vI ON SOCIAL AND POLITICAL AMBITION Tuus Satire, addressed to the poet's patron, is mainly autobiographical. Horace, now an intimate friend of Maecenas, has become an object of suspicion and envy to many people whose social and political aspirations were unsatisfied. He therefore disclaims such ambition for himself, sets forth the principles upon which Maecenas chooses his friends, and pays a noble tribute to his own father, to whom he is indebted for all that he is, both in character and education. Himself the son of a freedman, he has no wish to change places with a man of patrician birth. As it is, he lives a simple and care-free life, and is far more happy than if he had the burden of noble ancestry on his shoulders. As this interesting Satire contains no allusion to the Sabine farm, it was probably composed before 33 B.c., the year when Maecenas presented him with the estate. In its subject and treatment it is to be grouped with the third, fourth, and tenth Satires. It is at once a defence of Maecenas, who did not look down upon men of lowly birth, and of the poet himself, who is not ashamed of his humble origin, but is proud of his freedman father, who had given him the intellectual and moral training which won for him a place in the circle of his patron. For the influence of Lucilius upon this Satire see Introduction GC. 5VI. Non quia, Maecenas, Lydorum quidquid Etruscos incoluit finis, nemo generosior est te, nec quod avus tibi maternus fuit atque paternus, olim qui magnis legionibus imperitarent,! ut plerique solent, naso suspendis adunco 5 ignotos,? ut? me libertino patre natum.4 Cum referre negas quali sit quisque parente natus, dum ingenuus, persuades hoc tibi vere, ante potestatem Tulli atque ignobile regnum multos saepe viros nullis maioribus ortos 10 et vixisse probos, amplis et honoribus auctos ; contra Laevinum, Valeri genus, unde Superbus Tarquinius regno pulsus® fugit, unius assis non umquam pretio pluris licuisse, notante iudice quo nosti populo, qui stultus honores 15 saepe dat indignis et famae servit ineptus, qui stupet in titulis et imaginibus. quid oportet nos facere a volgo longe longeque® remotos ? Namque esto, populus Laevino mallet honorem 1 imperitarint, J, accepted by Vollmer. * ignoto Palmer. 2 ut D: aut aM, I; aut ut C: at ut E. ‘4 natus or natos aCDE. ® pulsus regno CK. 6 Jateque Goth. * Cf. Odes, i. 1. 1. The Etruscans, according to the tradition commonly accepted in antiquity, came from Lydia. ® The reference is to Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, said to have been the son of a female slave. See, however, Livy, i. 89. 6. 16Satme VI + Though of all the Lydians that are settled in Tuscan lands none is of nobler birth than you,? and though grandsires of yours, on your mother’s and father’s side alike, commanded mighty legions in days of old, yet you, Maecenas, do not, like most of the world, curl up your nose at men of unknown birth, men like myself, a freedman’s son. 7 When you say it matters not who a man’s parent is, if he be himself free-born, you rightly satisfy yourself of this, that before the reign of Tullius and his lowly kingship,? numbers of men, sprung from ancestors of no account, often lived upright lives and were honoured with high office; that Laevinus, on the other hand, descendant of that Valerius through whom Tarquin the Proud was driven from his throne to exile, was never valued higher by the price of a single penny, even when rated by the people—the judge you know so well, who in folly often gives office to the unworthy, is stupidly enslaved to fame, and dazzled by titles of honour and waxen masks.° What, then, should we? do, we who are set far, far above the vulgar ? 39 For let us grant that the people would rather ¢ Waxen masks of ancestors with accompanying in- peripane would imply the antiquity and nobility of one’s family. ‘ The plural is generic, meaning intelligent and educated people. 77 HORACE quam Decio mandare novo, censorque moveret 20 Appius, ingenuo si non essem patre natus : vel merito, quoniam in propria non pelle quiessem. sed fulgente trahit constrictos Gloria curru non minus ignotos generosis. quo tibi, Tilli, sumere depositum clavum fierique tribuno ? 25 invidia accrevit, privato quae minor esset. nam ut quisque insanus nigris medium impediit! crus pellibus et latum demisit? pectore clavum, audit continuo: “ quis homo hic est??” “ quo patre natus ?” ut? si qui aegrotet quo morbo Barrus, haberi 30 et cupiat formosus, eat quacumque, puellis iniciat® curam quaerendi singula, quali sit facie, sura, quali pede, dente, capillo : sic qui promittit civis, urbem sibi curae, impcrium fore et Italiam, delubra deorum, 35 quo patre sit natus, num ignota matre inhonestus, omnis mortalis curare et quaerere cogit.6 “tune, Syri, Damae, aut Dionysi filius, audes deicere de saxo civis aut tradere Cadmo ?” “at Novius collega gradu post me sedet uno : 40 1 impediit Porph. : impediet arss. 2 dimisit DEK. 2 est aDE: et CK: aut Bentley. et gp. 8 inliciat CK Goth. 6 cogit K: cogat ass. @ A reference to the well-known fable of the Ass in the Lion’s Skin. P. Decius Mus, first of a plebeian family to become a consul, sacrificed himself in the Latin war (Livy, viii. 9). > The laticlave or broad epg (cf. Sat. i. 5. 36) of purple on the tunic was a mark of the senatorian order. Tillius, according to the scholiasts, was removed from the senate 78SATIRES, I. vr. 20-40 give office to a Laevinus than to an unknown Decius, and that an Appius as censor would strike out my name if I were not the son of a free-born father— and quite rightly, for not having stayed quiet in my own skin. The truth is, Vanity drags all, bound to her glittering car, the unknown no less than the well known. What good was it to you, Tillius, to assume the stripe once doffed and become a tribune ?* Envy fastened on you afresh, but would be less, were you in a private station. For as soon as any man is so crazy as to bind the black thongs half way up his leg,* and to drop the broad stripe down his breast, at once he hears: ‘‘ What fellow is this ? What was his father?” Just as, if one should suffer from the same malady as Barrus, and long to be thought handsome, then wherever he went he would make the girls eager to ask about details— what his face was like, his ankle, his foot, his teeth, his hair: so he who takes it upon himself to look after his fellow-citizens and the city, the empire and Italy and the temples of the gods, compels all the world to take an interest, and to ask who was his father, and whether he is dishonoured through an unknown mother. “ Do you, the son of a Syrus, a Dama, a Dionysius,* dare to fling from the rock & or to hand over to Cadmus citizens of Rome?” “ But,” you say, ‘‘ Novius, my colleague, sits one row by Julius Caesar, but after the Dictator’s death resumed this dignity and also became a military tribune. © Senators wore a peculiar shoe, fastened by four black thongs bound about the leg. ¢ These are common slave-names. * ie. the Tarpeian rock from which criminals were sometimes thrown by order of a tribune. Cadmus was a public executioner. 79HORACE namque est ille, pater quod erat meus.” “ hoc tibi Paulus et Messalla videris ? at hic, si plostra ducenta concurrantque foro tria funera magna, sonabit! cornua quod vincatque tubas : saltem tenet hoc nos.” Nunc ad me redeo libertino patre natum, 45 quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum,? nune, quia sim? tibi, Maecenas, convictor, at olim, quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno. dissimile hoe illi est, quia non, ut forsit honorem iure mihi invideat quivis, ita te quoque amicum, 60 praesertim cautum dignos adsumere, prava ambitione procul. felicem dicere non hoc me possim,‘ casu quod te sortitus amicum : nulla etenim mihi te fors obtulit ; optimus olim Vergilius, post hunc Varius, dixere quid essem. 55 ut veni coram, singultim pauca locutus, infans namque pudor prohibebat plura profari, non ego me claro natum patre, non ego cireum me Satureiano vectari rura caballo, sed quod eram narro. respondes, ut tuus est mos, 60 pauca : abeo, ct revocas nono post mense iubesque esse in amicorum numero. magnum hoc ego duco, quod placui tibi, qui turpi secernis honestum non patre praeclaro, sed vita et pectore puro. Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea® paucis 65 1 funera, magna sonabit; so Palmer, Wickham, Vollmer. 2 natus aD. 3 sum D. # possunt com. Cruq., Bentley. 5 aut mea, II. * Seats in the theatre were assigned according to rank, knights occupying the first fourteen rows, and the senators the orchestral space. > Horace was a tribune in the army of Brutus, but each legion had six tribunes. 80SATIRES, I. vi. 41-85 behind me,? for he is only what my father was.” “Do you therefore fancy yourself a Paulus or a Messala? W hy, this Novius, if two hundred carts and three big funerals come clashing in the Forum, will shout loud enough to drown horns and trumpets : that at least takes with us.’ “5 Now to return to myself, “son of a freedman father,” whom all carp at as “son of a freedman father ’—now, because I consort with you, Maecenas; but in other days, because as tribune I had a Roman legion under my command.’ This case and that are different, for though perchance anyone may rightly grudge me the office, yet he should not grudge me your friendship as well—the less so, as you are cautious to choose as friends only the worthy, who stand aloof from base self-seeking. Fortunate I could not call myself as having won your friendship by some chance ; for ’twas no case of luck throwing you in my way ; that best of men, Virgil, some time ago, andafter him Varius, told you what manner of man I was. On coming into your presence I said a few faltering words, for speechless shame stopped me from saying more. My tale was not that I was a famous father’s son, not that I rode about my estate on a Saturian¢ steed: I told you what I was. As is your way, you answered little and I withdrew; then, nine months later, you sent for me again and bade me join your friends. I count it a great honour that I pleased you, who discern between fair and foul, not by a father’s fame, but by blamelessness of life and heart. ®° And yet, if the flaws that mar my otherwise sound nature are but trifling and few in number, ¢ i.e. Tarentine, Saturium being the district in which Tarentum was founded. The adjective belongs quite as much to rura as to caballo. e 81HORACE mendosa est natura, alioqui! recta, velut si egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos, si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec? mala lustra obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons, ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis ; 70 causa fuit pater his, qui macro pauper agello noluit in Flavi ludum me mittere, magni quo pueri magnis c? centurionibus orti; laevo suspensi loculos tabulamque lacerto, ibant octonos referentes Idibus aeris,* 15 sed pucrum est ausus Romam portare, docendum artis, quas doceat quivis eques atque senator semet prognatos, vestem servosque sequentis, in magno ut populo, si qui? vidisset, avita ex re praeberi sumptus mihi crederet illos. 80 ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnis circum doctores aderat.j quid multa? pudicum, qui primus virtutis honos, servavit® ab omni non solum facto, verum opprobrio quoque turpi ; nec timuit, sibi ne vitio quis verteret, olim 85 si praeco parvas aut, ut fuit ipse, coactor mercedes sequerer: neque ego essem questus: at hoc? nune laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior, Nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars, 90° quod non ingenuos habeat. clarosque parentis, sic me defendam. longe mea discrepat istis 1 alioquin, J, but of. Sat. i. 4. 4 # nec (mala) Vi ac uss.: aut Porph., Bentley. seta. 4 octonis . . . aera M, I, retained by Wickham. ® si quis K, Goth. 6 servabat, 7. 7 ad hoe ays. ‘The pupils paid their small school fee on the Ides of each month, The reading ocfonis would imply that the school-year lasted eight months. 82SATIRES, I. vi. 66-92 even as you might find fault with moles spotted over a comely person—if no one will justly lay to my charge avarice or meanness or lewdness; if, to venture on self-praise, my life is free from stain and guilt and Iam loved by my friends—I owe this to my father, who, though poor with a starveling farm, would not send me to the school of Flavius, to which grand boys used to go, sons of grand centurions, with slate and satchel slung over the left arm, each carrying his eightpence on the Ides*—nay, he boldly took his boy off to Rome, to be taught those studies that any knight or senator would have his own offspring taught. Anyone who saw my clothes and attendant slaves—as is the way in a great city ’—would have thought that such expense was met from ancestral wealth. He himself, a guardian true and tried, went with me among all my teachers. Need I say more ? He kept me chaste—and that is virtue’s first grace— free not only from every deed of shame, but from all scandal. He had no fear that some day, if I should follow a small trade as crier or like himself as tax- collector, somebody would count this to his discredit. Nor should I have made complaint, but, as it is, for this I owe him praise and thanks the more. 89 Never while in my senses could I be ashamed of such a father, and so I will not defend myself, as would a goodly number, who say it is no fault of theirs that they have not free-born and famous parents. Far different from this is what I say and what I think: ° I take this to mean that on going to Rome Horace’s father did as the Romans did. At Venusia Horace would have gone unattended, carrying his own books. Some, how- ever, take the words in magno ut populo with vidisset, i.e. “* had anyone noticed—so far as one could notice such things in a great throng.” 83HORACE et vox et ratio: nam si natura iuberet acertis annis aevum remeare peractum atque alios legere ad fastum quoseumque parentis 95 optaret sibi quisque,! meis contentus honestos? fascibus et sellis nollem mihi sumere, demens iudicio volgi, sanus fortasse tuo, quod nollem onus haud umquam solitus portare molestum. nam mihi continuo maior quaerenda foret res 100 atque salutandi plures, ducendus et unus et comes alter, uti ne solus rusve peregreve® exirem, plures calones atque caballi pascendi, ducenda petorrita. nunc mihi curto ire licet mulo vel si libet usque Tarentum, 105 mantica cui lumbos onere ulceret atque eques armos : obicict nemo sordes mihi, quas tibi, Tilli, cum Tiburte via praetorem quinque sequuntur te pueri, lasanum portantes oenophorumque. hoc ego commodius quam tu, praeclare senator, 110 milibus atque aliis vivo. Quacumque libido est, incedo solus ; percontor quanti holus ac far ; fallacem Cireum vespertinumque* pererro saepe Forum ; adsisto divinis ; inde domum me ad porri et ciceris refero laganique catinum. 15 cena ministratur pueris tribus, et lapis albus pocula cum cyatho duo sustinet ; adstat echinus vilis, cum patera gutus, Campana supelle: deinde eo dormitum, non sollicitus mihi quod cras 2 si quisque, JI. _ ® (h)onustos. 3 peregre aut arss.: Housman conjectures ne rus solusve peregre. 4 vespertinusque. @ The fasces were insignia of the consuls and praetors ; the curule sellae were a privilege of the aediles and censors as well. 84SATIRES, I. vr. 93-119 for if after a given age Nature should call upon us te traverse our past lives again, and to choose in keeping with our pride any other parents each might crave— content with my own, I should decline to take those adorned with the rods and chairs of state* And though the world would deem me mad, you, I hope, would think me sane for declining to shoulder a burden of trouble to which I have never been ac- customed. For at once I should have to enlarge my means, to welcome more callers, to take one or two in my company so as not to go abroad or into the country alone; I should have to keep more pages and ponies, and take a train of wagons. To-day, if I will, I may go on a bob-tailed mule even to Taren- tum, the saddle-bag’s weight galling his loins, and the rider his withers. No one will taunt me with meanness as he does you, praetor Tillius,? when on the Tibur road five slaves follow you, carrying a commode and case of wine. In this and a thousand other ways I live in more comfort than you, illustrious senator. ul Wherever the fancy leads, I saunter forth alone. I ask the price of greens and flour; often toward evening I stroll round the cheating Circus ¢ and the Forum. I listen to the fortune-tellers ; then home- ward betake me to my dish of leeks and peas and fritters. My supper is served by three boys, and a white stone-slab supports two cups with a ladle. By them stand a cheap salt-cellar, a jug and saucer of Campanian ware. Then I go off to sleep, untroubled with the thought that I must rise early on the morrow ® Apparently the man mentioned in ]. 94 above. ¢ The stalls in the outer wall of the Circus Maximus were used by fortune-tellers, confidence-men, and the like. 85HORACE surgendum sit mane, obeundus Marsya, qui se 120 voltum ferre negat Noviorum posse minoris. ad quartam iaceo ; post hanc vagor ; aut ego, lecto aut scripto quod me tacitum iuvet, unguor olivo, non quo fraudatis immundus Natta lucernis. ast ubi me fessum sol acrior ire lavatum 125 admonuit, fugio Campum lusumque trigonem2 pransus non avide, quantum interpellet inani ventre diem durare, domesticus otior. Haec est vita solutorum misera ambitione gravique 3 his me consolor victurum® suavius ac si 130 quaestor avus pater atque meus patruusque? fuissent. 1 fugio campum lusumque trigonem V4, Goth. (lusitque): fugio rabiosi tempora signi ass. Porph. Bannier (in Rh. M. Ixsiii. neue Folge, pp. 65 ff.) makes the interesting claim that both readings are correct, the original passage having been such as the following : admonuit fugio campum lusumque trigonem providus et fugio rabiosi tempora signi. ® victurus Goth. ® For patruus Biicheler conjectured praetor. * A statue of the Satyr Marsyas stood in the Forum near the praetor’s tribunal. The usurer Novius had his table 86SATIRES, I. v1. 120-131 and pass before Marsyas, who says he cannot stand the face of Novius Junior.* I lie a-bed till ten ; then I take a stroll, or after reading or writing something that will please me in quict moments I anoint myself with oil—not such as filthy Natta steals from the lamps. But when I am weary and the fiercer sun has warned me to go to the baths, I shun the Campus and the game of ball.» After a slight luncheon, just enough to save me from an all-day fast, I idle away time at home. 128 Such is the life of men set free from the burden of unhappy ambition. ‘Thus I comfort myself with the thought that I shall live more happily than if my grandfather had been a quaestor, and my father and uncle likewise. near by and so gives the poet an opportunity to put his own interpretation on the attitude or facial expression of Marsyas, who, after defeat in a musical contest with Apollo, was flayed alive. Extant copies of Myron’s Marsyas show him with right hand uplifted and a face expressive of pain. * The trigo was a game of ball in which three players took part. The phrase luswm trigonem means properly “the playing of ball,” and implies a transitive use of ludere (cf. “post decisa negotia,” Ep. i. 7. 89; also Sat. ii. 8. 248). See Jefferson Elmore, A.P.A. xxxv. p. xcii 87