Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/286

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268
EPISTLES OF HORACE.
BOOK I.

as yet a boy,[1] you endured a bloody campaign and the Cantabrian wars, beneath a commander, who is now replacing the standards [recovered] from the Parthian temples:[2] and, if any thing is wanting,[3] assigns it to the Roman arms. And that you may not withdraw yourself, and inexcusably be absent; though you are careful to do nothing out of measure, and moderation, yet you sometimes amuse yourself at your country-seat. The [mock] fleet divides the little boats [into two squadrons]: the Actian sea-fight[4] is represented by boys under your direction in a hostile form: your brother is the foe, your lake the Adriatic; till rapid victory crowns the one or the other with her bays. Your patron, who will perceive that you come into his taste, will applaud your sports with both his hands.[5]

Moreover, that I may advise you (if in aught you stand in need of an adviser), take great circumspection what you say to any man, and to whom. Avoid an inquisitive impertinent, for such a one is also a tattler, nor do open ears faithfully

  1. Lollius, to whom Horace writes, was with Augustus in his expedition against the Cantabrians, when he was very young, puer. But Augustus departed form Rome in 727, when Lollius, the father, had been some years in Galatia, where he was governor after the death of Amyntas, whose kingdom became a province of the Roman empire. He returned to Rome in 732, and entered upon his consulship in the beginning of the year following. It is, therefore, impossible that he could have been with Augustus in the war of Spain, and consequently this letter could not have been written to him. Cardinal Norris.
  2. All our commentators agree, that refigit is in almost all the manuscripts. It is of more than ordinary value, because it determines the precise date of this Epistle in 734, when Phraates restored the Roman eagles to Augustus. Horace was then forty-five years of age.
  3. Nunc et si quid abest. Nunc must be construed with refigit, as appears by the best copies; "sic enim distinguunt potiora exemplaria." Bent.
  4. This little sea-fight is well introduced by our poet, and does much honor to Lollius. Augustus, in memory of the battle of Actium, instituted a tournament, under the name of Actian games, which were annually celebrated every 1st of August. Sanadon thinks it probable, that this naval engagement of Lollius gave the Romans a first idea of those naumachia, with which they were afterward entertained by their emperors. Fran.
  5. A metaphorical manner of speaking, taken from the arena. When a gladiator was thrown in fighting, the people asked his life by turning down their thumbs, or his death by lifting them up. "Cùm faveamus pollices premere etiam proverbio jubemur." Plin. Torr.