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142

PERSONÆ HORATIANÆ.

consented to the death of his brother. He was allowed
a triumph over the Gauls, during which the bitter sarcasm
was made, that he triumphed not "in Gallos "sed “in
Germanos." In the war of Perugia he commanded for
Antonius; on the surrender of Perugia, he fled with Fulvia
to Athens. He received from Antonius, first, the province
of Asia, afterwards that of Syria. It was supposed that the
execution of Sex. Pompeius in Asia took place by his com-
mand, though he used the seal of Antonius. He was first
coldly received at Alexandria, on account of his rapacious
extortions in the province; but he threw himself into all
the inordinate voluptuousness of the Egyptian court. Plan-
cus was the judge in the celebrated wager, won by Cleopatra,
by her swallowing pearls worth 10,000,000 H. S. He is
said to have danced in public, at a pantomime. But he
foresaw the fall of the soft Triumvir, and conspired with
others at Ephesus (before Actium) to abandon his cause.
Afterwards he betrayed the Will of Antonius, to which he
had been witness, to Octavius, who ordered it to be read in
public; for Antonius had been guilty of the un-Roman act
of declaring the children of Cleopatra in part his heirs; and
in the senate he inveighed so bitterly against Antonius,
that he was reproved by Coponius. To Octavius, when
Emperor, he was always ready to render flattering service.
At his proposition Octavius was saluted by the name
Augustus, and Plancus received his reward in honours.
In B. C. 22 he was Censor; but his bitter enemy, Vel-
leius, says that his character was so low, that he dared
not venture any reproof against the young, from his
consciousness, that they would retaliate upon the old
man. The advice of Horace to Plancus, that he should
surrender himself to pleasure, was congenial to his habits.

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PERSONÆ HORATIANE.

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143

He was accused of adultery with Mævia Galla, and laughed
off the charge with a jest. The Ode of Horace may imply
that Plancus was not universally held in such disrespect
and contempt, as appears from more hostile writers. The
first lines of the Ode are addressed with great propriety
to a former Præfect of the province of Asia, and who
must have known Greece well. The villa of Plancus at
Tibur was no doubt familiar to Horace, he and the poet
felt a congenial admiration for that fine scenery; and
the restless and adventurous life of Plancus might, accord-
ing to the practical Epicureanism of Horace, wisely close
in the enjoyment of repose and quiet conviviality in that
beautiful neighbourhood. Compare Drumann, Geschichte
Roms. iv. p. 207. An inscription on the tomb of Munatius,
found at Gaeta, rehearses his titles. From this it should
appear, that his triumph was over the Rhæti. He built
a temple of Saturn, perhaps a flattering contribution
the great design of Augustus for the embellishment of
Rome. To his titles it adds Imp. twice, Septemvir and
Epulo:-

L. MUNAT. L. F. L. N. L. PRON.

PLANCVS. COS. CENS. IMP. ITER VII. VIR.

EPUL. TRIVMPH. EX. RAETIS. AEDEM. SATVRNI.
FECIT. DE MANUB. AGROS. DIVISIT. IN. ITALIA.
BENENTI. IN. GALLIA. COLONIAS. DEDVXIT
LVGDVNVM ET RAURICAM.

to

MUNATIUS.-Epist. 1. iii. 31. Unknown; possibly son

of the above.

MURENA, L. LICINIUS. Carm. II. X.; III. xix. 11.
Sat. I. v. 38. The brother of Terentia, the wife of Mace-
He appears to have had a villa at Formiæ.

nas.

MUSA, ANTONIUS.-Epist. I. xv. 3. Antonius Musa immortalized his name by the famous cure which he wrought on Augustus, whose freed-man he was; for the physicians of the great were, at that time, chiefly slaves, and learned medicine for the benefit of their masters' family. The malady of the Emperor was an obstinate attack of gout, attended with constipation and weakness, so as to threaten total exhaustion. His ordinary physician, Æmilius, had pledged himself to drive out the disease, by warm and vapour baths. He went so far as to cover the ceiling of the patient's chamber with furs; but the malady grew worse. Augustus was so reduced that he set his house in order, when the lucky thought occurred to Musa, since warm water had done no good, to try cold. The general opinion was strongly against him; but the state of the patient seemed to justify a desperate experiment. Musa set to work in the opposite way to his predecessor; ordered a cooling diet; let the Emperor eat hardly anything but lettuces, and drink cold water; and constantly poured cold water over him. He succeeded so well that Augustus recovered in a short time, and, notwithstanding his feeble constitution, lived thirty-six years after. (Sueton. in Oct. c. 59, 81. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxix. 1. Dion. lii. p. 517.) Musa received, besides a large sum of money from Augustus and the Senate, a statue, with the privilege of wearing a gold ring, which gave him the rights of the equestrian order: and cold water came so much into vogue, that the warm baths of Baix were less resorted to. Horace, who, at the time he wrote this Epistle, was about forty-six or fortyseven, began to suffer from defluxions, particularly in his eyes; and since the baths at Baix did him no good, was persuaded by Musa to try the cold baths at Clusium and Gabii; and this plan was so successful (as we may conclude

from the cheerful tone of this whole Epistle), that, to secure himself from a relapse, he thought of nothing but providing himself with warm winter-quarters. Wieland, Horazens Briefe, i. 230.

MUTUS.-Epist. 1. xv. 3. A rich man; unknown.
MYRTALE.-Carm. 1. xxxiii. 14.

MYSTES.-Carm. II. ix. 9. See "Valgius," "Poets."
NEVIUS.-See "Life."

NEVIUS.-Sat. II. ii. 68. his slaves have their own way,

guests.

sage.

A simple man, who let and serve dirty water to his

NASICA. Sat. II. v. 5. Unknown, but from this pas

NASIDIENUS.-Sat. II. viii. No doubt an imaginary person, though there may be a covert allusion to some real character. He is the impersonation of a vulgar rich man, at the same time ostentatious and mean, prodigal and avaricious, aspiring to live with the great and the cultivated, with Maecenas, and the distinguished poets of the day, but so dull as to be unconscious that he is the object of their contempt, and the butt of the coarser wit of their followers. He has, however, his parasites, his Nomentanus and his Porcius, to admire his magnificence. Nasidienus is a character of all times.

NATTA.-Sat. 1. vi. 124. A dirty fellow, who robbed the lamps of oil to drink.

NEERA.-Carm. III. xiv. 21. Epod. xv.

NEARCHUS.-Carm. 111. xx. 6.

NEOBULE.-Carm. III. xii.

NERIUS.-Sat. 11. iii. 69. A well-known usurer.

NERO, CLAUDIUS. See "Tiberius."

NERONES.-C. IV. iv. 28. Tiberius and Drusus, the

step-sons of Augustus.

NOMENTANUS.-Sat. 1. i. 102; 1. viii. 111; ш. i. 22; II. iii. 175, 224; II. viii. 23, &c. A prodigal who had wasted an inconceivable sum on gluttony and lust. Sallust, the historian, is said to have bought his cook for 100,000,000 H.S. He is one of the guests in the supper of Nasidienus. NOTHUS.-Carm. III. xv. 11.

NOVIUS. Sat. I. iii. 21; 1. vi. 40.

Unknown.

NOVIUS MINOR.-Sat. 1. vi. 121. An ugly usurer, always early at business near the statue of Marsyas.

NUMICIUS.-Epist. 1. vi. A youth, of what family or of what rank is entirely unknown. There was a family of Numicii, of whom two persons only are named in history: 1. Numicius Priscus, Consul, v. c. 285; and 2. Numicius Thermus, Prætor, under Claudius, or Nero, a victim to the hatred of Tigellinus (Tac. Ann. xvi. 20). Wieland has drawn a fanciful character of this Numicius, by impersonating all the weaknesses and follies on which the Poet dwells, and supposing that the whole was intended as a moral lesson to Numicius. Numicius at once affected philosophy, love of the fine arts, pleasure, wealth, birth. But all this turns the gentle urbanity of Horace in his Epistle to bitter satire. Of Numicius we know nothing more than that he stood so high in the poet's regard and esteem, as to have his name inscribed in this pleasing poem.

NUMIDA PLOTIUS.-Carm. I. xxxvi. This Ode celebrates the return of Plotius, after ten years' absence, from the Cantabrian wars, in which he had been engaged with Augustus. The friendship of Horace for Plotius has alone preserved his memory. He is not the Plotius (Tucca) of

the Satires.

NUMENIUS VALA.-Epist. I. XV. There are coins with