Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

XII

TO ICCIUS

66

HORACE introduces Grosphus to Iccius, and in doing so takes occasion to rally his friend on his discontent. Iccius, whom in one of his Odes (i. 29) Horace rallies for deserting philosophy to take part in a military expedition to Arabia Felix, has now, some five years later, become the procurator or agent," who had charge of Agrippa's estates in Sicily. Apparently he had written to Horace, grumbling because he was not an independent landowner, to which Horace replies that the agent of a large estate is able to live on the produce very comfortably, inasmuch as it is all at his disposal, though he is not the actual owner. Then in a somewhat ironical vein (12-20), Horace congratulates his friend on being able, amid all his business cares, to study the physics of Empedocles and the dialectic of the Stoics.

The letter closes with some bits of news, preceded by the request to show some courtesy to Pompeius Grosphus, whom we have also encountered in the Odes (ii. 16), where he is spoken of as a wealthy proprietor in Sicily.

X

Fruenbus Arpae Siculis, quos colligis. Ieci, si mere fiers, Wen St it wcia maior ab love jonart possit b. acile querellas : pauper enim en est, qui rerum suppetit usus. a vente bene, a lacert est pedibusque tuis, nil divinae pecerint eriles addere maius. si forte in medic pesiterum abstemius herbis vivis et traca, sic vives protinus, ut te confestim lendus Fortunae rivus inauret, vel quia naturam mutare pecunia nescit, vei quia cuncta putas una virtute minora.

5

10

15

Mirantur, si Demoeriti pecus edit agellos enitaque, dum peregre est animus sine corpore velox ; cum tu inter scabiem tantam et contagia lucri nil parvum sapias et adhuc sublimia cures : quae mare compescant causae.quid temperet1 annum, stellae sponte sua iussaene vagentur et errent, quid premat obscurum lunae, quid proferat orbem, quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors, Empedocles an Stertinium deliret acumen.

Verum seu piscis seu porrum et caepe trucidas,

1 temperat, II.

20

a A reference to the main principle of Empedocles' philosophy that the life of the world is due to a perpetual conflict of the two principles of Love and Strife.

[ocr errors]

EPISTLE XII

If, Iccius, you are enjoying as you should the Sicilian products which you collect for Agrippa, Jupiter himself could not give you greater abundance. Away with complaints; for he is not poor, who has enough of things to use. If stomach, lungs, and feet are all in health, the wealth of kings can give you nothing more. If haply you hold aloof from what is within your reach, and live on nettles and other greens, you will go on living in the same way, though Fortune's stream suddenly flood you with gold either because money cannot change your nature, or because you count all else below the one thing, virtue.

12 We marvel that the herds of Democritus ate up his meadows and corn-fields, while his swift mind wanders abroad without his body; whereas you, in the very midst of the contagious itch of gain, still have a taste far from mean, still set your thoughts on lofty themes: what causes hold the sea in check, what rules the year, whether stars roam at large of their own will or by law, what hides the moon's disk in darkness, what brings it into light, what is the meaning and what the effects of Nature's jarring harmony," whether Empedocles is doting or subtle Stertinius.

21 However, whether it is fish, or only leeks and

utere Pompeio Grospho et, si quid petet, ultro defer; nil Grosphus nisi verum orabit et aequum. vilis amicorum est annona, bonis ubi quid deest. Ne tamen ignores, quo sit Romana loco res, Cantaber Agrippae, Claudi virtute Neronis Armenius cecidit; ius imperiumque Phraates Caesaris accepit genibus minor; aurea fruges Italiae pleno defudit1 Copia cornu.

1 defudit Mss. : defundit VA2.

25

a According to the scholiast, fish are here mentioned as costly fare in contrast to a simple diet. In trucidas, however, Horace makes a humorous allusion to the Pythagoreans, whom Empedocles followed in regard to the doctrine of transmigration of souls, for he asserted that he himself had once been a fish (eiv åλì ëλoπos ixoús, Fr. 11 Müll.). To eat a fish, therefore, might mean murder. This ban on living things was extended even to vegetables, cf. Sat. ii. 6. ( 63 above, and Juvenal's well-known verse

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

onions that you butcher," receive Pompeius Grosphus as a friend, and if he asks aught of you, give it freely: Grosphus will sue for nothing but what is right and fair. The market-price of friends is low, when good men are in need.

25 Yet, that you may not be ignorant how the world wags in Rome, the Cantabrian has fallen before the valour of Agrippa, the Armenian before that of Claudius Nero. Phraates, on humbled knees, has accepted Caesar's imperial sway. Golden Plenty from full horn has poured her fruits upon Italy.

porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu (15. 9), with Mayor's note.

The Cantabrians were conquered by Agrippa in 19 B.C., shortly after Armenia had submitted to Tiberius. In connexion with the latter event, Phraates, the Parthian king, restored the Roman standards taken long before from Crassus at Carrhae.

« AnteriorContinuar »