Page:Tacitus; (IA tacituswilliam00donnrich).pdf/183

Rh Hercules! get you into a serious scrape. Yesterday you read to an audience your last tragedy, 'Cato.' You must have heard already, for all the town is talking of it, that this piece is not relished in high quarters. Folks are saying that you have thought much more of your hero than of yourself. Him, a grumbling old commonwealth man, you have drawn in the brightest colours. And what is Cato to you, or you to Cato, that you should run the risk of being sent on his account into exile, to starve on some barren island?"

Aper was accompanied on this visit by another ornament of the Forum, and a common friend of Maternus and himself—, an orator, of whom Quintilian entertained great expectations. They were not fulfilled, for Julius died young. The remonstrances of Aper were heard with equanimity by Maternus. "I was quite prepared for this," he says; "to differ on this subject is grown familiar to us both. You wage incessant war against poetry: I consider it a client whom I am bound to defend. But it happens, luckily, that on this occasion a competent arbiter of our standing feud is present. Our friend Secundus, after hearing what we have each to say, will either enjoin me to give up writing verses, or, as I hope, will encourage me to abandon a profession I am weary of, and to pursue one in which I delight." Secundus doubts whether Aper will accept him as an umpire. "To tell you the truth," he says, "though I cannot myself make verses, I feel a partiality for those who can, especially for that excellent man and no less excellent poet, ."

"Hang Saleius Bassus," retorts Aper, "and all his generation! Let him and all of his sort spin verses