96–100. The narrative passes quickly through a series of uneventful stops.
Piscosi < piscosus, –a, –um: “abounding in fish.”
Gnatia = Egnatia.
Lymphis iratis exstructa = “built on angry springs.” The water was either scarce or bad.
Cupit: the subject is Gnatia. The complement is persuadere, on which liquescere depends in indirect discourse. The subject of liquescere is tura. Sine is postpositive with flamma. Pliny in his Historia Naturalis 2.107.240 recounts that visitors were shown the miracle of an altar on which the wood took fire of itself. This mountebank show was the cause of the party’s risusque iocosque.
100–3. “Let the superstitious believe in such. I rest secure in the knowledge that the gods live in distant serenity, unconcerned with human affairs.” Horace here identifies with the Epicurean belief that the gods inhabit a separate realm and do not intervene in our affairs.
Iudaeus Apella: the Jewish population in Rome at this time was substantial. They were considered superstitious. Pseudo-Acron records a possible pun on circumcision in Apella—a common name among freedmen—taking it as a privative form of pellis or “skin.” See 1.9.70.
Tristis: accusative plural. Wonders are not signs the gods are angry, but facts of nature.
104. Chartaeque viaeque: the end of the road is also the end of the page and hence the end of the story. The abrupt conclusion pointedly does not tell us the result of Maecenas’s mission.
1.6
At the midway point in the first book of sermones, Horace rededicates his work to Maecenas [64]. He recounts his initial introduction to the great patron and explains how his father played the role of satirist in his youth, pointing out examples of virtue and vice [62–3]. Thus Horace ties together the personal, political, generic, and stylistic themes already explored in 1.4 and 1.5, while explicitly renouncing ambitions for personal political power.
In the process, Horace seeks to move nobilitas, ingenuitas, and libertas away from their traditional Roman definitions as external public virtues in favor of a new vision of them as internal ethical values. These new internal ethical values, in turn, are often derived from Hellenistic popular philosophy. Thus, in response to a question from King Antigonos about his family and city of origin, Bion the Borysthenite the main exponent of the diatribe form [40–1], replied, “examine me for myself” (Diogenes Laertius 4.46), thus declaring the irrelevance of inherited status, wealth, or prestige. This was a position that would have been inimical to the traditional Roman aristocracy with which Lucilius was identified [20–31]. Fiske (1920: 316–18) has argued that 1.6 is extensively indebted to Bion.
Of course, no overly strict dichotomy should be established between the public and private. These new definitions of traditional Roman virtues only become operational to the extent that they were recognized by others. The proof of Horace’s personal ingenuitas was its public recognition by Maecenas. The emerging Augustan regime had not substituted the private for the public, but had sought to replace the public recognition of externally determined virtues such as aristocratic birth, wealth, and competition for political and military honors, with the public promotion of internally determined ethical values such as modesty, honor, and fidelity. This program would become increasingly important as the regime hardened its grip on power and controlled access to both elective office and traditional military honors such as the triumph. In effect, the traditional realms of achievement—the cursus honorum and military excellence—would cease to exist for most upper-class Romans. Accordingly, the definitions of what it would mean for a civis Romanus to practice virtus would have to change as well. It was Maecenas’s recognition of Horace’s ability to practice (and through his poetry to promote) these new forms of virtue and self-definition that made him a worthy patron. It was Horace’s ability to practice the satiric genre, in accord with the aesthetic and ideological norms required for such a shift, that definitively differentiated his work from that of Lucilius.
1–6. “Not because some of the Lydians possessed Etruscan land is no one nobler than you.” Quidquid: we might more logically expect quisquis. The construction has a colloquial feel (Rolfe 1962).
Lydorum: the Etruscans were commonly supposed to be of Lydian descent. Maecenas was said to be descended from Etruscan nobility. Thus generosior in line 2, which comes from the same root as genus and genero, must be taken first in its literal sense of “well-born” and only upon rereading as “noble in character.” Of course, within traditional aristocratic ideology, the two meanings were not separable.
Finis = accusative plural.
Imperitarent = frequentative of impero. There is no evidence that any of Maecenas’s ancestors held high military command in Rome. The reference, then, would be to his legendary Etruscan forebears.
Naso suspendis adunco = “turn up your nose at,” a colloquial expression.
Ignotos = ignobiles. Nobilis derives from notabilis and at base means a person who is “known,” hence someone who is “prominent,” or as we would say in colloquial English, “someone who is somebody.”
Libertino patre natum: little is known about Horace’s father. He appears to have been a man of some education and wealth since he was able to send his son to the best teachers in Rome. The circumstances under which he became a slave and later a freedman are unknown. This phrase, which is repeated throughout the satire both verbatim (lines 45, 46) and with slight variation (lines 29, 36, 58), is a direct translation of Bion (Freudenburg 1993: 205).
7–17. Rome itself is founded on the revolt of the ignoble against the tyranny of the Tarquins. Even the people can sometimes see through the external signs of inherited nobility.
Referre < refert, referre, retulit: “to matter, to make a difference.” From res + fert.
Dum ingenuus = “so long as he is freeborn.” This attempt to redefine ingenuitas retained strict limits. A slave by definition could not be generosus. In effect, this redefinition of terms was less an exercise in philosophy—as in Stoicism where only the wise man is truly free—than the elaboration of a social ideology that sought to reconstruct what it meant to be a Roman citizen after the fall of the republic.
Persuades hoc tibi vere: The commentaries all elide the force of the reflexive construction. It is not simply that Maecenas rightly believes this (hoc) to be true, but that he correctly convinces himself that this is true. The construction implies that Maecenas is engaged in an active effort to overcome his own lingering aristocratic biases. The fact that Maecenas never sought senatorial rank and that his family had never been prominent in Rome, whatever the nobility of his Etruscan ancestors, cannot help but give the clause an ironic cast.
9. Ante potestatem Tulli atque ignobile regnum: Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome, was said to have been the son of a captured Latin slave and of an unknown father, raised in the household of Tarquinius Priscus.
11. Honoribus = “elected offices.”
12. Contra = adverb, “on the other hand.”
Laevinum: this individual is otherwise unknown, which may well be part of the point.
Valeri genus = “descendant of Valerius.” M. Valerius Poplicola helped Brutus expel Tarquinius Superbus and was one of the consuls for the first year of the republic.
Unde = a quo.
13. Unius assis = genitive of value.
14. Licuisse < liceo, –ere, –ui, –itum: “to be sold for, to be valued at.”
Notante iudice quo nosti populo = a lengthy and complex ablative absolute, “even with that judge whom you know, the people, rating him (i.e., Laevinus).” Notante < noto, –are: see 1.4.5. The people here act as censor by refusing to elect Laevinus to office. Nosti is a syncopated form for novisti. Quo is attracted into the ablative from the accusative.
15–16. Stultus … ineptus: note that the populus is derided, even if on occasion it can differentiate personal worth from social class or inherited excellence. This is not a call for democracy, but for the cultivation of an intellectual and spiritual élite that would s
upplant the traditional aristocracy and its competition for social, political, and military honors.
17. Imaginibus refers to the masks of dead consular ancestors kept in the atria of aristocratic households.
17–18. “What then should those of us who are far, far from the madding crowd do?” As the rest of the poem reveals, Horace was, in the opinion of many in the political class, not as far removed from the vulgus as this line would lead us to believe. There is a nice ambiguity in a, depending on whether we take it as introducing an ablative of separation or an ablative of agent.
19–22. “Even if the populus or the censor should reject me because of my birth, it would be a matter of no consequence since I have no desire for office.” Esto = third person imperative, “let it be the case.”
Decio = P. Decius Mus, a man of obscure birth who, as consul in 340 BCE, defeated the Latins at Veseris by performing a devotio. The devotio was a ritual in which a Roman general vowed his own life to the gods of the underworld in return for the lives of his enemies. Decius offered his prayer and rode directly into the enemy lines, thereby becoming an archetype of patriotism. He was the first member of his family to reach consular rank and hence was referred to as a novus homo.
Moveret: understand me.
Appius = Appius Claudius Pulcher, brother of the demagogue Clodius, who served as censor in 50 BCE. He purged the rolls of the senate, expelling all sons of freedmen.
Ingenuo: note that this is the fourth use of a word built on the stem gen– in this satire’s opening lines.
Vel merito = “and rightly too.”
In propria non pelle quiessem: proverbial expression for being happy with one’s position in life. The French still refer to someone who is bien dans sa peau. Horace would deserve to be kicked out because he would have shown that he was not happy with his status. Romans frowned on social climbers. Horace, however, has climbed a great deal. At the same time, he wants to call for both an aristocracy of the spirit and a conservative maintenance of traditional social hierarchies. This could only be achieved by an autocracy that remained sensitive to the social niceties of traditional Roman life, which is what the Augustan regime offered.
23–4. “We can all be slaves to Glory.” The image is that of a triumphal procession with Gloria’s captives led behind the general’s chariot. The triumph would normally be the pinnacle of a Roman noble’s military career. Gloria is a positive value in traditional Roman ideology. Cicero in the Pro Sestio defines dignitas, laus, and gloria as the characteristics of a life that eschews otium. In the De Officiis, those who do not pursue gloria are suspected of effeminacy.
Ignotos generosis: compare lines 2 and 6. Generosis is ablative of comparison.
24–5. “Why has Tillius once again entered the lists?” Understand profuit. The scholiasts suggest that Tillius had been expelled from the senate and was recalled after the death of Julius Caesar.
Clavum: see 1.5.34–6.
Tribuno = dative, in agreement with tibi. As the following lines make clear, the reference is to becoming tribune of the people.
26. Gloria only produces invidia.
27–9. “As soon as (ut), one assumes senatorial garb, everybody asks who your father is.” Nigris … pellibus: Senators wore shoes strapped on by black leather thongs. On pellibus, see pelle, line 22. Horace would not be comfortable in the senatorial shoe. The irony of impediit for binding on the shoe should not be lost. In strapping on the senatorial shoe, Tillius has lost the ability to move about freely. In assuming the highest social rank Rome has to offer, Tillius has given up the very libertas that separates the free man from the slave.
Demisit pectore = “has hung from the chest.”
Patre natus: this is the third time a line has ended with this phrase or its close relative patre natum (line 6). See also line 21, the line before in propria non pelle quiessem. We are clearly intended to note the parallels between the two passages. Patre natum appears twice more as a line-ending, lines 45 and 46.
30–7. “The would-be politician is like the would-be lover. He must be willing to suffer every indignity and be inspected from head to foot. The politician, like the lover, is little better than the slave on the block.” Horace here plays with inverting the elegiac motifs of servitium amoris and militia amoris. Instead of Ovid’s later, “every lover is a soldier,” we get instead “every politician is a lover.” Horace is presumably working from Gallus’s poetry and the Hellenistic precedents for the work of the later elegists who only became prominent in the twenties.
Barrus cannot be securely identified, but the scholiasts name him as someone accused of committing an illicit sexual act (stuprum) with the Vestal virgin Aemilia. He would thus be one who seeks to seduce the unseduceable. Understand aegrotat with Barrus.
Haberi = “to be considered.”
Iniciat curam: “he would arouse curiosity.”
Sura = “calf.”
Civis = accusative plural.
Urbem, imperium, Italiam, delubra are each in turn the subject of fore in indirect discourse. Delubra = “shrines.” These represent the would-be politician’s campaign promises.
Patre sit natus: another variation on the theme.
Omnis mortalis = accusative plural.
Cogit is slyly ironic.
38–9. There follow examples of the kind of slurs on the candidate’s family background that Tillius could expect. Syrus, Dama, and Dionysus are slave names indicating foreign birth. Syrus = “the Syrian.” Dionysus is a Greek name.
Saxo = the Tarpeian rock from which traitors were hurled to their death by order of the tribune of the people. The point of the slur is to pretend outrage at the prospect that foreign-born slaves could condemn Roman citizens (civis) to death.
Cadmo: another Greek and hence servile name. The scholiast tells us he was an executioner at the time.
40–1. Tillius makes his reply: the man elected with him to the tribunate is of lower lineage than he. Novius = a speaking name, meaning novus homo.
Gradu post me sedet uno: equestrians sat behind senators in the theater according to the law of Otho, passed in 67 BCE. Once Tillius had reassumed the latus clavus, he was entitled to sit with the senatorial order. Yet Novius is a freedman, just as Tillius’s father was. Tillius’s point is that he is from higher stock than his colleague, but in fact both have climbed above their station. The period of the civil wars was a time of great social instability [29–30]. Many of lower-class and obscure origins were promoted to fill the ranks of an aristocracy decimated by decades of self-slaughter. Such newly created aristocrats were clearly beholden to the generals or autocrats who created them and they were subject to the resentments, as well as recriminations, of others.
41–4. Tillius’s interlocutor replies with cutting irony: “do you therefore fancy yourself an aristocrat when Novius’s only virtue is an exceptionally loud voice?” an allusion to the bluster associated with office of tribune of the people, a post that had attracted reformers, revolutionaries, and demagogues, from the Gracchi to Clodius [16–18, 23].
Hoc = “on this account.”
Paulus et Messalla = the names (cognomina) of two of the oldest and most distinguished patrician families.
Hic = Novius.
Plaustra = the noise of the wagons in Rome was proverbial. See Juvenal 3.
Tria funera: Roman aristocratic funerals were noisy affairs accompanied by horns and trumpets. They wound their way to the Forum where a formal laudatio was given. The intersection of two hundred plebian wagons and three aristocratic funerals in the city’s legal and political center is an apt emblem of the conflicts to which this satire is devoted.
Magna goes with both funera and cornua.
The subject of sonabit = Nonius. The verb is more often used for inanimate objects than the human voice. This is not articulate speech but noise comparable to the wagons and horns.
Quod = “to the extent that.”
Saltem tenet hoc nos: “at all events this holds our attention.” The
clear implication is that Tillius lacks even that virtue. He is not only lowborn but also possessed of no distinguishing characteristics.
45–8. Back to our main topic. People envy me because I am Maecenas’s friend. The repeated libertino patre natum gives the effect of a mocking chant and recalls the opening of the satire (line 6).
Nunc ad me redeo: Horace affects a Lucilian casualness of construction.
Rodunt: a vivid image of slander’s effect.
Nunc quia … Maecenas recalls non quia, Maecenas (line 1)
Convictor = “dinner guest,” metonymy for friend.
Quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno: Horace was a military tribune under Brutus and Cassius at Philippi [63]. One had to be of at least equestrian rank to hold the office. Horace, thus, had already begun to advance into the ranks of the aristocracy at the time of Caesar’s assassination. The whole line recalls qui magnis legionibus imperitarent (line 4).
49–52. “But I am no longer possessed of ambition for honors and office.” Hoc refers back to the previous clause beginning with quia, while illi refers back to that beginning with quod.
Ut = “as.”
Forsit = “perhaps.”
Honorem = “office” as in the cursus honorum.
Amicum is in apposition to te. Invideat is assumed here again.
Cautum modifies te, subject of adsumere.
Dignos: the word is highly charged. It normally referred to an individual’s social status and the privileges that went with it. Caesar crossed the Rubicon to defend his dignitas. But, as Horace points out, Maecenas’s circle of worthies is not made up of those who claim their social prerogatives, but of those who are “far from depraved ambition.” Dignitas—the value whose defense led to the final collapse of the republic and eventually to Horace finding himself a military tribune at Philippi—has been redefined to signify the opposite of its traditional meaning.
52–5. “It was not mere chance (fors) that brought me to you but Vergil and Varius.” We are immediately brought back to the world of Horace’s friends on the journey to Brundisium (1.5). There we see the same cast of characters relaxing, obsessed with the small cares of daily life, and even enjoying a game of ball, as events of great political moment loom in the background. Here we flash back to how they all became associates. Hoc anticipates the clause introduced by quod.
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