330 35 venator tenerae coniugis immemor, frigus, ventus póst fit, aer dénuo. -tenerae: young. 28. teretis: stout, close twisted. 29. me: note the emphatic position of this word here and in the following verse. Against the background of other men's aims, Horace now places his own ambition. doctarum... frontium: i.e. of poets, the σοφοὶ ἀειδοί, taught by the Muses. hederae: sacred to Bacchus, on whose protection and favor the poets depend. Cf. Epist. 1, 3, 25 prima feres hederae victricis praemia, and Verg. E. 7, 25 pastores, hedera nascentem ornate poetam. 30. miscent: make me one with. Cf. Pind. Isth. 2, 28 f. Ολυμπίου Διὸς | ἄλσος· ἵν ̓ ἀθανάτοις Αἰνησιδάμου | παῖδες ἐν τιμαῖς ἔμειχθεν. 32 f. secernunt: set apart. The poet must rise superior to common folk and common things to fulfill his sacred office. -Euterpe . . . Polyhymnia: Horace follows the Greeks of the classical period in not ascribing to each muse a special department of literature or learning. 34. Lesboum: Lesbos was the home of Alcaeus and Sappho, Horace's chief models among the earlier Greek lyricists. 35 f. vatibus: applied to poets as inspired bards. Horace may mean specifically the nine great lyric poets of Greece. vates was the earliest word for poet among the Romans, but was displaced by the Greek poeta until the Augustan period. Cf. Verg. A. 6, 662 quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti. -sublimi feriam, etc.: a proverbial expression from the Greek Tη κεφαλῇ ψαύειν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Cf. Ovid Met. 7, 61 vertice sidera tangam, and Ausonius' imitation of Horace, 3, 5, 52 P. tunc tangam vertice caelum. Also Herrick's 'knock at a star with my exalted head,' and Tennyson's lines, Epilogue, 'Old Horace? "I will strike," said he, "The stars with head sublime." 2 'We have been terrified enough with snow and hail, with lightning and with flood, portents that show Heaven's wrath and threaten ruin to our impious state. What god will come and save us? Apollo? Venus? Mars? or Mercury? Aye, thou art already here. Remain long among us, enjoy triumphs, the name of father and of chief; check and punish the Medes, divine leader Caesar.' While the first ode of the collection dedicates the poems to Maecenas, the second is a declaration of loyalty and devotion to the emperor. The first six strophes review the portents that followed on the murder of Julius Caesar. Cf. Porphyrio's comment on the opening words, post occisum C. Caesarem, quem Cassius et Brutus aliique coniurati interfecerunt, multa portenta sunt visa. Haec autem omnia vult videri in ultionem occisi principis facta et poenam eorum, qui bella civilia agere non desinebant. With v. 25 Horace turns from the sins of the Romans to the means of help. The following three strophes call on Apollo, Venus, and Mars in turn to save their people. Finally, v. 41 ff., Horace appeals to Mercury, who has taken on an earthly form, that of the emperor. The ode culminates with v. 49 ff., the direct appeal to Octavian; but the identification of Octavian with Mercury is not fully announced until the last word of the ode. The choice of the gods invoked was undoubtedly determined by the subject of the ode. Apollo was the patron divinity of the Julian gens; his first and only temple at Rome to the time of the one built by Augustus was dedicated in 431 B.C., by Cn. Julius (Livy 4, 29); the members of the gens sacrificed to him at Bovillae, according to an ancient rite, lege Albana (C.I.L. 1, 807), and Octavian believed that the god had especially favored him at the battle of Actium. Cf. Prop. 5, 6, 27 ff., cum Phoebus linquens stantem se vindice Delon | adstitit Augusti pup pim super et nova flamma | luxit in obliquam ter sinuato facem. Verg. A. 8, 704, Actius haec cernens arcum intendebat Apollo. Venus, mater Aeneadum, as genetrix was the especial protectress of Julius Caesar. Augustus is himself called (C. S. 50), clarus Anchisae Venerisque sanguis. Mars is naturally appealed to as the father of Romulus' people. The final identification of the emperor is especially interesting, for it bears on the social and economic relations of the times. Under Octavian, with the restoration of peace, trade improved and prosperity returned, so that nothing could be more natural than to regard the man who was bringing this about as the incarnation of the god of trade. The Pompeian dedicatory inscriptions quoted by Kiessling admirably illustrate the growth of this identification, at least in the Campanian city. In three of these records (C.I.L. 10, 885-887), the first two of which can be dated 14 B.C., the persons attached to the cult of Mercury are called ministri Mercurii Maiae; then no. 888, of uncertain date, has ministri Augusti Mercuri Maiae; and finally nos. 890910, beginning with 2 B.C., have only ministri Augusti. Later, the conception of Augustus as identical with Apollo prevailed. The date of composition falls between the return of Octavian from the East in 29 B.C. (cf. v. 49, magnos—triumphos) and Jan. 13th, 27 B.C., when his imperium was renewed, and he received the new title, Augustus. The most probable date is late in 28 B.C., when Octavian's suggestion of giving up his power (Dio C. 53, 4, 9) may well have awakened fears of the return of civil strife. Metre, 69. 5 Iam satis terris nivis atque dirae grandinis misit pater, et rubente dextera sacras iaculatus arcis terruit urbem, terruit gentis, grave ne rediret saeculum Pyrrhae nova monstra questae, I ff. the repetition of -is is striking and may suggest the hiss of the storm. Cf. Il. 21, 239, κρύπτων ἐν δίνῃσι βαθείησιν μεγάλῃσι. Snow and hail are not unknown at Rome in winter, but an especially severe storm might well pass for a portent. dirae: portentous, with both nivis and grandinis, marking them as prodigia. The word is especially used of things of bad omen. - pater: used absolutely, the allfather. Cf. 3, 29, 43 ff. cras vel atra | nube polum pater occupato | vel sole puro. rubente dextera: his red right hand; i.e. glowing with the thunderbolt. Cf. Pind. Ο. 9, 6 Δία . . . φοινικουτερόπαν. 3. iaculatus: transitive, striking at.-arcis: specifically the two heights of the Capitoline hill, on the northern one of which was the arx proper, on the southern the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; hence sacras. However, Horace may mean in general the summits of Rome's seven hills. Cf. Verg. G. 2, 535 septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces. 4 f. terruit terruit: note the anaphora by which the sentences are connected. Cf. 2, 4, 3 ff. serva Briseis niveo colore | movit Achillem; | movit Aiacem. Intr. 29. gentis: mankind. 6. saeculum Pyrrhae: i.e. the deluge from which Pyrrha with ΙΟ omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos visere montis, piscium et summa genus haesit ulmo, nota quae sedes fuerat columbis, et superiecto pavidae natarunt aequore dammae. Vidimus flavum Tiberim retortis litore Etrusco violenter undis 7. omne: of every sort. - Proteus: the shepherd of the sea who tends Neptune's flocks. Cf. Verg. G. 4, 395 armenta et turpis pascit sub gurgite phocas. 8. visere: infinitive of purpose. Intr. 107. Cf. 1, 26, 1 ff. tristitiam et metus tradam protervis in mare Creticum | portare ventis. 9. summa ulmo: cf. Ovid Met. I, 296 hic summa piscem deprendit in ulmo. The description may have been suggested by Archilochus Frg. 74, 6 ff. undeis O' ὑμῶν εἰσορῶν θαυμαζέτω, | μηδ' ὅταν δελφῖσι θῆρες ἀνταμείψωνται νομόν | ἐνάλιον καί σφιν θαλάσσης ἠχέεντα κύματα | φίλτερ ἠπείρου γένηται, ‘No one among you should ever be surprised at what he sees, not even when the wild beasts take from the dolphins a home in the sea and the echoing waves of the deep become dearer to them than the firm mainland.' 6 11 f. superiecto: sc. terris; the whelming flood. 13 f. vidimus: i.e. with our own eyes, in the period between Caesar's murder and the date of writing. — flavum: the fixed epithet of the Tiber. Cf. 1, 8, 8 cur timet flavum Tiberim tangere, and 2, 3, 18 villaque, flavus quam Tiberis lavit; also Verg. A. 7, 31 multa flavus arena. It has been adopted by the modern poets. — retortis undis a glance at the map of Rome will show that the bend in the river above the island would naturally throw the Tiber's stream, in time of flood, over the Velabrum between the Capitol and Palatine, and thence into the Forum proper. - litore : abl. of separation. litus is frequently equivalent to ripa; eg. Virg. A. 8, 83 viridique in litore conspicitur sus. The popular belief, however, seems to have been, that such floods were caused by waves or tides driving back the waters of the river. Cf. Ovid Fast. 6, 401 f. hoc, ubi nunc fora 15 20 ire deiectum monumenta regis templaque Vestae, Iliae dum se nimium querenti iactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra labitur ripa Iove non probante uxorius amnis. sunt, udae tenuere paludes, | amne redundatis fossa madebat aquis. 15 f. deiectum: supine of purpose. monumenta regis: the Regia, the official residence of the pontifex maximus, built according to tradition by Numa. Cf. Ovid Fasti 6, 263 f. hic locus exiguus, qui sustinet atria Vestae, | tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numae, and Plut. Numa 14, édeíμαтo πλησίον τοῦ τῆς Ἑστίας ἱεροῦ τὴν καλουμένην Ρηγίαν. - templaque Vestae at the foot of the Palatine. For an account of the temple and of the house of the Vestal Virgins, the atrium Vestae, see Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries,' p. 134 ff. The foundations of this temple are only twenty-six feet above the mean level of the Tiber. That the ancient accounts of the flooding of the Forum are not exaggerated was shown by the flood of December, 1900, which rose quite as high as the one Horace describes. There is an especial significance in the mention of the Regia and the temple of Vesta, for they were both connected with the most ancient and sacred traditions of the Romans. Within the temple of Vesta were the pignora imperii on whose preservation, it was believed, the Roman empire's existence depended. With the plurals monumenta and templa, cf. 3, 27, 75 tua nomina for nomen. 17. Iliae: the mother of the twins Romulus and Remus. Horace here, as in 3, 3, 32, according to Porphyrio, follows the older tradition represented by Ennius. This made Ilia the daughter of Aeneas and sister of Iulus, from whom the Julii derived their line. After the birth of the twins she was thrown into the Tiber in punishment for her infidelity to her Vestal vows, but was saved by the river god and became his wife. nimium with ultorem; the river is over eager to avenge his bride's complaints. Cf. uxorius, below. 19 f. ripa: ablative denoting the route taken, over the bank. But cf. Epod. 2, 25 ripis, between the banks. -u||xorius: Intr. 69. Horace here follows the example of Sappho, who frequently treated the third and fourth verses of this strophe as one, e.g. Frg. 2, 3f. άδυ φωνεύ σας ὑπακούει; 11f. |