to Maecenas (Od. 1. 1 and 3. 29, Epp. 1. 1 and 19), while the last in both cases (Od. 3. 30, Epp. 1. 20) is reserved for the poet's own literary self-consciousness'. The Fourth Book of the Odes stands apart from other collections in that the greater part at least of it was notoriously composed with a purpose; and therefore the plan of arrangement may have been antecedent to the composition. But if this difference must make us cautious in drawing sweeping conclusions as to the other Books from the obviously conscious and artistic arrangement of Book iv, we may at least gather that Horace contemplated a collection of poems being read continuously in such a way that the effect of a particular poem could be heightened or weakened by the sequence in which it was placed; and we may learn something also of the principles of taste which would be likely to guide him in arranging other collections. 3. A marked feature of Horace's style is the irony with which be professes to shrink from enthusiasm, to be the poet of mirth and love, 'non practer solitum levis,' surprised, it may be, occasionally into serious subjects, but recovering himself before he has done injury to a theme for which he is unfit3. It is this irony as much as the mere desire for variety that makes him scatter his political poems at such wide intervals. It is this, as we shall see, that colours the prelude to Book iv; and though the relation between 1. 1 and 1. 2 is not worked out so fully as that between 4. 1, 2, 3 and 4. 4, 5, it is substantially the same. Od. 1. 1 has of course a relation to the whole three Books; but it is not an accident that a poem, in which his political faith is set forth most fully, should follow immediately 1 For an additional argument for the designedness of the position of 3. 29, see the correspondence noticed on 1. 1. 1 and 3. 29. 1, between the opening address in the two Odes, bearing in mind that if 1, 1 was written for its place it must almost certainly have been posterior in composition to 3. 29. See this drawn out in Introd. to Book iv. 'Cp. the form of Od. 1. 6, 2. 12, 4. 2, and the last stanza of 2. 1 and 3. 3. on his opening apology for verse-writing as a taste not more unaccountable than the thousand others that divide man kind. On its artistic side,-that is where it affects his manner as a principle of taste, rather than as a characteristic of his own feelings or a prudential consideration of the judgment of the world, this irony is nearly connected with another feature of his style which will be noticed on 2. 19 (Introd. and on v. 31), 3. 5. 56, and 4. 2. 57: I mean his affectation, in poems where we have been wrought higher than usual, of a rather dull, even conventional, ending, as though the passion ought to die away When we are lookin a diminuendo before the strain ceases. ing for exemplifications of either of these feelings in the position of a particular Ode, we must remember that they may pass again by shades hard to define into the mere sense of the relief afforded by contrast, an unwillingness to dwell too long An instance, where we cannot doubt an on any one note. artistic purpose in the juxtaposition, and where this purpose seems to hesitate between the first and second feeling which we have traced, is to be seen in 1. 37, 38, where we must notice that the slight Ode, with its picture of simplicity and lightheartedness, stands at the end of a long Book as well as immediately after the high-pitched Ode on Cleopatra. Instances where we may see certainly the love of variety, very possibly an undertone of irony, are the position of 'Quum tu Lydia Telephi,' after 1. 12, and that of 'Quid fles, Asterie ?' after the stately Odes that begin Book iii. The mere desire to change the key is well exemplified in t. 24, 25 and 3. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. 4. If 1. 38 has a fitness at the end of a Book, we may note The adapta a similar fitness for their place in 2. 20 and 3. 1. tion indeed of these two Odes to their position was doubtiess what suggested the now abandoned theory of a separate publication of Books i, ii, and Book iii. That theory can really derive no support from them, for it would necessitate, as we have seen, an entire rearrangement of the Odes in a chronological order, in the course of which all evidence would dis Lc v. 30. And for the second argument, Epod. 16, to which all Horatian chronologists give a very early date, would have given Virgil as good an idea of his disposition and poetical powers as any of the less important Odes. Franke's conclusion is at least a safe one: 'Since there is no Ode which can be proved indisputably to have been written before the battle of Actium, while I will not indeed assert positively that one or two may not possibly have been composed earlier, I yet think that we should be very chary of separating without clear cause any single Ode from the epoch common to the others.' 2. The second limit, the latest date at which the Three Books as a whole can have been published, is fixed mainly by the reference in Od. 1. 12. 45–48. Marcellus died in the autumn of B.C. 23. It is inconceivable that these lines should be (as Ritter suggests) a complimentary allusion to one already dead; an assurance to Augustus that at least the fame of his son-inlaw survived: all that the author of the dirge on Quintilius could offer to match Virgil's 'Tu Marcellus cris.' And it is almost equally impossible that, written before his early death, they should have been published (as from other considerations it would be necessary to conclude) within a year or two of that great disappointment of the hopes of Rome and of the Emperor. An argument, second only in weight to this, is founded upon the Odes (2. 10 and 3. 19) which have reference to Licinius Murena, the brother of Terentia, Maecenas' wife (see also on Od. 2. 2. 5). Murena was executed for participation with Fannius Caepio in a conspiracy against Augustus in B.C. 22. The presumption seems very strong that even if Horace's feelings would have allowed him to publish these poems, and especially Od. 2. 10, after his friend's catastrophe, he would have been deterred by the knowledge that the reminiscences must be displeasing to Maccenas as well as to Augustus. Franke recalls the story of Virgil's striking out the praises of Gallus from the end of Georg. iv on somewhat similar grounds. The arguments for postponing the publication of the Odes to a later date are not such as can really be set against these con siderations. They turn mainly on Od. 1. 3, which is taken to refer to the voyage of Virgil to Athens in the last year of his life, B.C. 19 and on the supposed allusions (the strongest case is Od. 2. 9) to the expedition of Tiberius into Armenia, and the restoration of the standards by the Parthians in B.C. 20. Some remarks on these points will be found in the Introductions to Od. 1. 3 and 2. 9. There remains the possibility that these (and if these, then other) Odes may have been inserted after the first publication. It will be seen that this is not likely to have been the case with 1. 3; and the theory of any such insertions is perhaps hardly compatible with that pause in lyric composition between the publication of Books i-iii and the commencement of Book iv, which is implied in Suetonius' statement, and in Horace's own words, Od. 4. 1. 1, Epp. 1. 1. 1–10. §3. When we pass from the general epoch to the date of special Odes we are on less safe ground. A very few can be fixed with exactness. Such are 1. 31, which is written for the dedication of the temple of Apollo Palatinus in B.C. 28; 2. 4, which Horace dates himself in B.C. 25, by reference to his own age; 1. 24 and 3. 14, both of which are fixed to B.C. 24, the one by the known date of the death of Quintilius, the other by the return of Augustus from Spain. We may perhaps add a few, though in their case of course more latitude must be given, which speak in terms of near anticipation of political events which can themselves be dated. Such are 1. 35, which represent Augustus as on the point of starting for Britain, a purpose for which we know that he set out from Rome in B.C. 27 (see Introd. to that Ode, Dio Cassius 53. 22, 25); and 1. 29, which seems to refer to preparations more or less immediately preceding Aclius Gallus' expedition into Arabia Felix in B.C. 24. Such again are the Odes (2. 15 and 3. 6) in which we can hardly doubt the reference to the restoration of temples which Augustus undertook in the year 28. § 4. Those who would go much beyond this in fixing with accuracy the date of single Odes have to lean a good deal on Horace's references to events on the frontier and beyond it, movements of the Cantabrian, the Scythian, the Parthian. In |