Terentia, by equivalence of quantity, according to the practice in amatory compositions-Lesbia = Clodia (Catullus), Delia = Plania (Tibullus), Cynthia = Hostia (Propertius), etc. The analogy however is imperfect, for the amatory names are really intended to conceal, while (apart from the grotesque inconsistency between such a poem as II. 12 and the general tone of the Three Books, if Licymnia were any other than the wife) Maecenas' domina could not possibly escape identification. The resemblance to Licinia is surely more striking than the quantitative equivalence to Terentia. Indeed the choice of the Greek name is probably not altogether arbitrary. It was a common practice among the Roman nobility to trace their origin through such resemblances into Greek mythical antiquity; thus Vergil deduces the Sergii from Sergestes, the Cluentii from Cloanthus; and the analogy of Aɩkúμvios—Licinius is not likely to have escaped the genealogists. Historically, the 'sister' of Murena,-if we interpret soror as meaning the closest relationship it can, and the events of 22 suggest that we should, probably took by birth the name Licinia; she may have changed it for Terentia when her brother became Varro Murena, and for similar reasons; at all events after 22 it is easy to see why Terentia was preferred. In using a form which points so strongly to Licinia, Horace gives II. 12 an ostensible date which suits with its purpose and position. Of course the possibility of the interpretation Terentia did not escape his notice and is extremely convenient.

It is curious to note that the taste for dancing, even in public, by which Licinia had evidently scandalized some of her grave countrymen (II. 12. 17), was in the family. Cicero (pro Murena 6) defends the consul of 62, probably her father, against a similar reproach.

NOTE B. (See pp. 16 foll.)

The accounts of the temporary estrangement of Augustus from Maecenas are dissimilar but easily explained. Suetonius, among whose materials were Augustus' autograph documents, refers it entirely to the conspiracy of Murena. Neque enim temere ex omni numero in amicitia eius afflicti reperientur praeter Salvidienum...et Gallum... Reliqui potentia atque opibus ad finem vitae...floruerunt, quamquam et offensis intervenientibus. Desideravit enim nonnunquam...Maecenatis taciturnitatem, cum hic secretum de comperta Murenae coniuratione uxori Terentiae prodidisset (Aug. 66). Dion says nothing of Maecenas under the year 22 (732), except that he could not save Murena, but under the year 16 (738), upon the visit of Augustus to Gaul and the creation of the office of praefectus urbis, he says, καί τινες καὶ διὰ τὴν Τερεντίαν τὴν τοῦ Μαικήνου γυναῖκα ἀποδημῆσαι αὐτὸν ὑπετόπησαν, ἵν ̓ (ἐπειδὴ πολλὰ περὶ αὐτῶν ἐν τῇ Ῥώμῃ ἐλογοποιεῖτο) ἄνευ θροῦ τινὸς ἐν τῇ ἀλλοδημίᾳ αὐτῇ συνῇ· οὕτω γὰρ οὖν πάνυ αὐτῆς ἤρα ὥστε καὶ ἀγωνίσασθαί ποτε αὐτὴν περὶ τοῦ κάλλους πρὸς τὴν Λιουίαν ποιῆσαι...καὶ οὕτω τὸ μὲν ἄστυ τῷ Ταύρῳ (Statilius Taurus, first praefectus urbis) μετὰ τῆς ἄλλης Ἰταλίας διοικεῖν ἐπιτρέψας—τόν τε γὰρ ̓Αγρίππαν ἐς τὴν Συρίαν αὖθις ἐστάλκει, καὶ τῷ Μαικήνᾳ διὰ τὴν γυναῖκα οὐκέθ' ὁμοίως ἔχαιρε—ἐξώρμησεν (54. 19).

Now since the visit to Gaul had fully adequate political motives, as afterwards appeared (Dion. 54. 20), the conjecture of these sagacious 'gossips' about the cause of it was perfectly gratuitous; and Suetonius shows that they were equally wrong about the disgrace of Maecenas. Why these profound speculations were made in the year 16, and not before, is plain enough. Maecenas never held any office known to the law, and

after the war of Alexandria, had, as far as we know, no definite commission at all. He was supposed, as in 30, to watch Italy and the capital, especially in the emperor's absence (Hor. Od. III. 8. 7, III. 29. 25; both these may be naturally referred to such absences): but he was not nominally and officially praefectus urbis, as is proved by the history of the praefectura in Tac. Ann. VI. 11. It has been inferred from Horace (ll. cc.) that he was charged with foreign affairs, but the distance of the dangers indicated (urbi sollicitus times, quid Seres parent etc.') has sufficient point without this supposition. The negative evidence of Dion Cassius and Velleius makes it very improbable that after the establishment of the empire, his active functions, either within or without the city, were of much importance. As long therefore, as no one was substituted for him, there was nothing for the Xoyoπoloί of Rome to speculate about; the appointment of the praefectus set them at work. But his real importance as a counsellor (Tac. Ann. 3. 30) was a question not of status but of confidence, and the breach of confidence occurred in 22.

As for the connexion with Terentia, it may be doubted whether it was even a reality. Suetonius says nothing about it, and that is not all. He does say in general terms adulteria eum exercuisse ne amici quidem negant. After this, any one who has studied the 'Lives of the Caesars' might wager that if there was specific proof against Terentia, Suetonius could not find it. For earlier scandals about Octavian he cites his authority-the Letters of Antonius! If all evidence about the amours of public men were ruled inadmissible, historic truth would gain more than it would lose.

That Maecenas retained the confidence of Augustus as late as the year 21 has been inferred from the anecdote in Dion 54. 7, that he was consulted on the marriage of Julia to Agrippa, and said to the emperor, 'You have made him so great that he must either become your son-in-law, or be put to death'. But if this precise knowledge of 'what the king said to the queen were not rather suspicious, the anecdote would still prove nothing about the real relations of the monarch and the

minister. That Maecenas suffered no outward disgrace may be inferred from Horace and the silence of the historians, and if so, of course he was still sometimes formally consulted. Moreover the consultation might refer to the months between the death of Marcellus and the conspiracy just as well as to those between the conspiracy and the departure of Augustus from Rome.

There is therefore nothing to shake the authority of the statement in Suetonius, which, supported as it is by the passage of Seneca quoted above (p. 23), seems beyond question.

THE HISTORICAL POEMS AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE THREE BOOKS.

More than once in the course of the preceding Essays I have used language implying that the Three Books of Odes, regarded as a whole, have a scheme,-that, among the facts bearing on the interpretation of a single poem, the place of that poem in the collection is or may be material. Of the historical poems, in particular, it was said in the first Essay that they seem to be so arranged as to form a sort of historical framework to the rest. It is time to explain and justify these propositions.

In doing this I must frequently employ such language as 'the date of' this or that piece; and as this phrase is open to a misunderstanding fatal to my meaning, I desire in the first place to clear it. By the date of an Ode I mean always the internal or, as I have elsewhere called it, the ostensible date, the time at which the lyric speaker is supposed to speak. If, as of course is very frequently the case, there is no such imagined time, if the time is not material to the picture, the poem has not, in the present sense, any date at all. In one sense, or rather two, every piece of literature has a date, a date of writing and a date of publication, but with neither of these external dates are we here concerned'. The completion of the Three Books in their present form is fixed, as we have seen, by internal evidence to some time after the year 22 and probably in the winter of 20-19. Whether any part of the collection had been previously published, and if so, in what form and to how large a circle, we have neither adequate means to know nor

1 The construction of In Memoriam presents a parallel in our own literature

and will be useful for comparison hereafter.