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In historical times, Tibur was one of the most important towns of the Latin confederation, and a powerful rival of Rome; it was consequently a place of refuge for proscribed Romans, and formed an alliance with the Gauls, when the latter threatened the Roman territory.1 When Tibur had been subjected to the sovereignty of Rome (500 A. u. C., 254 B. C.), it continued to flourish on account of its magnificent situation, and was the favourite abode of the rich and noble Romans.

The country round Tibur was very fertile, and particularly rich in oil, wine, and figs. There were famous quarries in the neighbourhood; and the town itself furnished excellent crockery.

From a statement of Suetonius,2 it is very probable that Horace, when in Tibur, not only lived in the villas of his friends, but possessed a house of his own in the neighbourhood of the town. From the cir

cumstance of his calling Sabinum his only property about the year 725 (29 B. C.), we must presume that he obtained this house only in his old age (either as a present or by purchase), and thus realized the favourite wish of his youth.3

The following description of this classical country by modern traveller is rather interesting:

"At the twenty-first hour, i. e. about two o'clock P. M., we drove into the bright and sunny Campagna by the Porta di San Lorenzo. A bridge built in the earliest times of the Romans, and still in excellent condition, leads over the Teverone, which cuts the old Via Tiburtina. It is called Ponte Marmoro (it is thus, and not Mammolo, that the genuine Romans, who are fond of vibrating consonants, pronounce this name.) The ruins of ancient tombs and temples, half-buried and crumbling, stand scattered here and there. About midway, there rises

on the left, on a ridge of hills, a spacious medieval castle, with towers and walls, embrasures and battlements, of strange and bold outline, erected by some Roman baron, perhaps, on the ruins and with the remains of the splendid piles of antiquity. At present it serves the shepherd as a nightly shelter. Carriages drawn by buffaloes and oxen, horsemen of the Campagna, on their black, lion-maned, wild-looking horses; and hunters on horseback, in their picturesque costume, with their pointed hats and velvet jackets, their high leather gaiters, resembling the greaves of Homeric heroes, having before them, on their saddlebows, their long guns or their iron-shod sticks; groups of women and girls on asses and heavily-laden mules; shepherds lying here and there before turf-built huts in groups, around their fires, or singly near someold wall; cumbrously-loaded carts standing before some solitary inn, whilst the drivers refresh themselves with a draught of good wine, formed then also a most peculiar scene, such as only the Roman Campagna can exhibit.

"When we had passed the limpid mineral water of the Solfatara, and escaped from its pestilential sulphuric vapours, the road near the Ponte Lucano, a bridge across the Anio, went, gently curving, up the moun

1 Liv. 7, 11, sq.

2 "Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini, domusque ejus ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum."

3 C. 2, 18, 14: Satis beatus unicis Sabinis.

tain, on the top of which we saw Tivoli. Driving slowly through the olive-wood, we enjoyed, on looking back, the spectacle of a most magnificent sunset surrounding the whole horizon above Rome and towards the sea, with a broad band of burning red. Falling through the trees, tempered and interrupted by single shades, but blazing up the more brightly in light places, the phenomenon illuminated our path. Before the entrance of the town, on an open square, a magnificent pile is situated. It is a villa of the Jesuits, who keep here, during the summer months, summer-residence (Villegiatura) with their pupils, the children of Roman nobles.

"The last rosy glimmer of day was extinguished, and veiled in night lay the streets and lanes of old Tibur, through which I wandered with a throbbing heart, full of classical recollections, in order to seek my night's lodging in the Sibylla, an inn above the cascades of the Anio. The wild Anio, which, in its thundering waterfalls, rushes through these high mountain-valleys, sung us to sleep.

"Behind the inn of the Sibyl, quite on the top of the rock, there stands, alongside the round temple of Vesta with its fluted columns, the temple of Albunea, the prophetic Sibyl of Tibur, now transformed into a church. From this round terrace we enjoyed, in a favourable light, the finest view of the surrounding waterfalls, town, and mountains. The romantic beauty of this place is incomparable; and I could not blame old Horace for wishing to find here the haven of his old age, after so many storms encountered on land, on sea, and in the battle-field:

Tibur Argeo positum colono
Sit meae sedes utinam senectae,
Sit modus lasso maris et viarum
Militiaeque!

The whole scene is still the same which he described in so many of his songs. The Anio is still rushing 'headlong' from the rocky heights down into the fresh fragrant valleys and woody glens. The Roman, parched by the burning sirocco, is still refreshed here by a moist shadowy coolness. The exuberant soil is still bringing forth an abundant produce of oil and wine. But what an enchanting abode must this Tibur have been, when the fabulous wealth of those highly-educated princely men of Rome, during the Augustan era, in union with the finest sense of beauty, combined here, in these villas and palaces, the inexhaustible charms of an exquisitely beautiful nature, with all the splendour, all the luxury, and all the physical and intellectual enjoyment of the most cultivated taste!"

CARMEN VIII.

AD LYDIAM.

The poet gaily rallies Lydia for captivating Sybaris so effectually as to withdraw him from all the manly exercises in which he formerly excelled.

LYDIA, dic, per omnes

Te deos oro, Sybarin cur properes amando Perdere, cur apricum

Oderit campum, patiens pulveris atque solis?

Cur neque militaris

Inter aequales equitat, Gallica nec lupatis Temperat ora frenis?

Cur timet flavum Tiberim tangere? Cur olivum

Sanguine viperino

Cautius vitat, neque jam livida gestat armis

Brachia, saepe disco,

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Saepe trans finem jaculo nobilis expedito? Quid latet, ut marinae

Filium dicunt Thetidis sub lacrimosa Trojae

Funera, ne virilis

Cultus in caedem et Lycias proriperet catervas?

CARM. 8.-6 and 7. equitet...temperet, Codd.

Carm. 8.-4. campum, i. e. campum Martium, as the place of exercise for the Roman youth.

moderatur,

5. militaris, as a soldier.' 7. temperat, poetic. regit, he manages'-ora, sc. equi, the Gallic horses were very spirited and much used by the Roman cavalry.

8. timet joined with the infin. tangere, inst. of the more usual ne (thus with the infin. also C. 3, 24, 56; S. 1, 4, 23; Ep. 1, 5, 2; 1, 7, 4; 1, 19, 27; 2, 1, 114; A. P. 170 and 197)-flavum Tiberim, see C. 1, 2, 13; Tiberim tangere, i. e. to bathe in the Tiber-olivum, poetic. =luctationem, the wrestling' (because, before wrestling, they used to rub their bodies over with oil).

10. gestat, poetic. habet-armis, i e. the discus (quoit) and jaculum (dart, javelin), the well-known instru

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ments used in gymnastic exercise, and by handling which the arms were affected with livid weals.

11 and 12. construe: saepe (antea) nobilis (= celebratus) disco (et) jaculo expedito (= emisso) trans finem ('beyond the mark').

13 and 14. filium marinae Thetidis, i. e. Achillem; he was brought by his mother to Lycomedes, king of Scyros, and concealed in female vestments, in order to avoid going to the Trojan war -sub = paulo ante, shortly before,' ' on the eve of.'

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16. Lycias catervas, the Lycian troops, allies of the Trojans, under Sarpedon and Glaucus-proriperet (sc. eum), poetic. 'should hurry, drag him' (Achilles, into the slaughter to be caused by the Lycians).

CARMEN IX.

AD THALIARCHUM.

The poet entreats his friend Thaliarchus, now that it is the depth of winter, to heap wood upon the blazing hearth-to broach his four-year-old wine- and, resigning all care of the future, to enjoy the present hour, by abandoning himself to love and amusement. The ode seems to be a close imitation of one of Alcaeus, a fragment of which is preserved in Athenaeus.

VIDES ut altâ stet nive candidum di question.
Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto?

Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco
Large reponens, atque benignius
Deprome quadrimum Sabinâ,
O Thaliarche, merum diotâ.

Permitte divis cetera: qui simul
Stravere ventos aequore fervido
Deproeliantes, nec cupressi

Nec veteres agitantur orni.

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere, et
Quem Fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
Appone, nec dulces amores
Sperne puer, neque tu chorêas,

CARM. 9.-14 sors, some edd.

Carm. 9.-1. vides ut stet?' thou seest how it stands' (thus videre with ut below C. 1, 14, 3: nonne vides, ut... gemant.)-stare, here horrêre = rigêre, 'to stiffen' (comp. Virg. Æen. 6, 471: Si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes; and below C. 2, 9, 5: Stat glacies iners).

3. laborantes, a beautiful description, ⚫ struggling and bending under the burden' (of snow); comp. below C. 2, 9, 6: (Aquilonibus querceta Gargani laborant).

5. dissolve, poetic. (opposed to constiterint) = pelle, dispel the cold.'

G. benignius, i. e. more liberally, plen

tifully.

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7. deprome, 'bring forth, pour out.' 9. cetera, everything else' simul = simulac, as soon as they have smoothed,' &c.

10. stravêre, poetic. sedavêre, 'have smoothed, appeased '-aequore fervido (abl.) poetic. in turbido mari. 11. deproeliantes luctantes.

acerrime inter se

13. fuge, poetic. = noli, omitte.
14. quem...cumque, Tmesis.

15. appone lucro, poetic. = pone in lucro, set down as gain.'

16. tu, like the Greek σú ye, expres

Donec virenti canities abest

Morosa. Nunc et campus et areae
Lenesque sub noctem susurri
Compositâ repetantur horâ,

Nunc et latentis proditor intimo
Gratus puellae risus ab angulo,
Pignusque dereptum lacertis
Aut digito male pertinaci.

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CARMEN X.

AD MERCURIUM.

A IIymn to Mercury, in which his various attributes are enumerated.

MERCURI, facunde nepos Atlantis,
Qui feros cultus hominum recentum
Voce formasti catus et decorae
More palaestrae,

Te canam, magni Jovis et deorum
Nuntium curvaeque lyrae parentem,

CARM. 10.-1. Mercuri facunde, nepos some Codd.

sively put in an imperative phrase: 'do not you,' &c. (comp. below C. 1, 11, 1: Tu ne quaesieris, &c.; C. 1, 14, 15: Tu ...cave; Ep. 1, 2, 63: Hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce catenâ; and Ep. 1, 11, 22 sq.: tu, quamcumque deus tibi fortunaverit horam, Gratâ sume manu, &c.) 17. virenti florenti (tibi), 'blooming,' in thy blooming age.'

18. nunc, i. e. in thy present agecampus, i. e. Campus Martius-areae, the squares before the temples, where the young people used to stroll.

19. sub noctem = per crepusculum, 'at the approach of night.'

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