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The third Class of Horace's Writings.

The first book of Epistles.

Years of Horace............XLVI, XLVII. R. B.

= 45, 46. F. H.

B.C. [22, 21,] 20, 19, [18.]

The Carmen Sæculare, and the fourth
book of Odes.

Years of Horace............XLIX, L, LI. R. B.

= 48, 49, 50. F. H.

B.C. [18] 17, 16, 15.

Authorities
and

allusions.

The Roman Eagles actually restored from 1 E. XVII. 56, 7.

Parthia

The Armenians subdued,

and the Cantabri finally so.

Cantaber Agrippa, Claudi virtute Neronis
Armenius cecidit........

The Epistles III, VIII, IX. written while Tiberius

is in the East, and not later than this year.
The death of Virgil.

Ludi Sæculares, for the fifth time, celebrated.
In this year, the Carmen Sæculare, and that
prelude to it 4 C. vi. Dive, quem proles...
written.

Horace marks his 50th year (as 2 C. iv. 23, 4.

his 40th). ....

Augustus remains in Gaul; and reduces the

Sicambri.

and 2 E. 1. 256.

4 C. xv. 6-8.

1 E. XII. 26.

4 C. I. 6.

His triumphal return, anticipated by Horace, 4 C. II. 33-44. did not take place till B. c. 13.

Tiberius (Major Neronum) and Drusus sub- 4 C. IV. and XIV. due the Rhæti and the Vindelici.

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8--14.

Before
Christ.

Year

of

The fourth Class of Horace's Writings.

Horace. The second book of Epistles, containing the
two to Augustus Cæsar, and to Julius
Florus; with the Epistle to the Pisos, called
de Arte Poetica.

8 57

ANNIS INCERTIS.

vto Kalendas Decembres,

On the 27th of November, within a few days
of completing his 57th year, Horace dies.

N.B. By the numbers here inserted in brackets as [37, 36] &c., it is intended to show, agreeably to what is already stated in p. 82, that the years left void by Bentley in his Chronology of the works might belong indifferently to the composition of the preceding or the subsequent Book.

APPENDIX I.

HORACE'S FAMILIAR DAY,

AND ROMAN CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH IT.

IN the xxvith year of his age, B.C. 39. let us date the 6th Satire of the first book, keeping in mind also, that a summer's day is the object of description, and that as he begins his story after luncheon, the cibus meridianus (Sueton. August. 78.) or prandium, so he brings us round to the same point again.

1 S. vI. 111–129.

quâcunque libido est,

Incedo solus, percontor quanti olus ac far;
Fallacem circum, vespertinumque pererro
Sæpe forum; assisto divinis; inde domum me
Ad porri et ciceris refero laganique catinum :
Cœna ministratur pueris tribus ; et lapis albus
Pocula cum cyatho duo sustinet; astat echino
Vilis cum paterâ guttus, Campana supellex.
Deinde eo dormitum, non solicitus, mihi quod cras
Surgendum sit mane, obeundus Marsya, qui se
Vultum ferre negat Noviorum posse minoris.

Ad quartam jaceo; post hanc vagor; aut ego, lecto
Aut scripto quod me tacitum juvet: ungor olivo,
Non quo fraudatis immundus Nacca lucernis.

Ast ubi me fessum sol acrior ire lavatum

Admonuit, fugio Campum lusumque trigonem.
Pransus non avide, quantum interpellet inani
Ventre diem durare, domesticus otior.
Vita solutorum miserâ ambitione gravique.

Hæc est

1. Here then vv. 111-114, Horace, after a simple luncheon, instead of sauntering about at home, as at other times he

might do, (v. 128. domesticus otior,) indulges in a walk into the city, careless and unattended; asks the price of gardenherbs and bread-corn; rambles about the Circus and the Forum, looking at the amusements and tricks which those places afforded, and especially stopping to observe the fortune-tellers (probably the de "circo astrologi" of Tully, de Divin. i. 58.) in the pursuit of their craft: for it must not be supposed that by the words, assisto divinis, Horace could possibly mean

"I go to church and pray,"

as Creech has most absurdly translated it; raising ideas in the mind of the reader, to which there was nothing correspondent in the religious services of Rome.

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2. By this time, the evening hour approaches, (already v. 114. vespertinum,) and sends him home to dinner. That meal, cœna, consists of vegetable dishes and a kind of pancake the boys who wait at table are three, evidently considered a very small number, (even ten slaves formed but a moderate familia, 1 S. 111. 12). The marble slab holds two goblets for wine and water, with a measuring-cup: by the rinsing-bowl is set an oil-cruet and a patera for libation, plain ware all of them.

3. After the meal thus described, in his earliest and simplest style of living at Rome, he retires to bed, free from all uneasiness as to rising betimes, because under no necessity to visit the statue of Apollo and Marsyas, that is, to attend the Courts of Justice, in the morning.

4. From his couch, after some hours spent as usual in study, (lecto aut scripto quod tacitum juvet,) he does not rise till towards ten: he then strolls into the Campus Martius, and prepares himself (ungor olivo) for exercise, specifically that of the pila velox or the lusus called trigon. As the day becomes too sultry, he withdraws from the Campus to bathe, doubtless in the Tiber hard by. The next and

final stage of the story carries him home to his luncheon; soon after which it was that this sketch of his familiar day first took him up.

Under these four heads there arise not a few subjects of curious remark.

And first of the luncheon; for breakfast (jentaculum) usually they had none. With Horace, after such a morning's work as we have seen, agreeably to his own precept, 2 S. II. 14, 15.

Quum labor extuderit fastidia, siccus, inanis,
Sperne cibum vilem—if you can,

that meal was quite plain and merely enough for its necessary purpose, to pacify the stomach till the late dinner time. Pransus non avide quantum interpellet inani

Ventre diem durare..vv. 127, 8.

Elsewhere he thus describes such a frugal meal,

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Latrantem stomachum bene leniet....

which just agrees with Seneca's account, (L. XII. Epist. 84. Ed. 1573.) Panis deinde siccus et sine mensâ prandium; post quod non sunt lavandæ manus.

For the luxurious palate very different provision was made. Even fish (as from that beautiful Satire, 2 S. II. Quæ virtus et quanta, boni.. we gather incidentally) was a requisite of the table.

vv. 16, 17.

Foris est promus, et atrum
Defendens pisces hiemat mare. . . . . .

and the choicest wine sweetened with the finest honey formed its accompaniment.

vv. 15, 16.

nisi Hymettia mella Falerno

Ne biberis diluta.

The learned Professor of Gastronomy (2 S. iv. Unde et

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