Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/534

520 god of letters. Horace found his way back to Italj'-, and as perhaps he was not sufficiently rich or distinguished to dread proscription, or, according to the life by Suetonius, having obtained his pardon, he ventured at once to return to Rome. He had lost all his hopes in life ; his paternal estate had been swept away in the general forfeiture. Ve- nusia is one of the cities named by Appian {B. C. iv. 3) as confiscated. According to the life by Sue- tonius, Horace bought a clerkship in the quaestor's office. But from what sources he was enabled to obtain the purchase-money (iu these uncertain times such offices may have been sold at low prices), whether from the wreck of bis fortunes, old debts, or the liberality of friends, we have no clue. On the profits of that place he managed to live with the utmost frugality. His ordinary fare was but a vegetable diet ; his household stuff of the meanest ware, and, unlike poets in general, he had a very delicate taste for pure water. How long he held this place does not appear; but the scribes seem to have thought that they had a right to his support of the interests of their corporation, after he became possessed of his Sabine estate. {Sat. ii. 7. 36.) Yet this period of the poet's life is the most obscure, and his own allusions perplex and darken the subject. In more than one place he asserts that his poverty urged him to become a poet. {EpisL ii. 2. 51.)

But what was this poetry ? Did he expect to make money or friends by it ? or did he write merely to disburthen himself of his resentment and indignation at that period of depression and desti- tution, and so to revenge himself upon the world by an imsparing exposure of its vices ? Poetry in those times could scarcely have been a lucrative occupation. If, as is usually supposed, his earliest poetry was bitter satire, either in the Lucilian hexameter, or the sharp iambics of his Epodes, he could hardly hope to make friends ; nor, however the force and power of such writings might com- mand admiration, were they likely to conciliate the ardent esteem of the great poets of the time, of Varius or of Virgil, and to induce them to recom- mend him to the friendship of Maecenas. But this assuredly was not his earliest poetic inspira- tion. He had been tempted at Athens to write Greek verses : the genius of his country — the God Quirinus — had wisely interfered, and prevented him from sinking into an indifferent Greek versi- fier, instead of becoming the most truly Roman poet. {Sat. i. 10. 31, 35.) It seems most probable that some of the Odes (though collected and pub- lished, and perhaps having received their last finish, at a later period of his life) had been written and circulated among his friends. Some of his amatory lyrics have the ardour and freshness of youth, while in others he acknowledges the advance of age. When those friendly poets, Varius and Virgil, told Maecenas wliat Horace was {dixere quid essein ), they must have been able to say more in his praise than that he had written one or two coarse satires, and perhaps a few bitter iambics ; more especially if, according to the old scholiast, Maecenas himself had been the object of his satire. This interpretation, however, seems quite inconsis- tent with the particular account which the poet gives of his first interview with Maecenas {Sat. i. 6, 64, &c). On his own side there is jit first some shyness j^nd timidity, afterwards a frank and simple disclosure of his birth and of bis circumstances : on the other the careless, abrupt, and somewhat haughtily indiffeient manner of the great man, still betrays no appearance of wounded pride, to be pro- pitiated by humble apology. For nearly nine months Maecenas took no further notice of the poet : but at the end of that period he again sought his acquaintance, and mutual esteem grew up with the utmost rapidity. Probably the year following this commencement of friendship (b. c, 37), Horace accompanied his patron on that journey to Bmndu- sium, so agreeably described in the fifth Satire, book i. This friendship quickly ripened into inti- macy ; and between the appearance of the two books of Satires, his earliest published works, Mae- cenas bestowed upon the poet a Sabine farm, suffi- cient to maintain him in ease, comfort, and even in content {satis beatus unicis Sabinis), during the rest of his life. The situation of this Sabine farm was in the valley of Ustica {Cai-m. i. 17. 11), within view of the mountain Lucretilis, part of what is now called Mount Gennaro, and near the Digentia, about fifteen miles from Tibur (Tivoli). The valleys still bear names clearly resembling those which occur in the Horatian poetrj^ : the Digentia is now the Licenza ; Mandela, Bardella ; Ustica, Rustica. (Capmartin de Chaupy, Afuison d''Horace, vol. iii. Rome, 1767 ; Sir W. Gell, Rome and its Vici- nity., vol. i. p. 315.)

For the description of the villa, its aspect, cli- mate, and scenerj'-, see Epist. i. 10. 11, 23, and Epist. i. 16. A site exactly answering to the villa of Horace, and on which were found ruins of buildings, was first discovered by the Abbe Cap- martin de Chaupy, and has since been visited and illustrated by other travellers and antiquarians. (Domenico di Sanctis, Dissertazione sopra la Villa dWrnzio Flacco., Ravenna, 1784.) The site and ruins of the Temple of Vacuna {Epist. i. 10. 49) seem to be ascertained. (Sebastiani, Viaggio a Tivoli.)

The estate was not extensive ; it produced corn, olives, and vines ; it was surrounded by pleasant and shady woods, and with abundance of the purest water ; it was superintended by a bailiff (villicus), cultivated by five families of free coloni {Epist. i. 14. 3); and Horace employed about. eight slaves {Sat. ii. 7. 1 18). Besides this estate, his admira- tion of the beautiful scenery in the neighbourhood of Tibur inclined him either to hire or to purchase a small cottage in that romantic town ; and all the later years of his life were passed between these two country residences and Rome. (For Tibur, see Carm. i. 7. 10—14. ii. 6. 5—8, iii. 4. 21—24, Epod. i. 29—30; Ji^pist. i. 7.44—45, i.8, 12, Cann. iv. 2. 27—32, i V. 3. 10—12.) In Rome, when the poet was compelled to reside there, either by busi- ness, which he hated {invisa ncgotia)., or the so- ciety which he loved, if he did not take up his abode, he was constantly welcome in some one of the various mansions of his patron ; and Maecenas occasionally visited the quiet Sabine retreat of the poet.

From this time his life glided away in enjoyable repose, occasionally threatened but not seriously interrupted by those remote dangers which menaced or disturbed the peace of the empire. When Mae- cenas was summoned to accompany Octavius in the war against Antony, Horace {Epod. i.) had offered to attend him ; but Maecenas himself either remained at Rome, or returned to it without leaving Italy. From that time Maecenas himself resided constantly