SATIRE VII

How the mongrel Persius took vengeance on the foul and venomous Rupilius Rex ("king"), an outlawed man, is a tale well known, methinks, to every blear-eyed man and barber. This Persius, a rich man, had a very large business at Clazomenae, also a troublesome lawsuit with Rex. A rough man he was, the sort that in offensiveness could outdo Rex, bold and blustering and so bitter of speech as to outstrip a Sisenna or a Barrus with the speed of white

coursers.c

:

9 To return to Rex. When he and Persius could come to no terms-(for quarrelsome folk all claim the same right as heroes who meet front to front in battle between Hector, son of Priam, and the wrathful Achilles, the anger was so deadly, that death alone could part them, and for this sole reason that the valour of each was supreme: if two cowards chance to quarrel, or an ill-matched pair meet in war, as Diomede and Lycian Glaucus, the less valiant man gives way and sends gifts to boot)-well, when Brutus was praetor in charge of rich Asia, Persius

The shops of apothecaries and barbers were favourite places of gossip.

A proverbial expression, white horses being regarded as the swiftest of their kind. Cf. Virgil, Aen. xii. 83 ff. The reference is to a famous

d See Index under Glaucus. scene in the sixth Iliad.

compositum1 melius cum Bitho Bacchius. in ius2 acres procurrunt,3 magnum spectaculum uterque. Persius exponit causam; ridetur ab omni conventu; laudat Brutum laudatque cohortem; solem Asiae Brutum appellat, stellasque salubris appellat comites, excepto Rege; Canem illum, invisum agricolis sidus, venisse. ruebat flumen ut hibernum, fertur quo rara securis. tum Praenestinus salso multoque1 fluenti expressa arbusto regerit convicia, durus vindemiator et invictus, cui saepe viator cessisset magna compellans voce cuculum.

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At Graecus, postquam est Italo perfusus aceto, Persius exclamat : per magnos, Brute, deos te oro, qui reges consueris tollere, cur non

hunc Regem iugulas? operum hoc, mihi crede,

tuorum est.

1 compositus DK.

2 in ius] intus V.

3 procurrunt VK, II: concurrunt aDEM.

4 multumque, II.

35

a In par and compositum Horace uses terms appropriate to gladiators, to which class Bacchius and Bithus belonged. bi.e. in some mountain gorge, which wood-choppers

cannot enter.

and Rupilius clashed, a pair a not less well matched than Bacchius and Bithus. Keenly they rush into court, each wondrous to behold.

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22 Persius sets forth his case: all the assembly laugh. He praises Brutus, he praises his staff. The sun of Asia" he calls Brutus, and healthful stars his suite-all except Rex, who had come like the Dog-star, hated of husbandmen. On he rushed like some winter torrent, whither the axe is seldom borne. Then, in answer to his full flood of wit, the man of Praeneste flings back abuse, the very essence of the vineyard, like some vine-dresser, tough and invincible, to whom the wayfarer has often had to yield, when loudly hooting at him "Cuckoo ! "c

32 But the Greek Persius, now soused with Italian vinegar, cries out: "By the great gods, I implore you, O Brutus, since it is in your line to take off d kings," why not behead this Rex? This, believe me, is a task meet for you."

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In calling out "Cuckoo!" the passer-by implies that the vine-dresser is late in his pruning, which should be finished before the cuckoo arrives in the spring.

d It was a Brutus who had driven out the Tarquins, and it was a Brutus who had slain Caesar.

VIII

HOW PRIAPUS PUT WITCHES TO ROUT

HORACE lays the scene of this incident in that part of the Esquiline which lay outside the famous Agger, or Mound of Servius, on the north-east side of Rome. In this district there had long been a burial-place, used especially for criminals and paupers, where, among the tombs, witches practised their weird and infernal rites. Here, however, Maecenas, co-operating with Augustus in the work of city improvement, had laid out beautiful gardens, in which he later built himself a palace with a conspicuous tower."

The incident must be supposed to have occurred before the transformation from a squalid and repulsive site had been completed. A wooden statue, however, of Priapus, the god of gardens, had already been set up.

The gruesome story of the witches' incantations comes to a ridiculous end when the wood of the statue cracked, and the noise of the explosion drove the hags away in terror.

The Satire is closely connected in subject with Epodes 5 and 17. Virgil's eighth Eclogue may also be compared, as well as the three Priapea to be found among the minor poems attributed to Virgil.

a

a Cf. "molem propinquam nubibus arduis," Odes iii. 29.10.