malos asperrimus
Parata tollo cornua ;

Qualis Lycambæ spretus infido gener,

Aut acer hostis Bupalo.1

An, si quis atro dente me petiverit,
Inultus ut flebo puer?

GG

EPODE VII.

TO THE ROMANS.

This poem is referred by Orelli (who rightly considers it composed at a comparatively early age) to the beginning of the war of Perusia, A.U.C. 713-14, to which period the 16th Epode is ascribed. Others refer it to A.U.C. 716, the expe

O guilty whither, whither would ye run?

dition

Why swords just sheathed to those right hands refitted? Is there too little of the Latian blood

Shed on the land or wasted on the ocean, Not that the Roman may consign to flames

The haughty battlements of envious Carthage; Not that the untamed Briton may be seen

In captive chains the Sacred Slope descending; But that, compliant to the Parthian's prayer,

By her own right hand this great Rome shall perish? Not so with wolves; lions not lions rend;

The wild beast preys not on his own wild kindred.

Is it blind frenzy, or some demon Power,1

Or wilful crime that hurries you thus headlong? Reply! All silent; pallor on all cheeks,

And on all minds dumb conscience-striken stupor. So is it then! so rest on Roman heads

Doom, and the guilt of fratricidal murder,

Ever since 2 Remus shed upon this soil

The innocent blood atoned for by descendants.

1 'Vis acrior,' 'a fatal necessity;' equivalent to @eoû Blar.—ORELLI, MACLEANE.

2 Ut immerentis,' &c. Ut' here has the signification of 'ex quo,' ever since.-ORELLI, MACLEANE.

dition of Augustus against Sextus Pompeius, which is not very probable; others, again, including Franke, to the much later date of 722, the last war between Augustus and Mark Antony. Ritter contends that it relates to the war against Brutus and Cassius.

CARM. VII.

Quo, quo scelesti ruitis? aut cur dexteris
Aptantur enses conditi ?

Parumne campis atque Neptuno super
Fusum est Latini sanguinis,

Non, ut superbas invidæ Carthaginis
Romanus arces ureret ;

Intactus aut Britannus ut descenderet
Sacra catenatus Via,

Sed ut, secundum vota Parthorum, sua
Urbs hæc periret dextera ?

Neque hic lupis mos, nec fuit leonibus
Unquam, nisi in dispar, feris.
Furorne cæcus, an rapit vis acrior ?1
An culpa? Responsum date!
Tacent; et albus ora pallor inficit,
Mentesque perculsæ stupent.

Sic est acerba fata Romanos agunt,
Scelusque fraternæ necis,

Ut 2 immerentis fluxit in terram Remi
Sacer nepotibus cruor.

EPODE VIII. OMITTED.

EPODE IX.

TO MAECENAS.

The date of this Epode is not to be mistaken. 'It was written when the news of Actium was fresh, in September A.U.C. 723. It was addressed to Mæcenas, and it is impossible to read it and suppose he had just arrived from Actium, where some will have it he was engaged.'-MACLEANE.

The fine ode, Book I. 37, 'Nunc est bibendum,' was written a year later, after the news of the taking of Alexandria and the death of Cleopatra. In both these poems it will be observable that Horace avoids naming Mark Antony-some say from his friendship to the Triumvir's son Iulus, to whom he addresses Ode ii. Lib. IV.; but at the battle of Actium Julus was a mere boy, and it is not possible to conceive how Horace

When (may Jove grant it!) shall I quaff with thee
Under thy lofty dome, my glad Mæcenas,1
Cups of that Cæcuban reserved for feasts-
Quaff in rejoicing for victorious Cæsar,

While with the hymn symphonious music swells

Here Dorian lyre, there Phrygian fifes commingling?

As late we feasted, when from ocean chased,

The Son of Neptune fled his burning navies,2

He who did threaten to impose on Rome

That which he took from slaves, his friends—the fetter,

A Roman (ah! deny it after times),3

Sold into bondage to a female master,

Empales her camp-works, and parades her arms,

And serves, her soldier, under wrinkled eunuchs.

Beate Mæcenas.' The epithet 'beate' seems here to apply to the gladness of Mecenas at the good news, rather than to his general opulence or felicitous fortunes.

2Neptunius dux,' Sextus Pompeius, who boasted himself to be

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