And as for gold, I give thee all Pactolus ;
Know all the lore occult

Stored by Pythagoras re-born; in beauty
Nireus himself excel;

And yet, alas! in store for thee my sorrow,
Thou too wilt mourn

Loves with such ease made over to another

My turn for mockery then!

Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, Tibique Pactolus fluat,

Nec te Pythagoræ fallant arcana renati, Formaque vincas Nirea;

Eheu! translatos alio mærebis amores: Ast ego vicissim risero.

EPODE XVI.

TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE (OR RATHER TO HIS OWN
POLITICAL FRIENDS).

This poem is generally supposed to have been composed at the commencement of the Perusian war, A.U.C. 713the year following the battle of Philippi, when the state of Italy was indeed deplorable, and the fortunes of Horace himself at the worst. He had forfeited his patrimony, and it was two years before he was even introduced to Mæcenas. At that time he would have been twenty-four. The poem has

Another age worn out in civil wars,1

And Rome sinks weighed down by her own sheer forces, Whom nor the bordering Marsians could destroy; Nor Porsena, threatening with Etruscan armies; Nor rival Capua, nor fierce Spartacus,

2

Nor Allobroge3 in all revolts a traitor;

Nor fierce Germania's blue-eyed giant sons;
Nor Hannibal, abhorred by Roman mothers,
That is the Rome which we, this race, destroy;
We, impious victims by ourselves devoted,
And to the wild beast and the wilderness

Restoring soil which Romans called their country.
Woe! on the ashes of Imperial Rome

Shall the barbarian halt his march, a victor;
And the wild horseman with a clanging hoof
Trample the site which was the world's great city,
And-horrid sight-in scorn to winds and sun
Scatter the shrouded bones of Rome's first founder.5

1 'Altera ætas,' the preceding age being that of Sulla.

2 Emula nec virtus Capua.' Capua, after the battle of Cannæ, aspired to the 'imperium' of Italy.-LIV. 23, 2.

Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox.' This line is generally sup posed to refer to the Allobrogian ambassadors, who, at the time of

has the character of youth in its defects and its beauties. The redundance of its descriptive passages is in marked contrast to the terseness of description which Horace studies in his odes; and there is something declamatory in its general tone which is at variance with the simpler utterance of lyrical art. On the other hand, it has all the warmth of genuine passion; and in sheer vigour of composition Horace has rarely excelled it.

CARM. XVI.

Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus ætas,i
Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit:

Quam neque finitimi valuerunt perdere Marsi,
Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenæ manus,
Æmula nec virtus Capuæ, nec Spartacus acer,
Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox,3
Nec fera cærulea domuit Germania pube,
Parentibusque abominatus Hannibal,*
Impia perdemus devoti sanguinis ætas,
Ferisque rursus occupabitur solum.
Barbarus, heu! cineres insistet victor, et Urbem.
Eques sonante verberabit ungula,

Quæque carent ventis et solibus ossa Quirini,5
Nefas videre! dissipabit insolens.

Catiline's conspiracy, promised to aid it, but afterwards betrayed the conspirators, and became the chief witnesses against them. The Allobroges, a Gallic people on the left bank of the Rhone, two years later broke out in war, and, invading Gallia Narbonensis, were defeated by the governor of that province, C. Pomptinius. The line may, however, be intended to designate the general character of this people, without any special reference to the conduct of their ambassadors in the conspiracy of Catiline.

''Parentibusque abominatus Hannibal.' Orelli and Dillenburger interpret parentibus' as 'our fathers,' 'the former generation.' Doering, Ritter, and Macleane, interpret the word in the sense of 'bella matribus detestata,' c. i. I. 24, in which latter sense the line is translated.

'Quæque carent ventis et solibus ossa Quirini.' I have rendered

If haply all, or those amongst you all,

Who be of nobler nature, ask for counsel How to escape the endurance of such ills,

I know none better than this old example: Leaving their lands, their Lares, and their shrines, To wolf and wild boar, went forth the Phocæans,1 One State entire, accursing the return ;

Go we wherever a free foot may lead us, No matter what the billow or the blast,

Welcome alike be Africus or Notus,

Are ye agreed? Who can this vote amend?

Why pause? To sea! accept the favouring auspice. Yet ere we part thus swear: When the firm rocks, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried,3

Rise to the light and float along the wave,

Then, nor till then, return for us be lawful! Back unrepentant we will veer the sail

When Po shall lave the summits of Matinus; When into ocean juts the Apennine;

When herds no longer fear the tawny lions;
When nature's self becomes unnatural,

And, love reversing all its old conditions,
Tigers woo does, the kite pairs with the dove;
When into scales the he-goat smooths his fleeces,
And quits the hill-top for the briny seas.

So swear, swear aught that cuts us off for ever
From the old homes, and go, one State entire,
Accursing the return. If all not willing,

the simple meaning of the line, but the literal construction is, that he shall scatter the bones of Romulus, hitherto free, in their secret place, from wind and sun. Elsewhere (Car. iii. 3, 16) Horace speaks of Romulus as rapt to heaven, according to the popular belief. Varro, according to Porphyrion, says the tomb of Romulus was behind the Rostra. Orelli suggests that Romulus (Quirinus) is not literally signified in the verse, but rather symbolically, as the ideal representative (der