mental optimism, a very superficial and uninteresting quality. Horace was a man of warm feeling and of strong convictions, though his convictions are in part alien to our thought, and the lightness with which he sometimes touches serious things is not the lightness of carelessness. He had learned early, not without struggle and pain, the lesson of adjustment to the limitations of life, had learned that the secret of a composed and dignified life lies in the acceptance of the inevitable. Even in his less cheerful moods he faced his heaviest losses with steadiness:

durum sed levius fit patientia,
quidquid corrigere est nefas.

But his ordinary mood was not tragic; he preferred to meet life with a smile, not underestimating the possibilities of loss and trouble, but also not overestimating them. And it is the fact that his genial acceptance of life rests upon a foundation of cool judgment and shrewd comprehension that gives it meaning. It is this combination that makes him the philosopher for men of the world. For the man of affairs, if he is conscious of life at all, is seeking for a formula which will include all the follies and weaknesses of men and will teach him how to accept them with a smile. The real meaning of Horace's philosophy is poorly expressed by nil admirari, as the words are commonly understood, and not very well by aurea mediocritas; it is a philosophy of comprehension and tolerance, and the charm of his personality is that he so perfectly embodies his own doctrine.

The value of his comments upon men and society lies partly in the application of his philosophy to life, partly in the peculiar forms in which he expresses it. His satires, and, to a less degree, his epistles, are a picture gallery. He does not describe individuals or, if he does, it is in terms so general as to make them types; his little pictures are done in few lines, but in lines so expressive that they tell the essential truth about a man. Such a characterization as that of Tigellius in Sat. 1, 3 or that

of Damasippus in Sat. 2, 3, or the longer description by suggestion in Sat. 1, 9, is as true and as recognizable now as it was when it was written, because it presents the essential qualities which are of no single period or race. The power to draw such pictures is not, it is true, the highest kind of artistic power, and it does not necessarily carry with it either a profound philosophy or great breadth of view. Great artists have lacked it, and some caricaturists have had it. The most obvious modern illustrations are in fiction; George Eliot had not a trace of it; Anthony Trollope had it in a high degree. Such little pictures do not teach us the meaning of life, in its larger aspects and relations. They teach us in a nearer way about people; they show us how to analyze and classify; they stimulate our intelligent comprehension of the men we meet. The reader of Horace, if he gets his lesson truly, understands better the man who sits in the seat next to him, and, if he becomes a true disciple, he understands himself better, too.

VITA HORATII

FROM SUETONIUS, De Viris Illustribus

Q. Horatius Flaccus Venusinus, patre, ut ipse tradit, libertino et exactionum coactore, ut vero creditum est, salsamentario, cum illi quidam in altercatione exprobrasset: 'quotiens ego vidi patrem tuum brachio se emungentem!' Bello Philippensi excitus a M. Bruto imperatore tribunus militum meruit, victisque partibus venia impetrata scriptum quaestorium comparavit. Ac primo Maecenati, mox Augusto insinuatus non mediocrem in amborum amicitia locum tenuit. Maecenas quantopere eum dilexerit satis testatur illo epigrammate :

ni te visceribus meis, Horati,

plus iam diligo, tu tuum sodalem
Ninnio videas strigosiorem;

sed multo magis extremis iudiciis tali ad Augustum elogio: 'Horati Flacci ut mei esto memor.' Augustus epistularum quoque ei officium obtulit, ut hoc ad Maecenatem scripto significat: ante ipse sufficiebam scribendis epistulis amicorum, nunc occupatissimus et infirmus Horatium nostrum a te cupio abducere. Veniet ergo ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc regiam et nos in epistulis scribendis adiuvabit.' Ac ne recusanti quidem aut succensuit quicquam aut amicitiam suam ingerere desiit. Extant epistulae, e quibus argumenti gratia pauca subieci: 'sume tibi aliquid iuris apud me, tamquam si convictor mihi fueris ; recte enim et non temere feceris, quoniam id usus mihi tecum esse volui, si per valitudinem tuam fieri possit.' Et rursus: 'tui qualem habeam memoriam poteris ex Septimio quoque nostro audire; nam incidit ut illo coram fieret a me tui mentio. Neque enim si tu superbus amicitiam nostram sprevisti, ideo nos quoque ȧvoντeρηpavovμev.' Praeterea saepe eum inter alios iocos purissimum penem et homuncionem lepidissimum appellat unaque et altera liberalitate locupletavit. Scripta quidem eius usque adeo

probavit mansuraque perpetuo opinatus est, ut non modo Saeculare carmen componendum iniunxerit, sed et Vindelicam victoriam Tiberii Drusique privignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus carminum libris ex longo intervallo quartum addere; post sermones vero quosdam lectos nullam sui mentionem habitam ita sit questus: 'irasci me tibi scito, quod non in plerisque eius modi scriptis mecum potissimum loquaris. An vereris ne apud posteros infame tibi sit, quod videaris familiaris nobis esse?' expresseritque eclogam ad se cuius initium est:

cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus,
res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes,
legibus emendes, in publica commoda peccem,
si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Caesar.

Habitu corporis fuit brevis atque obesus, qualis et a semet ipso in satiris describitur et ab Augusto hac epistula: pertulit ad me Oniscus libellum tuum, quem ego, ut excusantem, quantuluscumque est, boni consulo. Vereri autem mihi videris ne maiores libelli tui sint quam ipse es, sed tibi statura deest, corpusculum non deest. Itaque licebit in sextariolo scribas, quo circuitus voluminis tui sit oуkwdéσтaтos, sicut est ventriculi tui.' Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini domusque eius ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum. Venerunt in manus meas et elegi sub titulo eius et epistula prosa oratione quasi commendantis se Maecenati, sed utraque falsa puto; nam elegi vulgares, epistula etiam obscura, quo vitio minime tenebatur. Natus est vi. Idus Decembris L. Cotta et L. Torquato consulibus, decessit v. kal. Decembris C. Marcio Censorino et C. Asinio Gallo consulibus septimo et quinquagesimo anno, herede Augusto palam nuncupato, cum urgente vi valetudinis non sufficeret ad obsignandas testamenti tabulas. Humatus et conditus est extremis Esquiliis iuxta Maecenatis tumulum.

Q. HORATI FLACCI

SERMONES

LIBER PRIMVS

I

There is no reference to current events sufficiently definite to fix the date of this Satire by internal evidence. It was written after Horace's introduction to Maecenas in 38, and the maturity of style and treatment show a great advance upon the early Satires of this book, 2, 7, and 8. Obviously, it is introductory to the whole book, published in 35, and it was probably written shortly before that date.

'What is the source of the social discontent of our times? Not, certainly, as is sometimes said, in the peculiar hardships of this or that occupation. The very men who offer this explanation disprove it by their conduct. Nor can the persistent devotion of men to business be justified, as some of them appear to think, by the praiseworthy desire to provide against future needs. It is something deeper than this and less worthy — the mere desire to get rich, to be richer than others.

'A life given up to this pursuit is no better than the life of the miser of fiction. Such a man dares not spend anything, lest he spend all, and does not see that, to one who lives a natural life, the possession of what is never to be used is not a gain, but a burden.

'To say that social standing depends upon money is to say what is perhaps true, but is not to the point. For the result is the same; the man with such an ambition merely gathers wealth to tantalize himself, purchasing only terrors and unhappiness with it. He kills the natural affections, and spends his life in providing against contingencies that will, in all probability, never arise. I am not arguing that one should waste his money; that is only another extreme of folly; between the two lies the safe middle course.

'The source of our unhappiness, to answer the question with which I began, is the desire to be rich, to be a little richer. We forget the many who are poorer than we, and see only the few who are ahead of