His successor, Sallustius Crispus, seems to have been cognisant of its wisdom and tact in relation to service under Augustus, for he adopted a similar attitude (Tac. Ann. 3, 30) declining, like Maecenas, inconvenient public station or honours, and while holding a position of great power-and showing exceeding energy in it-affecting only to be fond of those things that conduced to an easy and comfortable life. I imagine this then to be the key of Maecenas' ostentatious regard for luxury and dilettantism which made-probably from its uncommonness— such an impression on his world. We know that behind it all was really the keenest brain, and a nature presumably of the liveliest ambition. Without some such spur, it is most unlikely that he would ever have ascended to the height he reached, and if he had it, evidence of his mental distress and resentment at dismissal would be expected. In the quotation of Seneca from his significantly named book "Prometheus," and elsewhere, we find it direct and explicit; in the Three Books of Horace we can discern it beneath the surface (cf. II. 17, III. 29, etc.). To mind this does not appear to be a suggestion too " ingenious to be accepted, but simply the result of a sober and intelligent examination of the facts, and it has an important reaction upon the interpretation of Horace. my THE EPISTLES 70. Let us now pass to a short consideration of the Epistles. I have already had my say on the vexed question of the interval between the first book and the Odes, in contending that nothing contained in Epist. I. I necessarily forces the issue of the Three Books back to B.C. 23 (Introd. to Trans. § 54 and foll.), but I may add a few words on the point. If I am right, the stimulus to Horace's mind which evoked his "Monumentum," dedicated to Maecenas and inspired by Melpomene, was an event that occurred early in B.C. 22. On the hypothesis that the plan of compilation was then formed, it follows that it would immediately be known to Maecenas. He would be consulted in every detail of expression and every question of admission or exclusion, for an adherent, with his cause so much at heart as Horace, would never take the responsibility of presenting to the Emperor and the world a work of such vital interest to Maecenas without his full concurrence. That he had it is proved by Maecenas' wish for more Odes, to the expression of which Horace says, "No ; loath as I am to decline a request from you, those wells are dry. What happened some four years ago [Ep. I. I was probably composed in the beginning of B.C. 18] stirred my soul to its depths, so that it was 6 possible for me to write poetry and I have done what I could. It would be useless to try again; the spirit has fled. But you shall have such response as I can give, 'Condo et compono quae mox depromere possim,' etc." 71. He might perhaps have anticipated George Eliot's remark on Romola, and have said, “that 'poetry' of mine found me a young man and left me an old one. I am not now equal to more of the same kind." In fact, the opening of this Epistle, with its "non eadem est aetas, non mens," is an answer in plain language to a request from Maecenas which corresponds with a more poetical remonstrance to a similar request made afterwards by Augustus. In the latter case Horace, however, did not feel at liberty to decline altogether, but his apologetics are couched (inter alia) in the following figurative terms:-1 1 Milton might have introduced his elegy (Lycidas) with some such note as this: "I had resolved not to compose any more poetry till time had ripened my powers and increased my knowledge, but the sad death of Edward King compels me again to write, but the result will be immature." What he did say was: "Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Compels me to disturb your season due ; For Lycidas is dead." (From a lecture on George Meredith, by M. W. Maccallum, M.A.) Me nec femina nec puer Iam nec spes animi credula mutui, Nec vincire novis tempora floribus. Manat rara meas lacrima per genas ? Inter verba cadit lingua silentio ? Nocturnis ego somniis Iam captum teneo, iam volucrem sequor Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubiles. Ode IV. I. (See my notes.) 72. Bearing this in mind, we shall be able to discover why in the collection of metrical sermones which, in spite of Horace's disclaimer, frequently contain poetic effects of a high order, the case of Murena should again be introduced. It is not, in the same degree with the Three Books, the nexus of the work, but it is the subject of allusion more frequently than in the subsequent fourth book of Odes. Two at least (5 and 16), and perhaps three of the Epistles, as I hope to show, are addressed to names by which it was intended to denote Murena. Whether No. 16 was written before his death I neither know nor care, since my understanding of it is not thereby disturbed; No. 5 must, if I am right, have been composed after his execution. 73. It would exceed my present limits to cull from the Epistles every thought or touch which seems to owe its existence to or to receive its significance from, the story of Murena, but I select a few. It should not be necessary to warn readers that a verb in the second person does not always mean "you," in the sense of the person addressed, but must often be rendered by our indefinite " one." In the first Epistle such thoughts or touches occur passim, being especially clear after the 32nd verse— Est quadam prodire tenus si non datur ultra, etc. And I should not be surprised, though I have no more material for judgment than Horace's own language, to find that the words sunt certa piacula quae te ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello, contain a reference-for Maecenas' understandingneither to philosophers' treatises nor to books of magic (cf. Wilkins ad loc.), but to a certain "libellum," well known to him, but perhaps only recently issued for the world's reading, produced by the author of the Epistle (cf. Odes I. 1, 35 and I. 2, 29). In verse 43 the word "repulsam" is generally, and very naturally, connected with defeat at elections; but consider its pregnancy in an address to Maecenas at the time when he was no longer “incolumis" (Tac. Ann. 3, 30) but was smarting under dismissal and a distasteful relegation by Augustus to an enforced idleness in Rome (Tac. Ann. 14, 53). |