The Satires of Horace and Persius

by Horace

  17. Palatine temple: Apollo’s temple, celebrating the victory at Actium, was dedicated by Augustus in 28 BC. It contained a library of Greek and Latin works.

  21. buzzing: The metaphor of the bee is expounded by D. A. West, Reading Horace (Edinburgh, 1967), p. 30ff.

  31. Munatius: Perhaps a son of L. Munatius Plancus addressed in Odes 1.7.

  Epistle 1. 4

  1. Albius: Probably the poet Albius Tibullus; cf. Odes I. 33.

  ‘conversations’: Horace’s Sermones. The term includes both Satires and Epistles, but here it refers only to the Satires.

  2. Pedum: An old town between Tibur and Praeneste.

  3. Cassius of Parma: Like the more famous Cassius Longinus, he was one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar. Having fought on Antony’s side at Actium, he was executed by order of Octavian. His pieces (opuscula) were probably elegies.

  16. herd: The word grex could be used of a philosophical school as well as of animals. Epicurus, though in fact rather ascetic, was later represented as a voluptuary.

  Epistle 1. 5

  1. Archias: Apparently a maker of unpretentious furniture.

  3. Torquatus: An aristocrat descended from T. Manlius Torquatus who killed a Gaul in single combat, and later, after a battle against the Latins at Trifanum in 340 BC, had his son executed for disobedience on the battlefield. The severity of this order led to the phrase imperia Manliana.

  4. Taurus: T. Statilius Taurus was Consul for the second time in 26 BC.

  5. Minturnae: In Latium near the Campanian border, three miles from the sea.

  Petrinum: A mountain.

  Sinuessa: Twelve miles south-east of Minturnae. The area is probably chosen because this was the scene of the battle of Trifanum (see note on v. 3 above).

  6. obey orders: An allusion to the imperia Manliana (see note on v. 3 above).

  9. Moschus: A rhetorician from Pergamum, unsuccessfully defended by Torquatus on a charge of poisoning and exiled to Marseilles.

  Caesar’s birthday: Augustus was born on 23 September 63 BC.

  21. under orders: see note on v. 3 above.

  26–7. Septicius and Butra… Sabinus: All unknown.

  28. shadows: (Umbrae) men who followed an important figure around and who might accompany him to dinner although not guests in their own right.

  29. the goat: ‘Body-odour’, particularly that from the armpits.

  Epistle 1. 6

  1. ‘Never be dazzled’: The Latin admirari here denotes an undesirable disturbance, whether of fear or acquisitiveness, brought about by visual contemplation. The maxim in question was attributed to Pythagoras and Democritus; similar notions of imperturbability were current among the Stoics and Epicureans.

  2. Numicius: Unknown.

  15–16. The sensible man… proper limit: The types of behaviour described in vv. 1–14 are all unrestrained. A proper limit must be observed – even (paradoxically) in the pursuit of goodness.

  21. Mute: (Mutus) unknown.

  26. Agrippa’s Porch: Erected by Augustus’ general Agrippa in 25 BC.

  Appian Way: The main road leading south from Rome to Capua and Brundisium.

  27. Numa and Ancus: The second and fourth kings of Rome; examples of greatness and popularity.

  33. Cibyra: A town in south Phrygia in Asia Minor.

  Bithynia: A territory on the south-west end of the Black Sea.

  39. Cappadocia’s king: Probably Ariobarzanes III (d. 42 BC), whose desperate financial problems (resulting from Roman exploitation) are mentioned more than once in Cicero’s letters. A reference to his successor Archelaus would be more topical, but topicality is not a decisive factor here. (See next note.)

  40. Lucullus: Campaigned against Mithridates in the east with considerable success between 72 and 69 BC. In his private life he was a by-word for luxury.

  45–6. A house is sadly… grow fat on: This is, of course, ironical.

  52. Fabian… Veline: Two of the thirty-five tribes in which Roman citizens were enrolled.

  53. the rods: The fasces, symbol of the higher magistrates’ authority.

  53–4. the chair of ivory: Occupied by the higher magistrates.

  58. Gargilius: Unknown, perhaps a figure taken from the satires of Lucilius.

  63. Caere’s third-rate townsmen: According to Livy, the inhabitants of Caere, an old town in south Etruria, were deprived of the franchise as a punishment for a revolt against Rome in the third century. But the facts are obscure. The sense of Horace’s phrase is: ‘behaving in a way unworthy of a Roman citizen’.

  65. Mimnermus: An elegiac poet of Colophon, writing in the seventh century BC. Horace is paraphrasing lines which say: ‘What is life, what is enjoyable without golden Aphrodite? May I die when such things no longer interest me – secret love, gentle gifts and bed.’

  Epistle 1. 7

  5–9. the heat… bouts of malaria: refer to late August and September.

  10. Alban fields: The slopes of the Alban hills south-east of Rome.

  14. gift: The Sabine farm.

  Calabria: At this period, the area in the heel of Italy.

  28. Cinara: A girl mentioned more than once in the Odes.

  41–3. ‘Ithaca’s not very good for horses… to you’: These words are taken from Odyssey 4. 601ff. The son of Atreus is Menelaus.

  45. Tarentum: A wealthy colony (the modern Taranto) inside the heel of Italy.

  46. Philippus: There were at least three Philippi whom Roman readers might have identified as Horace’s figure; speculation is futile.

  48. Carinae: A fashionable district on the southern spur of the Esquiline, little more than a quarter of a mile from the Forum.

  59. Park: The Campus Martius.

  94. guardian spirit: The Latin genius, on which see Rose’s note in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

  98. foot-rule: A measure which is thought of here as varying with the size of the man.

  Epistle 1. 8

  1. Celsus: On the staff of Tiberius. See notes on Epistles I. 3. 2 and 15.

  16. drop: A medical metaphor.

  Epistle 1. 9

  1. Claudius: The future emperor Tiberius.

  Septimius: Also addressed in Odes II. 6. See Nisbet-Hubbard.

  Epistle 1. 10

  1. Fuscus: M. Aristius Fuscus: a literary friend. One of the scholiasts (the pseudo-Acron) says he was a school teacher, which would fit v. 45. See also Satires I. 9. 61ff. and Odes I. 22.

  10. cakes: Used for sacrifice.

  12. live in accordance with nature: A Stoic principle.

  16. Dog-star… Lion: The dog-star becomes visible on 26 July; the sun enters Leo on 23 July.

  19. Libyan chippings: Numidian marble, used in mosaics.

  26. Sidonian purple: From Sidon, the Phoenician port.

  27. Aquinum: In Latium on the via Latina, about eighty miles south-east of Rome. It was the home town of the satirist Juvenal.

  49. Vacuna: A Sabine goddess with an old temple near Horace’s farm. The poet may be playing with the etymology vacare: to be idle.

  Epistle 1. 11

  1. Bullatius: Unknown.

  Chios and Lesbos: Two large islands off the coast of Asia Minor.

  2. Samos: Another island, about forty miles south-east of Chios.

  Sardis: Capital of Lydia in Asia Minor, ruled over by Croesus from about 560–546 BC.

  3. Smyrna and Colophon: Famous cities in the west of Asia Minor.

  5. Attalus: Attalus III bequeathed his kingdom to Rome in 133 BC. The kingdom included cities like Pergamum, Apollonia, and Ephesus.

  6. Lebedus: A small coastal town fifteen miles west of Colophon.

  7–10. (You know what Lebedus is… fury of Nepture): Some editors give these lines to Bullatius, but it seems better to regard them as a brief reverie of Horace’s, which is corrected in what follows.

  8. Gabii: Fifteen miles east of Rome.

  Fidenae: Six miles north of Rome. Like Gabii, it was an old town now half deserted.

&n
bsp; 17. Mytilene: Chief city of Lesbos.

  30. Ulubrae: An insignificant village in the Pomptine marshes south-east of Rome.

  Epistle 1. 12

  1. Agrippa: M. Vipsanius Agrippa (born c. 64 BC), Augustus’ general and admiral, who in 21 BC was married to the emperor’s daughter Julia.

  2. Iccius: Also addressed in Odes I. 29.

  12. Democritus: Democritus of Abdera in Thrace (c. 460–c. 370 BC). A man of powerful and wide-ranging intellect, he was one of the pioneers of the atomic theory, which was taken over by Epicurus. This is the kind of story that tends to be associated with philosophers.

  20. Empedocles: A thinker from Acragas in Sicily, who died c. 433 BC at the age of about sixty. He wrote an important work in hexameters On Nature. See also Ars Poetica 464n.

  Stertinius: A Stoic philosopher; in Satires II. 3. 33ff. he is represented as a contemporary of Horace, though perhaps somewhat older.

  22. Pompeius Grosphus: Addressed in Odes II. 16.

  26. Cantabria: The Cantabri, a tribe in northern Spain, were finally defeated by Agrippa in 19 BC, but Horace may be referring to a campaign of the previous year.

  Armenia: In 20 BC Tiberius installed Tigranes on the throne of Armenia without any opposition, but the episode was represented on coins and elsewhere as a military victory.

  27. Phraates: King of Parthia; in 20 BC he returned to the Romans the standards which had been captured from Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC. He was induced to do so by the return of his son, who had been kidnapped by his rival Tiridates five years before. Augustan propaganda made much of this diplomatic success.

  28–9. golden Plenty… brimming horn: The cornucopia figured in numerous works of art as a symbol of abundance. I have translated defudit (which implies that the harvest is over) rather than defundit.

  Satire 1.13

  1. Vinnius: A well-known strong-man called Vinnius Valens was a centurion in Augustus’ praetorian guard; note the reference to strength in v. 10. The recipient’s father had the cognomen of Asina (Ass). In the view of McGann (Classical Quarterly 13(1963) 258ff.) the phrase paternum cognomen (8–9) means that the name Asina belonged only to Vinnius’ father and was not borne by Vinnius himself. Whether or not this is right, Vinnius himself is described in terms suitable to an ass.

  10. Use your strength… bog: The most natural assumption would be that Augustus was somewhere in Italy rather than in Rome or overseas. But in view of the comic nature of the epistle one cannot be sure.

  14. Pirria: According to the pseudo-Acron, Horace is referring to a servant-girl in a comedy by Titinius, who was writing in the middle of the second century BC. There is doubt, however, about the form of the name.

  17. poems: Carmina refers to the first collection of Odes, published in 23 BC. M. L. Clarke in Classical Review 22(1972) 157–9, thinks it means the present collection of Epistles, but their send-off comes in Epistles I. 20.

  Epistle 1. 14

  3. Varia: A town on the Anio (now Vicovaro) two or three miles south of Horace’s farm.

  6. Lamia: One of the Aelii Lamiae, a distinguished family from Formiae in south Latium. He may be the man who became Consul in AD 3. The brother was probably Quintus Aelius Lamia, a commissioner of the mint in 21 or 20 BC. E. J. Kenney suggests that this brother had not died but had fallen for a girl (Illinois Classical Studies II (1977) 235 ff.). But Horace’s language seems too heavy for this.

  32. The man: Horace himself.

  Epistle 1. 15

  1. Vala: a member of the family Numonius Vala. A Q. Numonius Vala was a prominent figure in Paestum (about half way between Velia and Salernum). But we cannot be sure that he was the man in question.

  Velia: On the coast of Lucania, about seventy miles south-east of Naples. It was founded as a Greek colony in the middle of the sixth century BC.

  Salernum: The modern Salerno, twenty-five miles north-west of Paestum.

  3. Antonius Musa: A freedman physician who in 23 BC cured Augustus of an illness by a treatment involving cold baths and cold drinks.

  9. Clusium: The modern Chiusi, in Etruria about eighty-five miles northwest of Rome.

  Gabii: See Epistles I. 11. 8.

  12. Cumae: A coastal town just north of Baiae.

  Baiae: A fashionable resort on the north-western end of the Bay of Naples.

  13. the horse’s ear’s in its bridled mouth: I.e. shouting is no good; the horse will only be guided by the rein.

  24. Phaeacian: A member of the carefree and indolent community described in Odyssey 7 and 8: see especially 8. 248–9.

  27. Maenius: A figure satirized by Lucilius.

  36. Bruty: For Bestius see note on Persius 6. 38.

  Epistle 1. 16

  1. Quinctius: A successful young man, perhaps identical with Quinctius Hirpinus in Odes II. 11.

  11. Tarentum: See note on Epistles I. 7. 45.

  27–9. ‘May Jove… the people’s’: The lines are said by the scholiasts to come from a panegyric on Augustus by L. Varius Rufus, the friend of Horace and Virgil.

  49. The Sabine: I.e. Horace himself, but the name also implies old-fashioned rustic integrity.

  60. Laverna: The patron goddess of thieves and impostors.

  74–9. ‘Pentheus, lord of Thebes… I’ll die’: These lines are ultimately based on Euripides, Bacchae 492–8, but the direct ancestor may be the Roman Pacuvius’ Pentheus, written in the second century BC.

  79. Death is the end of the race: This is Horace’s allegorical interpretation. In Euripides the speaker (who, unknown to Pentheus, is the god Dionysus) means that he will be set free from jail.

  Epistle 1. 17

  1. Gauche: The Latin name is Scaeva (left hand). The appropriateness of the name to the subject would seem to justify this translation. The individual himself (if indeed he existed) is unknown.

  8. Ferentinum: A lonely town on the via Latina, about forty-five miles south-east of Rome.

  13. Aristippus: Born c. 435 BC in Cyrene in North Africa; he preached a doctrine of hedonism. It is a matter of debate whether he or his grandson should rightly be thought of as the founder of the Cyrenaic school.

  25. double rag: Instead of wearing a tunic underneath, the Cynics doubled the cloak. The scholiasts recount that one day, when leaving the baths, Aristippus put on Diogenes’ cloak, leaving his own crimson one for Diogenes. The latter refused to put it on and demanded his own back. Aristippus then remonstrated with him for being a poseur: ‘You’d sooner freeze than be seen in a crimson garment.’

  31. Miletus: The most southerly of the great Ionian cities of Asia Minor. It was famous for its wool.

  36. ‘Not every man… to Corinth’: This is a rendering of a Greek proverb, meaning ‘The highest prizes are reserved for the lucky few.’ The original context had to do with Lais and other expensive Corinthian courtesans. Here the remark comes from an imaginary objector, who implies that finding favour with the great (as Horace did) is wholly a matter of luck.

  38. ‘Did he act like a man?’: This is the fundamental question.

  55–62. he’s like the girl… raucous chorus: These lines recall the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’

  60. Osiris: Egyptian cults were familiar at Rome.

  Epistle 1. 18

  1. Lollius: See Epistles I. 2. He clearly belonged to a well-to-do family (60–64).

  15. how to define a tomato: The equivalent question in Latin was whether a goat’s hair could be called wool.

  18. A second life: I.e. ‘I would not choose to have a second life if it meant surrendering the right to say what I think.’

  19. Smart: The Latin name is (probably) Docilis.

  20. Appian or the Minucian: The question seems to have been whether the longer but smoother Appian was preferable to the shorter but rougher Minucian. If, as seems probable, the Minucian was the road later known as the via Traiana, that was the route travelled by Maecenas and Horace in the journey described in Satires I. 5. It started from Beneventum and ran north of the via Appia through Canusium and
Barium. To judge from Satires I. 5. 95–6 stretches of it were certainly in bad repair at this period.

  32. Witt: The knight P. Volumnius, an acquaintance of Antony, Atticus, and Cicero, who was well known for his wit and so given the name Eutrapelus (Witty).

  36. a Thracian: A type of gladiator, armed with a scimitar and a small round shield.

  41. Amphion and Zethus: Twin brothers, sons of Zeus and Antiope. Amphion was a musician, Zethus a herdsman. Together they built the walls of Thebes, but their different tastes led to a quarrel, which was represented in Euripides’ Antiope and Pacuvius’ Antiopa.

  46. Aetolian: Calydon in Aetolia was the scene of the famous boar-hunt in which Meleager took part. Hence ‘Aetolian’ is a learned, ‘literary’ epithet.

  55–7. the savage campaigns… Italy’s empire: Augustus led campaigns against the Cantabri in Spain in 26 and 25 BC. For his recovery of the standards from the Parthians see note on Epistles I. 12. 27.

  63. Actian battle: Actium is a promontory of Acarnania in western Greece, scene of the naval battle (31 BC) in which Octavian’s fleet defeated those of Antony and Cleopatra.

  64. Victory swoops: Because she is winged.

  82. Theon: Unknown.

  103. Digentia: The modern Licenza, a tributary of the Anio.

  104. Mandela: A village on a hillside across the Digentia, about two miles from Horace’s farm.

  Epistle 1. 19

  1. Cratínus: A fifth-century comic poet, mentioned for his candour along with Aristophanes and Eupolis in Satires I. 4. 1. His reputation for drunkenness was fostered by himself in a play called The Flagon.

  12. Cato: M. Porcius Cato (95–46 BC), great-grandson of Cato the Censor (Satires I. 2. 32). A genuine but rather ostentatious Stoic.