was devoted to letters and oratory. (Verg. Ecl. 8. 10; Hor. Sat. 1. 10, 43, 85; Quintil. 12. 11. 28.) As literary critic he detected faults in Cicero (Sen. Suas. 6. 15), Livy, and Sallust. His history of the civil wars in seventeen books is mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. 4. 34), Suetonius (Caes. 30), and others. He first introduced at Rome the custom of authors' readings from advance sheets of their own works (recitatio, cf. Sen. Contr. 4 praef.), which became such a nuisance under the empire. (Cf. Mayor on Juv. 1. 1-4, 3. 9.) The present Ode may well have been suggested by such a reading. It also testifies to Horace's independence, for Pollio had not presented himself at court. Cf. Sellar, p. 152.

1. motum ex Metello: the war began with Caesar's passage of the Rubicon B. C. 49, but the turmoil in the State dates from the consulship of Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer, B.C. 60, when Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus formed the private league known as the first triumvirate: inita potentiae societas, quae urbi orbique terrarum nec minus ipsis exitiabilis fuit (Vell. 2. 44). Cf. Suet. Caes. 19, Florus 4. 2. civicum: archaic and poetic for civile, cf. civica corona; hosticus, 3. 2. 6, 3. 24. 26; Sat. 1. 9. 31; civica iura (Epp. 1. 3. 23); civica bella (Ov. Pont. 1. 2. 124). But Lucan 1. 1, bella per Emathios plusquam civilia campos.

2. causas enumerated by Lucan 1. 67 sqq., e.g. among the proximate causes the death of Crassus at Carrhae B.C. 53, nam sola futuri | Crassus erat belli medius mora (Lucan 1. 99); and the death of Julia, the wife of Pompey and daughter of Caesar (ibid. 112). —vitia: blunders, mistakes, vitia ducum, Nep. Att. 16. 4, but suggesting more. — modos: phases, turns, vicissitudes.

3. ludum: 3. 29. 50; 1. 2. 37; 1. 34. 16; Plato Laws, 709 A; Juv. 3. 40, quotiens voluit Fortuna iocari. Lucan moralizing on the death of Pompey invokes Fortuna six times (Phars. 8. 686, 701, 708, 730, 767, 793). Cf. also 1. 84. Crassus and Caesar were in the end equally conspicuous examples of the sport of fortune.

3-4. graves ..

amicitias: weighty, ruinous, fateful alliances. Cf. Lucan, 1. 84-the first triumvirate.

5. nondum expiatis: cf. 1. 2. 29; Epode 7. 3, 20.- uncta : stained, smeared, a stronger tincta (Epode, 5. 19). Cf. Silius, 9. 13,

unguere

Cf. 3. 27. 76.

6. opus: of war.

6

tela cruore. cruoribus: pl. mainly metri causa.

But cf. Aesch. Suppl. 265, aiμáтwv μiáoμaσiv.

app. with sentence. Cf. 3. 20. 7.—alea: proverbial

6

Cf. Aesch. Sept. 414; Eurip. (?) Rhesus. 183; F. Q. 1. 2. 36, In which his harder fortune was to fall | Under my spear; such is the die of war'; Swinb. Erechth., Now the stakes of war are set, | For land or sea to win by throw and wear'; Lucan, 6. 7, placet alea fati | alterutrum mersura caput; Petron. 122, 1. 174. Caesar's famous iccta alea est, Suet. 32. Cf. Otto, p. 12. But Horace is thinking rather of the risks of the historian, 11. 7, 8.

7. per ignes, etc., per, over. Cf. 1. 6. 7; Propert. 1. 5. 5, et miser ignotos vestigia ferre per ignes. Cf. Prov. πûρ úπò тỷ σmodiậ; Callim. Ep. 45. 2; Macaulay, supra (Page); Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p. 203, censures the image.

9. severae: solemn, stately; Milton's 'gorgeous tragedy in sceptred pall'; Plato's oeuvǹ aνтη кaì daνμаστh; Gorg. 502 B; Ov. Amor. 3. 1. 11, ingenti violenta tragoedia passu. But possibly of some new severity of method in Pollio's closet tragedies. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 3. 86, nova carmina, ibid. 8. 10; fidibus . . . severis, A. P. 216. 10. desit complimentary - they will be missed. - theatris: cf. 2. 17. 26. There was but one (permanent), and Pollio's plays were probably not acted. - mox ubi: 3. 27. 69, i.e. simul ac.

11. ordinaris: set forth in order; Luke, 1. 1. Cf. componere, σVVTάTTEL, and the usage by which the poet is said to do what he describes. -munus: function, task, high themes.

12. repetes: resume, return to, And the Cecropian buskin don anew,' Martin. - Cecropio: Attico, 4. 12. 6. Cf. A. P. 275 sqq. for Athens as home of tragedy. — coturno: A. P. 280, nitique coturno; Milton's 'buskin'd stage' as distinguished from the low sock (soccus) of comedy; Mrs. Browning, Wine of Cyprus: 'How the cothurns trod majestic | Down the deep iambic lines'; Sat. 1. 5. 64; Mart. 5. 30. 1; Propert. 3. 32. 41.

13. praesidium: eight of the nine titles of his speeches known to us are for the defense. For the turn of the compliment, cf. 4. 1. 14; Ov. Fast. 1. 22, civica pro trepidis cum tulit arma reis; Laus Pisonis, 39, cum tua maestos | defensura reos vocem facundia misit; Cornel. Severus on Cicero, 12: unica sollicitis quondam tutela salusque.

14. consulenti: i.e. consilianti, 3. 3. 17, in its counsels, with a complimentary suggestion that it consults him. - Curiae: the Senate, the House. Cf. 3. 5. 7.

17. iam nunc, etc., complimentary anticipation of the vividness of Pollio's descriptions of which the poet has perhaps heard a specimen. Cf. Petron. Sat. 120. — minaci murmure: With harshresounding trumpets' dreaded bray'; Shaks. Rich. II. 1. 3.

18. perstringis: see lexicon. Used of anything that dazzles, deafens, or confounds the sense. Cf. acies praestringitur; and gelidai stringor aquai (Lucret. 3. 687); Quintil. 10. 1. 30, qualis est ferri fulgor quo mens simul visusque praestringitur. — litui : 1. 1. 23, like the cornu it was used by cavalry.

19-20. The scene is the defeat of Pompey's cavalry by Caesar's foot-soldiers at Pharsalia.

6

19. fulgor armorum: cf. on 1. 7. 19; Homer's уаλкоû σтерOTŃ; Shaks. Ant. and C. 1. 3, shines o'er with civil swords'; Othello, 1. 2, 'keep up your bright swords; Job, 29. 33, the glittering spear and the shield.' —fugaces: proleptic.

20. equos equitumque: The horse and rider reel,' Tenn. Sir Gal.; While horse and hero fell,' Charge of the Light Brigade. -voltus: We see the fright of battle on their faces as in a picture of Delacroix. But there may be an allusion to Caesar's command, 'miles faciem feri' (Florus, 4. 2. 50), or to the principle stated by Tacitus, Ger. 43, primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur, rendered by Herrick, 291, "Tis a known principle in war, | That eies be first, that conquered are'; Plut. Caes. 45, oud' ètóλμwv èv ὀφθαλμοῖς τὸν σίδηρον ὁρῶντες.

21. audire he hears the clamor (1. 2. 38) and the strepitus (1. 15. 18), and sees, hears of, or feels as a living reality the rest. Cf. on 1. 14. 3; 3. 10. 5. There is a possible reference in audire to the recitations. - videor: 3. 4. 6.

22. non indecoro: cf. Tenn. Two Voices, When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears | His country's war song thrill his ears.' Cf. nigrum, 1. 6. 15; Verg. Aen. 2. 272. Contrast 1. 15. 20.

23. cuncta terrarum: cf. Vell. 2. 56, Caesar omnium victor regressus in urbem. For the idiom, cf. on 4. 12. 19, 4. 4. 76. 24. atrocem: here stubborn. So in good sense, Juv. 2. 12, Hispida membra . . . promittunt atrocem animum. Catonis:

already the idol of Stoics and declaimers. Cf. 1. 12. 36; Sen. Suas. 6. 2, M. Cato solus maximum vivendi moriendique exemplum mori maluit quam rogare. Florus, 4. 2. 70, and Plut. Cat. 59–70, describe his suicide at Utica on hearing of the defeat of the Pompeians at Thapsus. Cf. Sir Thos. Browne, Urne Burial, And Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt'; Lucan. 1. 128, victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni; Id. 2. 315-320, 380 sqq.; Manil. 4. 87, et invicta devictum mente Catonem; Sen. de Prov. 2, et passim; Cic. ad Fam. 9. 18; Val. Max. 2. 10. 8; Sen. de Tranq. An. 15; Martial, 1. 8. Verg. Aen. 8. 670, makes him judge of the blessed, secretosque pios; his dantem iura Catonem. Cf. Dante, Purg. I. Julius Caesar found time to compose an AntiCato in reply to Cicero's encomium. Augustus stole the opposition thunder by praising Cato himself (Macrob. Sat. 2. 4. 18). In English, see the literature that has gathered about Addison's Cato, especially Pope's Prologue, 1. 21, ‘A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, | And greatly falling, with a falling state.'

25 sqq. Cato suggests Thapsus. Sallust's Jugurtha had recently been published. Juno, in the legend, was the opponent of Aeneas and the patron of Carthage, and so of Africa against Italy. So Horace says in his complicated way that the gods who had withdrawn from the Africa they were helpless to save or avenge have now (by the terrible slaughter of Thapsus, B. c. 46) offered up the grandsons of the former victors to the shades of Jugurtha. Metellus Scipio, commander of the Pompeians, was the grandson of the Metellus Numidicus who subdued Jugurtha.

26. cesserat: for the belief that its gods abandoned a doomed city, cf. Verg. Aen. 2. 351; Aesch. Sept. 218; Herod. 8. 41; Eurip. Tro. 25; Tac. Hist. 5. 13. The Romans had rites to draw away the enemies' gods (Macrob. Sat. 3. 9, evocatio; Serv. on Verg. Aen. 12. 841). The Aztecs shut up in one great temple the gods of conquered tribes to prevent their returning (Réville, Hibb. Lectures, 1884, p. 31). — impotens: etymologically (cf. on 4. 4. 65), not in the usual secondary sense of 1. 37. 10.

-

29. Latino sanguine: Epode 7. 4. — pinguior: Shaks. Rich. II. 4. 1, 'The blood of English shall manure the ground'; Aesch.

R

Sept. 587. In Persae, 806, cited by editors, ríaoua refers to the river Asopus, and not to the corpses. Verg. G. 1. 491, bis sanguine nostro | Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campos.

30. impia: cf. on 1. 35. 34; Epode 16. 9.

31. Medis: cf. on 1. 2. 22, 51. For case, cf. 1. 21. 4; 3. 25. 3. So a Frenchman, in 1871, might have spoken of the Germans listening to Versailles bombarding the Commune of Paris.

32. Hesperiae: western, here Italian. Cf. 3. 6. 8; 4. 5. 38; Verg. Aen. 2. 781. In 1. 36. 4, Spain. — ruinae: crash, downfall (of a building, Juv. 3. 196). Cf. 1. 2. 25; 3. 3. 8. n. See in Florus, 4. 2. 6, the list of lands over which the civil war raged.

เ

33-36. cf. 3. 6. 34; 2. 12. 3; Macaulay, Regillus, And how the Lake Regillus | Bubbled with crimson foam, | What time the thirty cities | Came forth to war with Rome'; Tenn. Princ. Or by denial flush her babbling wells | With her own people's life.'

34. Dauniae = Apulian = Italian. 1. 22. 14; 3. 5. 9. Specific, metrically convenient, helps alliteration.

35. decoloravere: de intensive. 36. caret: 2. 10. 7; 3. 29. 23;

4.

Cf. 1. 3. 13; 1. 9. 11.

9. 28.

The sudden check is Pindaric.

37. ne cf. on 1. 6. 10; 1. 33. 1. Cf. O1. 9. 38, 3. 3. 72. n., 1. 6. 10; Sellar, p. 134.

38. Ceae: Simonides of Ceos, who wrote the Epitaphs on the heroes of Thermopylae and Salamis, was noted for his pathos (Quintil. 10. 1. 64). Cf. Catull. 38. 8, maestius lacrimis Simonideis, Swinb. High from his throne in heaven Simonides | Crowned with mild aureole of perpetual tears'; Words. or unroll | One precious tender-hearted scroll | Of pure Simonides.' neniae : dirge, Opĥvos, possibly with a disparaging suggestion of the droning monotony of the last three strophes. Cf. 3. 28. 16; Epode 17. 29; Epp. 1. 1. 63.

39. Dionaeo: Dione was mother of Venus (Hom. Il. 5. 370; Theoc. 15. 106, Kúπρi Aiwvala). But Dione is used for Venus (Ov. Fast. 2. 461, Pervigil. Ven.). Dionaean is a sonorous Greek adj. for Latin poetry. Cf. on 1. 17. 22-23; Verg. Ecl. 9. 47. - sub antro: 1. 5. 3; 3. 4. 40.

40. leviore plectro: cf. on 4. 2. 33; 2. 13. 27; 1. 26. 11; Ov. Met. 10. 150. Cecini plectro graviore gigantas, nunc opus est leviore lyra.