2. belli causas] e.g. the disaster which befel Crassus at Carrhae (B.c. 53), and the death of Julia the daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompeius, which broke the last link between them (B.c. 54).

vitia] either crimes,' i.e. acts of cruelty, or, which is more probable, 'faults,' i. e. in the carrying on of the war.

modos] 'phases,' the various ways in which it was conducted.

3. ludum Fortunae] Fortune 'makes sport' of human life (cf. Od. 3. 29. 50, ludum insolentem ludere pertinax), and had especially done so in the tragic death of all three triumvirs.

graves principum amicitias] A poetical phrase for the triumvirate. 'graves'=' fatal,' i.e. to many a Roman.

5. uncta cruoribus] 'stained with streams of blood.' cruor (from caro) is always used of blood from a wound. The plural is very rare, but cf. Virg. Aen. 4. 687, atros siccabat veste cruores,'' she kept endeavouring to staunch the stream of blood which kept bursting out afresh' where the force of the plural is obvious: here it seems used with reference to the various occasions on which Roman blood had been shed, e.g. at Pharsalia, Thapsus, Philippi.

6. periculosae plenum opus aleae]'opus' is in apposition to the whole of the accusatives which have gone before, 'a task full of risk and danger.' Why Pollio's task was so difficult Horace at once explains, for the words 'et incedis...' are really an explanation. The historian of disasters which were so recent is compared to a man who after a conflagration incautiously advances among the débris the surface of which alone has cooled, at the risk of being himself burnt, or causing the flame to burst out again.

No doubt the expression incedis...doloso' is proverbial and general (cf. Callim. Ep. 46, 2, σтɩ ÑÛρ ÚÑÒ TŶ σπodin, and Propert. I. 5. 5, ignotos vestigia, ferre per ignes), and the explanation given above is adequate, but I have always been convinced that in using it Horace had in mind one of the special phenomena of his native land, and I have little hesitation in saying that this is so since finding the following passage in Macaulay, Hist. Eng. c. 6. When the historian of this troubled reign (James II.), turns to Ireland, his task becomes peculiarly difficult and delicate. His steps-to borrow the fine image used on a

similar occasion by a Roman poet-are on the thin crust of ashes beneath which the lava is still glowing.'

7. tractas] Notice the present: Pollio's work was only begun (cf. 11. 9---11), 'you are taking in hand,' v. note on 1. 21.

9. paullum] for a short (time),' for awhile.' paullum is the accusative of duration from an obsolete adjective paullus, tempus being understood, but it is practically used as an adverb.

tragoediae] A Greek word for a Greek thing represented in Latin letters. The Romans imported 'tragedy' from Greece where it was a native development, and they also imported its name (rpaywdía) at the same time, as was also the case with comedy (kwuwdia, comoedia). The fact that the Romans represented by oe, is one among many similar instances which shew that our pronunciation of Latin and Greek is incorrect, for, whereas we pronounce quite differently from oe, it is obvious that the Romans considered that the sound of oe reproduced the sound of w. The derivation of 7paywola is generally supposed to be rpάyos and woŋ= 'the song of the goat,' because a goat was the prize at the Bacchic festivals at which the first rude 'tragedies' were sung or performed.

Virgil also (Ecl. 8. 10), alludes to Pollio's tragedies as 'Sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna cothurno,' 'thy poems alone worthy of the buskin (i.e. tragic dignity) of Sophocles.'

11. ordinaris]=ordinaveris, 'shall have set in order,' i.e. duly arranged in your history, cf. St Luke i. 1. Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order (ávaтáğaσlai), a declaration of those things....'

grande...cothurno] 'thou shalt resume thy glorious task on the Cecropian buskin,' i.e. you shall resume the writing of those tragedies which are worthy of the dignity of the Athenian stage. 'Cecropio,' because at Athens all the great Greek tragedies were produced. 'cothurno': the tragic actors wore highheeled buskins, like modern ladies, to add to their height and dignity; comic actors wore the low soccus or slipper.

13. insigne praesidium] in apposition to 'Pollio'='0 thou illustrious defence.' 'maestis reis' alludes to Pollio's skill in forensic eloquence, or, as we might say, 'at the bar;' 'consulenti curiae' to his success as a speaker in the senate, as a

parliamentary orator-a very different style of eloquence. 'consulenti' = 'deliberating' not 'consulting you,' as it would be absurd to speak of a great body consulting one of its members however distinguished.

16. Delmatico triumpho] In в.c. 39, he had obtained a triumph for defeating the Parthini, an Illyrian people on the borders of Dalmatia.

17. iam nunc...] Here Horace suddenly represents himself as reading Pollio's history, in which he knows beforehand events will be so vividly and dramatically portrayed that the reader will imagine himself to be actually seeing and hearing that which is described.

18. perstringis aures] A very difficult phrase of which I can find no clear explanation. Stringere (connected with OTрayyew and strangle') means (1) to squeeze tight, (2) to graze or scrape the surface or edge of anything, the two notions being perhaps connected thus: when you draw anything like a bough through a narrow aperture where it is squeezed tight,' the effect is to strip' or 'scrape' it, cf. stringere remʊs= to strip boughs of their leaves and make them into oars, stringere gladium to draw a sword quickly from its tightfitting scabbard. praestringere aciem is used of the effect of a flash of light which passes quickly over the surface of the eye and dazzles it. So here 'perstringere aures' seems used of a loud harsh sound which scrapes or grates upon the ear dulling and deafening it. The word is neglected in dictionaries, and this passage is neglected by the editors.

litui...cornuum] Both these instruments are illustrated in Smith's Dict. of Ant. q. v. 'litui strepunt'=' the clarions bray.'

19. iam fulgor...voltus] 'Now the flash of arms scares in (or into) flight the horses and the faces of the horsemen '-a singularly bold but effective sketch of a cavalry rout dashed off by a master hand in half a dozen words.

fugaces is no doubt proleptic; the sudden flash of weapons in front of them frightens the horses so that they take to flight. Cf. Job xxxix. 22, 23, of the horse,

'He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted,

Neither turneth he back from the sword:

The quiver rattleth against him,

The glittering spear and the shield.'

20. equos equitumque] Notice the effect of assonance: so in English warrior and war-horse,' and Tennyson, Charge of the Light Brigade, While horse and hero fell.'

equitum voltus. The commentators explain this by reference to a story (Plut. Caes. 45), that at the battle of Pharsalia, which Horace is thinking of, Caesar ordered his soldiers to strike at the faces of the young Roman nobles who formed the cavalry and that they fearful for their beauty turned and fled. The phrase needs no such learned and unnatural explanation. Horace says not horsemen,' but faces of horsemen,' because he wishes to bring vividly before our minds the one point which remained most clearly stamped on his recollection in the similar rout at Philippi, the pale panic-struck faces of men flying for their lives: it is a brilliant dramatic touch, not a recondite allusion to an obscure story.

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21. audire magnos...] 'audire' which governs both 'duces' and cuncta subacta' can by itself mean either' to hear' or to 'hear of;' with 'cuncta subacta' it can only mean the latter, and there is consequently a strong presumption that it is to be taken in the same way with 'duces.' 'I seem to hear of mighty generals begrimed with the glorious dust of battle and of a whole world &c.' i.e. I seem in imagination already to hear the reading or recitation of your history of these events. Now-a-days we should expect already I seem to be reading your description ... but it is to be borne in mind that before the invention of printing public reading or recitation was one of the best possible methods of making known a new work (cf. the story of Thucydides hearing Herodotus recite his history at Olympia and for the practice of recitation, Juv. Sat. 1. 1, and Mayor's exhaustive note).

Orelli prefers to take audire' in two senses, and translates I seem, so vivid is your writing, to hear great generals,' i. e. haranguing their troops or the like, but to my mind this double use of audire in two such distinct senses is absolutely impossible, and I know no parallel case. Moreover, if the grammatical difficulty be avoided, the addition of the phrase 'non indecoro pulvere sordidos' precludes Orelli's interpretation as a matter of taste; it is quite correct to say 'I seem to hear of great leaders begrimed with the dust of battle,' but it is as absurd to say 'I hear great leaders begrimed &c.,' as it would be to say 'I heard Mr Gladstone in evening dress.'

23. cuncta terrarum] all things in the world'—a variety of the possessive genitive. The construction must not be confounded with our inaccurate phrase all of,' or 'the whole of,' in which a partitive genitive is used even where an entire thing is referred to.

24. atrocem animum Catonis] 'Cato's stubborn soul.' Cf. Od. 1. 12. 36, Catonis nobile letum. Cato committed suicide at Utica after the battle of Thapsus (B.c. 46).

25. Iuno...] The transition is natural and easy from the death of Cato to the thought how amply Carthage and Iugurtha had been avenged for all they had suffered at the hands of Rome by the sight of Roman carnage. Iuno was the tutelary deity of Carthage, cf. Virg. Aen. 1. 15.

Quam (i.e. Carthage) Iuno fertur terris magis omnibus unam Posthabita coluisse Samo; hic illius arma,

Hic currus fuit,......

The construction is Iuno (1st subject) et deorum quisquis...tellure (pronominal clause serving as a 2nd subject) rettulit (main verb, in the singular though there are two subjects coupled by et, a construction of which Horace is very fond), victorum nepotes (direct object of rettulit) inferias (in apposition to nepotes as an offering at his tomb) Iugurthae (dative of remoter object).

26. cesserat] The gods were supposed to quit doomed cities. Cf. Virg. Aen. 2. 351. Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis | Di, and the account of Josephus (Bell. Iud. vI. 5. 3) that immediately before the capture of Jerusalem by Titus the gates of the Temple had burst open of themselves, and that a voice more than human had been heard exclaiming 'Let us go hence' (ueraßairwμev évтeû0ev), a story also referred to by Tac. Hist. 5. 13. audita maior humana vox, Excedere Deos.

Carthage was sacked by P. Scipio Africanus Minor B. c. 149. impotens] in its simple meaning 'powerless' i.e. to save.

29. pinguior] 'fatter' i. e. more fertile than it was before. For the phrase cf. Aesch. Persae, 806 where the Persians who fell at Plataea are spoken of as giλov iaoua (a fattening) BowTŵv Xoovi, and Virg. Georg. 1. 491 bis sanguine nostro || Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campos.

30. sepulcris] with 'testatur,' 'bears witness by its tombs.'