In the usual arrangements of his time, Horace never appears to have been what we call a late sitter-up for literary purposes: nor was such the general custom of the Romans. Of Augustus, however, the contrary practice is recorded (Sueton. in August. 78.) partly for the completion of his regular journal, and partly from his dislike, as a bad sleeper perhaps, to early rising. A cœnâ lucubratoriam se in lecticulam recipiebat... Matutinâ vigiliâ offendebatur. To his morning studies Horace must have paid assiduous application, as we see him on his couch ad quartam engaged in the lucubratio matutina; and again when appealing to his own habits in the cultivation of self-knowledge, towards the conclusion of that admirable Satire, 1 S. Iv. 133, 4. neque enim, cum lectulus aut me Porticus excepit, desum mihi. Elsewhere too, at a much later period of life, he playfully tells of himself, 2 E. 1. 111–113. Ipse ego qui nullos me affirmo scribere versus, Invenior Parthis mendacior; et prius orto Sole vigil, calamum et chartas et scrinia posco. And in the hortatory address to his young friend Lollius, when he solemnly recommends the task of moral reflection; the morning hour, as a matter of course, is mentioned for that purpose. 1 E. 11. 32-37. Ut jugulent hominem, surgunt de nocte latrones ; Si noles sanus, curres hydropicus: et ni Before we dismiss this description of Horace's familiar day, which has unavoidably run to a great length of detail, two or three additional remarks may suffice to conclude the subject. A course of daily life like that here delineated could hardly be supposed to glide along without considerable varieties. One such, and of frequent occurrence probably, is presented to us in the Satire, 1 S. Ix. Ibam forte Viâ sacrâ... Horace must have taken that walk into the city some two hours before the usual time that he quitted his morning couch for when he and his tormentor had gone as far as the Temple of Vesta, the fourth part of the day then having elapsed (v. 35. quartâ jam parte diei | Præterità) it would be nine o'clock of our reckoning; which seems to involve a different disposition of the forenoon altogether. Nor are we to imagine that Horace did not occasionally take his share abroad in the morning duties of common life. The officiosa sedulitas in attending levees (1 E. vii. 8.) and the opella forensis in giving bail for a friend, &c. (ibid.) were certainly not unknown to him. For the salutandi plures (1 S. vi. 101.) is what he deprecates as one of the troubles consequent on the supposition of a higher parentage; and the words, 2 S. vI. 27. quod mi obsit, clare certumque locuto, after answering in the court, to my own detriment, perhaps, may fairly attest that his good nature now and then intangled him in the losses which proverbially belong to suretyship in all ages of the world. A kindhearted man like Horace, therefore, would understand very well what it meant, nor could he to the supposed son of opulence have put the touching question, 2 S. 11. 103. Cur eget indignus quisquam, te divite? had he not felt his own heart experimentally alive on that very key. His bathing as here stated, in the river Tiber, was what followed the forenoon exercise, in the Campus, of a young man, and at that season of the year; Transnanto Tiberim, somno quibus est opus alto. 3 C. XII. 9. Simul unctos Tiberinis humeros lavit in undis. And it must therefore be carefully distinguished from the common use of the warm bath (balneum), at all seasons, which took place in the afternoon, immediately before dinner. Though in his familiar day at Rome, before he got the Sabine estate, he represents himself as usually dining alone; yet after that accession to his means, we find him for the sake of society frequently entertaining certain persons who were glad to earn a dinner by their wit. Thus, as Mæcenas at the entertainment given by Nasidienus took with him his umbræ the two scurræ, Servilius and Vibidius, (2 S. VIII. 21, 2,) so Horace at home had similar dependents on his hospitality. Such was the fashion of the day: and the description is ludicrous enough, of the parasites going off without their errand, whenever the Patron on the sudden sent for the Poet to dine with him at a late hour on the Esquiline Hill. 2 S. VII. 36. Milvius et scurræ, tibi non referenda precati, Discedunt. If it be asked whether the habits of the rural population in respect of their meals corresponded to the mores antiquæ plebis of the city, it may be briefly answered, with some probability, in the affirmative. Martial, for instance, allusively represents the wife of the great Curius in that early age, VI. 64. dum prandia portat aranti : and to this traditional story of the luncheon we may fairly subjoin Horace's contemporary account of the principal meal or cœna at the close of the day's work. Ep. 11. 39-48. Quod si pudica mulier. Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum Lassi sub adventum viri. Et horna dulci vina promens dolio, In Horace's age, it is here asserted, that the Romans usually took no breakfast. Of such a point minuter examination for different periods may well be excused. From the epigrams of Martial, however, while it appears, that for general use he recommends the caseus Vestinus, (xIII. 31,) we also learn that boys rising at a very early hour had that allowance in a cake or biscuit made for the purpose. XIV. 223. Surgite, jam vendit pueris jentacula pistor, Cristatæque sonant undique lucis aves. At the other end of the day, the genuine debauch of the luxurious was not completed without a final carouse, which also had its proper appellation; and in Suetonius's Life of Vitellius (§ 13.) we are informed, that the imperial gourmand sometimes contrived to dispatch the whole four, "facile omnibus sufficiens vomitandi consuetudine," though with him every meal was a feast. That quaternion and the order of it, in a fictitious line to aid the memory, may thus be expressed : Jentaculum, dein prandium, post cœnam comissatio. APPENDIX II. ON THE SABINE VALLEY AND THE SECOND EPODE. "Strictness of morals and cheerful contentedness were the peculiar glory of the Sabellian mountaineers, but especially of the Sabines and the four northern cantons: this they preserved long after the ancient virtue had disappeared at Rome from the hearts and the demeanour of men.”— Niebuhr's Rome, Vol. I. ch. vi. p. 85. Or the second Epode Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis. . . I have already spoken, P. D. 29, as in its general character drawn from Horace's personal acquaintance with the Vale of Licenza: and this is true of the local as well as of the moral features. The rural picture however, though generally sketched from his own valley, is not so much the veritable portrait of one scene as a composition landscape from many. Thus, the vine and the olive, vv. 9-12; 55, 6. though not then grown there, P. D. 33, are introduced by the painter to enrich his tablet; while the same old ilex of which it is said elsewhere, 1 E. xvI. 10. multâ dominum juvat umbrâ, evidently belonged to the spot, and gave its occasional shade to the reclining Poet. vv. 23, 4. Libet jacere modo sub antiquâ ilice, For the materials of full and exact description, indeed, we must look to that Epistle, 1 E. xvI. Ne perconteris ... and to part of XIV, Villice, sylvarum... as well as to 2 S. vi. Hocerat in votis...; sources of information, without which many cir |