of Tigellius. In Book II he is set in the forefront, as the person to whom compliments are to be paid, and whose protection the poet may look for1. In Book I the friendship of Maecenas occupies a prominent place, but there is no hint of his most valued gift, the Sabine retreat. In Book II the 'villa.' is the scene of Sat. 3, and the theme of Sat. 6. The peace of his country home has passed into the poet's blood, and the assured position of which it was the outward sign has modified his views of things. In 2. 1 he professes to take up the cudgels on behalf of outspoken Satire, but he meets his critics more than half-way. He is 'cupidus pacis,' and his weapon is to be one of defence only. Whatever of personality there had been in Book I has been yet further toned down in Book II. Horace's literary enemies Tigellius, Fannius, Demetrius, have had their final dismissal in Sat. 1. 10. Though, as we see from his later writings, his judgment on the general question between the ancients and moderns remains what it was, he is no longer concerned to defend himself against detractors who depreciated him by exalting Lucilius; and accordingly he expresses his debt to his predecessor and his admiration for him without qualification.

§ 2. Date of Book I.

The first Book of the Satires is the first collection of Horace's poems that was given to the world. This would be the natural conclusion from his words in Sat. 1. 10. 46, where, after assigning different kinds of poetry to different contemporary masters, he says of Satire' Hoc erat experto frustra Varrone Atacino Atque quibusdam aliis melius quod scribere possem.' Some of the Epodes may have been as early in composition as the earliest Satires, but the collected Epodes were not published before the battle of Actium (Epod. 9).

In endeavouring to fix the date of the publication of Sat. I it is of the first importance to fix the time of Horace's introduction to the friendship of Maecenas. Six, if not seven 2, of the ten Satires

1 Sat. 2. I. II, 19, 84.

2 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10. Possibly we should add 8, which takes occasion in laying the scene of Canidia's witcheries on the Esquiline to compliment Maecenas incidentally on the improvements by which he had converted the old paupers' burial-ground into handsome gardens.

contain references to that friendship. The friendship is fresh, and yet has lasted a little while. Horace looks back on its stages (6. 54-62); it has stood some tests (3. 63-65); people are still curious about it, and yet some are already seeking to profit by it (5 and 9). Now if we can date Sat. 2. 6, Horace gives us in it the means of also dating approximately the commencement of his close relations to Maecenas: for in v. 40 he says—

'Septimus octavo propior iam fugerit annus

Ex quo Maecenas me coepit habere suorum

In numero.' (With the last words cp. Sat. 1. 6. 62.)

The expression is not perfectly clear, but this probably means 'It is seven or rather very nearly eight full years since,' &c. There is also the doubt, which always attaches to Roman reckoning, whether this is to be taken exclusively or inclusively, to mean what we should also call 'seven years verging on eight,' or what we should rather call 'six verging on seven.' The date of the Satire itself can be fixed within a few months, but not more closely. Three indications of time are given in it. (1) In v. 38 the words 'Imprimat his, cura, Maecenas signa tabellis' seem to refer to the time of the 'bellum Actiacum' and the following events, during which Maecenas (in conjunction later with Agrippa) had the charge of affairs in Rome and Italy for Octavianus and bore his signet ring1. (2) In v. 53 Horace represents as one of the questions put to him by persons who credited him with knowing state secrets, 'numquid de Dacis audisti?' The Daci are mentioned by Dion as offering their services to Octavianus before the battle of Actium, and, on his declining them, to Antony2: and it is evident that they continued to be a cause of some anxiety at Rome, for he speaks of Crassus being sent against them in B.C. 30. (3) In v. 55 another question asked of him is, militibus promissa Triquetra Praedia Caesar, an est Itala tellure daturus?' The allocation referred to is probably that after Actium, and the moment at which this question would be most in men's mouths would be in the winter of B. C. 31, when Dion reports that so serious a mutiny broke out among the disbanded soldiers, who feared they were to be disappointed of their rewards,

6

1 Dion Cassius, 51. 3.

2 Id. 51. 22. See Od. 3. 6. 13 and introd. to Odes, Books i-iii. 1. § 7.

that Octavianus had to pay a hasty visit to Italy and provide for the assignment of lands to them1.

Of these dates (1) would suit any time from the middle of B.C. 31 to the return of Octavianus to Rome in 29: (2) would be, so far as we know, best satisfied in B.C. 31 or 30: (3) points most definitely to the winter of B.C. 31, though the form of reference does not exclude the lapse of a little time since the question was actually put. The general conclusion is that when all the doubtful points are given in favour of the earliest date we cannot place earlier than the spring of B. C. 38 the occasion described in Sat. 1. 6. 61, when Maecenas, nine months after Horace's first introduction to him by Virgil and Varius, 'sent for him again and bade him be in the number of his friends.' The date may possibly be a year or two later.

It is characteristic of Horace's change of position between Books I and II that the references to political events and persons, fairly frequent in the later Book, should be almost wholly absent in the earlier. His great anxiety in describing his friendship with Maecenas is to represent it as personal and literary, not political. The fifth Satire, which describes the journey which Horace took with him when he was bound on affairs of state to Brundisium, might be expected to give us just the clue we want: but not a word escapes to indicate the occasion of the mission, and we are reduced to searching the pages of Dion for notices of movements which may suit it. It is very doubtful how far their picture of the time is minute or exact enough to enable us to do this with the hope of certain result: but of the occasions which have been suggested the only two which are not excluded by other considerations (see Introd. to Sat. 1. 5) fall one in the autumn of B.C. 38, the other in the spring of 37, either of which will suit the date we obtained from Sat. 2. 6.

A literary reference of some importance is in the same direction. The words used of Virgil, Sat. I. 10. 44, where Horace is speaking of the way in which the main departments of poetry are already occupied by masters with whom he has no mind to compete, 'molle atque facetum Vergilio adnuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae,’ must mean that Virgil was already known to the world as the

1 Dion Cassius, 51. 3-5.

author of the Eclogues1. Considerations drawn from the political references of Ecl. 10 show that these were not published before B.C. 37.

The earliest date then at which the composition of the larger part of Sat. I can be placed is the end of B. C. 38. The earliest date which can be assigned for the completion and publication of the Book is in or after B. C. 37. Towards settling the latest possible date the first fixed point is B.C. 33, to which there is reference in Sat. 2. 3. 185. If we allow a little time on the one side for Horace's acquaintance with Maecenas to ripen, and to be the subject of public talk, and for the composition of the Satires which refer to it, and on the other for the settling in the Sabine farm, and the other changes which the Satires of Book II presuppose, the date of B.C. 35 usually assigned for the publication of Book I will seem to be not far wrong.

...

§3. Date of Book II.

The publication of Book II must on the ground of the references already discussed in Sat. 2. 6 be put after the winter of B.C. 31. If the connection of Caesar with the Parthians in Sat. 2. 1. 15 'labentis equo . vulnera Parthi,' and 2. 5. 62 'iuvenis Parthis horrendus,' be held to refer to the interview of Octavianus with Tiridates during his progress through Asia in B. C. 302 we must put it some months later. In any case the absence of any allusion to the triple triumph and the closing of the temple of Janus suggests that the book was published before the year B. C. 29, whether before or after the Epodes cannot be positively determined.

§ 4. Satires 2 and 7 of Book I.

In fixing the general date of the composition of Book I we have omitted three Satires which contain no reference verbal or constructive to the acquaintance with Maecenas. Of these Satire 4 has nothing to separate it in tone or topic from its neighbours. It was written at some time after Sat. 2, and when Horace felt it necessary if he published that Satire to apologize for its spirit. Satires 2 and 7 however have features which distinguish them

1 Franke would add Georg. 1, which he thinks Horace is imitating in Sat. 1. 1. 114-115, but see notes on that place.

2 Dion C., 51. 18.

from the rest of the Book. Satire 7 turns on a ludicrous incident which occurred in the proconsular court of Brutus when he was in Asia in the year before the battle of Philippi, and while Horace was in his suite. It culminates in the jest on the name of Rex, in connection with Brutus' political antecedents,—‘qui reges consueris tollere.' The play on names is of just the kind in which Roman taste delighted; and it is quite intelligible that having been one of Horace's first essays in composition, perhaps one which had been shown to Maecenas by Virgil when he 'told him what Horace was like,' the Satire may have been retained, possibly at Maecenas' desire. It is less likely that it should have been composed when Horace had begun to beware of playing with edged tools.

Sat. 2 has other signs of date earlier than that of the bulk of the Book. There is the grossness of tone (never congenial to Horace, but always bearing the look of a concession to a supposed' operis lex') to be paralleled only in some of the earlier Epodes. There is more appearance of those liberties taken with persons of position (not merely the thieves, money-lenders, misers, and parasites of later Satires) and of broad references to real scandals, which he professes to defend in Sat. 1. 4 and 2. 1, but with apologies which, if we look at any Satire but this one, seem to outrun the needs of the case1. There is above all the curious tradition of the Scholiasts that under the name of Maltinus (or Malchinus) he was satirizing in v. 25 the personal habit of Maecenas. If this be true, it is so completely unlike Horace's bearing towards his friends in high position that it must mean that the Satire was written before his acquaintance with Maecenas commenced, and preserved with Maecenas' assent if not at his desire.

§ 5. Title and Nature of the Satires. Horace uses two words to designate his Satires.

1. The only title which he uses within the Satires themselves is Satira. This he employs in Sat. 2. 1. 1 in the singular, to describe the form of composition or its spirit, ' Sunt quibus in satira videar nimis acer.' He is there speaking of himself as the successor of

1 Is not Sat. 2 the one specimen which Horace allowed to be preserved of an earlier type of Satires which had been shown to friends, but which his own fastidious taste failed finally to approve?