free from anxiety, for there were certain legal restrictions that might prove embarrassing to the writer of satire." Horace, therefore, in the First Satire of this book, asserts his right to freedom of speech, and makes an attack, however disguised in its humorous form, upon the libel laws of Rome, proclaiming at the same time that, as a satirist, he is armed for defence not offence, and that he must have the same privilege as Lucilius enjoyed, that of writing down his inmost thoughts and his personal comments upon the world.

The Second Satire of Book II. corresponds in theme, as well as position, with the Second of Book I. It applies the philosophic doctrine of "the mean to daily living, eating and drinking, just as the earlier one applied it to sexual morality. It is strongly under the influence of Lucilius, though, like Sat. i. 2, it abounds in ideas which were common in the sermons of philosophers.

Closely connected with the Second are the Fourth and Eighth, which belong to a genre whose history is outlined in the introduction to the Fourth. The satiric Seiπvov, of which the Cena Trimalchionis of Petronius is the most famous example, was represented in Lucilius by at least five satires.

The influence of Lucilius is still strong in the lengthy Third Satire, which deals with the Stoic paradox, ὅτι πᾶς ἄφρων μαίνεται, a theme which it would seem Lucilius had handled at least twice. It is interesting to find that even the scene reproduced

• See Lejay, pp. 289-292. In Book I. twenty-four contemporaries are criticized; in II. only four. So Filbey, cited by Fiske, p. 416.

Fiske, pp. 390 ff.

by Horace (11. 259-271) from the Eunuchus of Terence, was also utilized by Lucilius."

In the remaining Satires of Book II., the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, the influence of Lucilius seems to be very slight. The Sixth, it is true, illustrates the autobiographical element so conspicuous in Lucilius, and epic parody, exemplified in the Fifth, was doubtless employed by Lucilius, even as it had figured in the Middle and New Attic Comedy, but Horace is no longer under his sway, and when in the Seventh we find the poet professing to make himself a target for the shafts of satire, we realize that now at least he can be independent of his model.

The Epistles belong essentially to the same literary class as the Satires. Both kinds are conversational : " epistulis ad absentes loquimur, sermone cum praesentibus, says Acron. In subject matter the Epistles cover much the same field as the Satires. They deal with • human foibles and frailties, discuss philosophic principles, open windows upon the poet's domestic circle, and give us incidents and scenes from daily life.

Lucilius had used the epistolary form in a satire of his Fifth Book, and Horace came to realize that this was the most satisfactory mould for him to adopt, when expressing his personal feelings and when passing judgement upon the literary and social problems of his time. As to thought and contents, however, the influence of Lucilius upon the Epistles is relatively very slight. These poems, indeed, are the offspring of Horace's maturity, and themes

Fiske, pp. 394 ff.

Hendrickson, "Are the Letters of Horace Satires?" American Journal of Philology, xviii. pp. 312-324. • See Fiske, pp. 427-440.

already handled in the Satires are now presented in more systematic fashion, the writer disclosing a riper judgement and a more subtle refinement of mind. "Good sense, good feeling, good taste," says Mackail," these qualities, latent from the first in Horace, had obtained a final mastery over the coarser strain with which they had at first been mingled." The Epistles, indeed, with their criticism of life and literature, are the best expression of that " urbanity," which has ever been recognized as the most outstanding feature of Horace.

The two Epistles of the Second Book are devoted to literary criticism, which is an important element in the First Book of the Satires, and which, we may well believe, was first suggested to Horace by his relation to Lucilius. Even in these late productions, therefore, may be found traces of Lucilian influence, but Horace writes with a free spirit, and in his literary, as in his philosophic, life, he is

nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri.

As to the puzzling Ars Poetica, it is evident from the researches of Cichorius d and Fiske that it is quite largely indebted to Lucilius, who had a theory of literary criticism "formulated according to the same rhetorical oxýμara, and under substantially the same rhetorical influences as Horace's Ars

Poetica." e Moreover, a detailed comparison of the fragments of Lucilius with the Ars Poetica show numerous and striking similarities. To the present

a Latin Literature, p. 111.

d Fiske, pp. 441-446.

Epist. ii. 1. 14. d Untersuchungen zu Lucilius, pp. 109-127.

e

Fiske, p. 468.

writer it would seem to be an obvious inference from these facts that the Ars Poetica was largely composed some years before it was published. It may have been written originally in the regular satiric form, and afterwards adjusted, for publication, to the epistolary mould.

D. MANUSCRIPTS AND COMMENTARIES

The text of Horace does not rest on as firm a foundation as that of Virgil. Whereas the great epic writer is represented to-day by as many as seven manuscripts written in uncial or capital letters, all of the extant Horatian manuscripts are of the cursive type, and not one can claim to be older than the ninth century. Yet, putting Virgil aside, Horace, in comparison with the other Augustan poets, has fared very well, and his text has suffered comparatively little in the process of transmission.

The мss. number about two hundred and fifty, and have given rise to endless discussion as to their mutual relations, their classification, their line of descent from a common original, and their comparative value. Such questions have been rendered more uncertain by the incomplete knowledge which we possess of the four Blandinian мss. which were destroyed in 1566, when the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter, at Blankenberg near Ghent, was sacked by a mob. These мss. had, however, been rather carelessly collated a few years earlier by Cruquius, who, beginning with 1565, edited separate portions of Horace, and finally in 1578 published a complete edition of the poet at Antwerp. Of these lost Blandinian мss. Cruquius

valued most highly the one which he calls vetustissimus, and which Bentley, Lachmann, and other later editors have regarded as the soundest foundation for the establishment of a correct Horatian text. Unfortunately, doubt has been cast upon the accuracy of the statements of Cruquius, and Keller and Holder depreciate the value of this lost ms.

The two scholars just named, the most painstaking editors of the Horatian text, have adopted a grouping of the Mss. in three classes, each of which is based on a lost archetype. The three archetypes are ultimately derived from an original archetype of the first or second century. The claim is made that a reading found in the мss. of two classes should take precedence over that found in only one. The three classes are distinguished from one another by the degree of systematic alteration and interpolation to which they have been subjected.

This elaborate classification of Keller and Holder's has proved too complicated and has failed to win general acceptance. A simpler and more satisfactory grouping has been attempted by Professor Vollmer of Munich in his recension of 1906 (2nd edition 1912) in which the editor, returning to the principles of Bentley, endeavours to reconstruct the sixth century Mavortian edition, beyond which, however far this may have departed from the original Horatian text, one can hardly hope to go. Vollmer enumerates only fifteen Mss., which he divides into two groups, I. and II. In Class I. he includes K, a codex not known

a The name of Mavortius, who was consul in a.d. 527, appears in association with that of Felix, orator urbis Romae, as an emendator or dop@wrns, in eight мss., including A, λ, l, and Goth.