Cicero was then in his Catullus twenty-two, ship of L. Aurelius Cotta, and L. Manlius Torquatus1 at Venusia or Venusium (Venosa), a military colony of the Romans in Apulia, on the borders of Lucania, and near the banks of the Aufidus. forty-first year, Lucretius thirty, and Virgil between five and six. child of his parents. Respecting his mother, nothing is known, as no mention of, or allusion to her, has been made by the poet, or by any one else. His father was a libertinus or emancipated slave," who had acted in the capacity of coactor-that is, of an attendant on the praeco or auctioneer at public sales by auction in Rome and in the principal cities of the provinces-or, in other words, of an auctioneer's clerk, who was employed in collecting the purchase-money received for the articles sold. With the means which he had saved from the emoluments of this office, he bought a farm in the neighbourhood of Venusia, and lived there till his son had become old enough to be sent to school; when, from an unwillingness to entrust the boy's education to the village pedagogue Flavius, he migrated to Rome, where the youthful poet was thoroughly initiated, both in Greek and Roman literature, by the celebrated Orbilius Pupillus of Beneventum, who was deemed one of the most rigorous and efficient teachers of that age. While Horace was thus receiving from Orbilius and others the elements of his scholastic and literary culture, he also enjoyed the inestimable advantage of his father's vigilant and affectionate training in the principles and practice of moral duty. The system of paternal tuition to which he was subjected is minutely detailed in Sat. I. 4, 105–121, and its beneficial effects commemo 1 Odes III. 21, 1; Epod. 13, 6; Epist. I. 20, 27. 2 Sat. I. 6, 45; Sat. I. 6, 71; Sat. I. 6, 86. GLI rated with exquisite tenderness of filial gratitude in Sat I. 6, 76-89. With the view of completing his education, Horace went, probably in his seventeenth or eighteenth year, to Athens, which, like Rhodes, and, at a later period, Marseilles, had become one of the principal seats ISTUDIO of the higher learning and philosophy in the Romania empire.1 Of the three great philosophic schools which then flourished in Athens-the Academic, the Peripatetic, and the Epicurean-Horace seems to have chiefly frequented the first and third; and from the general tenor of his writings, it may be inferred that his opinions on philosophic subjects oscillated between the rival systems of Plato and Epicurus. After a sojourn of three, or perhaps four, years in Athens, and occasional tours to other parts of Greece, and even into Asia, he was destined to be summoned away by the trumpet-blast of war from the quiet and sheltered walks of abstract speculation in the gardens of Epicurus and the groves of the Academy. 3 2 The final conflict of the constitutional and imperial parties had begun; and Horace, who was then an ardent republican, entered the army of Brutus, in which he was at once appointed a military tribune, and soon afterwards fought and fled at Philippi, B. c. 42. He appears to have escaped proscription, and all risk of capital punishment; but his Venusian patrimony was confiscated, and he was compelled to settle in Rome, and there write for his daily subsistence. By some of his earlier poems he immediately earned considerable fame, as well as the friendship of Virgil and Varius, by whom he was recommended, in B. C. 40, to C. Cilnius Maecenas, the minister of Augustus, and the most munificent patron of 5 1 Epist. II. 2, 45. 3 Sat. I. 6-48. 5 Epist. II. 2, 49. 1 Roman literature. This introduction to Maecenas proved the turning-point in the poet's history. In the course of nine months, their acquaintance ripened into the strongest mutual attachment; and it is much more probable that the office of "Scriba Quaestorius," or Clerk in the Treasury, which Horace at this time obtained, was procured for him through the intervention of his new friend, than that it was purchased by the poet himself, as Suetonius represents it to have been. This, however, was only the first link of a golden chain of benefits conferred on our poet by Maecenas. To him Horace was also indebted for admission into the highest society of Rome, for the favour of the Emperor, and (probably in the year B. C. 37) for the gift of a wellappointed farm in Sabinum, which secured to him an independent and honourable competency during the remainder of his days." The situation and environs of the Sabine farm and villa are glowingly described in the passages cited below. The poet's domain lay in the valley of Ustica, not far from Mount Lucretilis, close to the stream Digentia and the spring Bandusia," with the ruined temple of Vacuna in the foreground, in the immediate neighbourhood of two hamlets, severally called Varia and Mandela, and at a distance of between twelve and fifteen miles from Tibur, where it has been clearly proved from Ode 1 See the Excursus regarding Maecenas. 2 Sat. I. 6, 54-62; Epode I. 31, 32; Odes II. 18, 11-14; Odes III. 16, 37, 38. 3 Epist. I. 14, 3; Epist. I. 18-105; Epist. I. 10, 49; Odes III. 13, 1; Epist. I. 16, 12; Epist. I. 16, 13; Epist. I. 18, 104; Epist. I. 16, 5; Odes II. 17, 5; Odes III. 16, 29; Sat. II. 6, 3; Ep. I. 14, 1; Odes I. 17, 12; Odes I. 17, 1; Odes I. 17, 17; Sat. II. 6, 2. ◄ Ustica (Rustica), Lucretilis (Monte Gennaro or Libretti), Digentia (Licenza), Mandela (Bardela or Bardella). 5 The fountain of Bandusia, on Horace's Sabine farm, is supposed by many critics to have been so called by the poet himself from another fountain of the same name at his native Venusia. I. 7, 10, 14; II. 6, 5, 8; III. 4, 21-24; IV. 3, 10-12; Epist. I. 7, 44, 45; VIII. 1, 2; that Horace either owned or rented another country-house. To one or other of these rural retreats, the poet, whenever his engagements with Maecenas allowed him a few days' respite, used to steal away, sometimes in the company of his patron himself, from the smoke, glare, and turmoil of the city, and, in this way, verified Wordsworth's enchanting picture of poetic liberty: "Who bends to happier duties, who more wise Than the industrious poet, taught to prize, That life-the flowery path that winds by stealth, By the world's Ruler, on his honoured head!" From allusions contained in the passages cited below,1 we may infer that the agricultural establishment in Sabinum was managed by a steward, that the soil was tilled by five families of free settlers, that eight slaves were main 1 Sat. II. 7; Epist. I. 14; Odes I. 17; Odes III. 18, 4; Epist. I. 14; Sat. II. 6, 14; Epist. I. 14, 42; Odes III. 16, 29; Sat. II. 6, 1; Epist. L. 14, 30. tained for domestic purposes, that flocks of sheep and herds of larger cattle were reared upon the pastures, and that corn-fields, meadows, and a garden, if not vineyards, were also included within the Horatian manor. From the publication of his first satires, the poet lived on terms of the most confidential and affectionate intercourse with Virgil and Tibullus respectively, till the death of the former in his fifty-first year, B. C. 19, and of the latter, in his thirty-fifth year, B. C. 18. At a later period of his life, he was admitted to a more familiar acquaintance with Augustus than had been accorded to any other poet; and the Emperor even endeavoured, though in vain, to attach him to his person as a permanent retainer of his court. But although Horace deemed himself honoured by the affability of the Emperor and the kindness of the nobility, he disdained to adopt the manners or practise the arts of a courtier; and being averse from city life, he remained true to his love of independence in his intimacy with a chosen few, and spent the happiest hours for himself, as well as those most beneficial to posterity, in his charming villas either at Sabinum or Tivoli. He died on the 27th of November, B. C. 8, A. U. C. 746, only a few weeks after Maecenas; and, in accordance with his own desire, was buried on the Esquiline Hill, close to the tomb of his best patron and his beloved friend. His death was so sudden that he left his will incomplete; but the Emperor Augustus had previously been nominated his heir and executor. In each variety of his writings Horace has disclosed his personal character, habits, demeanour, and appearance, as vividly, though unobtrusively, as Montaigne has revealed himself in his essays, as Samuel Johnson in Boswell's photograph of him, as Cowper in his poetry and letters, or as Charles Lamb in his "Elia" and letters. Of vices and foibles he certainly had his |