would imply a contrast. The feet ordinarily suffering from the effects of luxury would be seen in like condition from an opposite cause, a state of destitution, to which Murena was perhaps reduced by his flight when he may have experienced the fate of Juvenal's "Codrus," whom Nudum et frusta rogantem nemo cibo nemo hospitio tectoque iuvabit. (Juv. Sat. III. 210.) 43. The last Satire, dealing with Nasidienus' banquet, brings us to a most interesting branch in our discussion. It should be read attentively :-the extravagances of the host who summons his guests to drink" de medio die," his fund of information on the niceties of "cenatoria," his authoritative tone, and pompous manner, as if his trivialities were deliveries of prime importance, the occasional touches implying that petty shams and meannesses went side by side with his ostentation, the only half-concealed scorn of the guests, and the (apparently) casual reference to the malign influence of Canidia on their enjoyment, should all be remarked, for the clue to them is perhaps not irrecoverable. From the occurrence of the name Rufus in v. 58, the theory has been propounded that the original of the host was Salvidienus, and on this I cannot do better than quote from Sellar: "If under the name Nasidienus is disguised the person of Salvidienus Rufus, who was raised from a low station by Octavianus, and put to death for treachery in the year 40 B.C. Horace must in this Satire have recalled an incident of an earlier date than of the time when the piece was written. But there is nothing in the sketch of Nasidienus to suggest the military adventurer; and between the time when Horace returned to Rome, and the date of the death of Salvidienus, the latter was so constantly engaged in military command that it is difficult to see when he could have assumed the position of a fashionable entertainer at Rome. Perhaps the nickname of Nasidienus may first have been given to Salvidienus, and Horace may have applied that name to a notorious parvenu of later date, just as he so often uses names borrowed from Lucilius to indicate some notorious person or some marked type of character in his own time. The type of character here held up to ridicule is common to the satirists of every age; but Roman society under the Empire was especially rich in specimens of it. The banquet of Nasidienus is a faint foreshadowing of the banquet of Trimalchio" ("Horace," p. 69, 2nd ed.). 44. Now, though I am indifferent whether the nickname was originally applied to Salvidienus or not, I think Professor Sellar hit the mark when he divined that it is a nickname, and is applied to a person who was making himself notorious in Rome when Horace wrote. And we can see why it was so applied. The notoriety of this person was based not merely on his wealth but also on his insane pride and presumption which, through bringing him into collision with the Emperor, led to his death some six years later. He belonged to a family strongly Caesarian in its sympathies, Proculeius, his brother, being an intimate and trusted friend of Augustus, and at one time thought of as a husband for Julia, and his sister was the wife of Maecenas. If then this black sheep of the family, who revealed his failings less by this early extravagance than by the villainous measures he took to retrieve his fortunes; if this successful scoundrel, swollen with insolence in the possession of vast riches dishonestly acquired, jealous perhaps of Maecenas' power, and of Proculeius' favour with the Emperor, and deluded by a farrago of superstitious nonsense, had already conceived himself as the rival of Augustus, destined by fate to usurp his dominion, and had thus, through that "parrhesia," by which he gave so much offence, let drop sentiments which in Maecenas' ears would, apart from their apparent absurdity, have been abominable treason; we may understand why the example of the traitor Salvidienus should suggest as a nickname for him "Nose-idian, the red." Reference to Murena's colour or complexion is common in the Odes, and was probably recognised by their first readers as one of the felicities of Horace in the selection of such pseudonyms as Telephus, Pyrrhus, etc., either from likeness or contrast, for of this we cannot be sure. This banquet, then, I imagine to be his, and in comparing it with that of Trimalchio in the Satyricon, Professor Sellar has winged his shaft into the gold with more accuracy than he himself would probably have allowed, for one of the strangest sequels of this recognition of Horace's dramatis personae is to throw a light upon that remarkable work which, however offensive to a pure mind, is stamped with genius, and endowed with the deepest interest for any student of latinity. THE SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS 45. I speak of Petronius' romance under some disadvantage, for the only text I have is that of Nisard (Paris, 1842) accompanied by a paraphrase in French. The latter presents the sense of the additions said to have been made by Nodot in the seventeenth century to fill in the gaps of the story, but the Latin of those passages I have never seen. I therefore rely on the consensus of scholarly opinion as to their spuriousness, in which I am the more ready to believe on account of their lacking those peculi arities of suggestion, to be observed in the genuine fragments, which have induced me to cite the book here. 46. I am ignorant whether any writer has remarked on the phenomenon, but if a student of Horace will run his eye over the verses interspersed in the Satyricon he will find that they offer constant parallels with the Odes, often reproducing Horace's thoughts in his own words; and I may add that, where they extend his thoughts, their trend is conformable with my reading of the Three Books, and my general interpretation of Horace. I select a few at random Non Indum fulgebat ebur, quod inhaeserat auro, Ch. CXXXV. You observe that an incantation is in progress, but |