Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/833

 HOR the demerit of tardiness in the spring, its branches remaining bare long after all other shrubs are clothed with foliage ; the large clus- ters of winged fruit give it an attractive ap- pearance late in the season. The fruit is in- tensely and even nauseously bitter, and, though HORACE 815 Hop Tree (Ptelea trifoliate). often used as a substitute for hops, is entirely without the aromatic principle which qualifies the bitterness of the true hop. As many vege- table bitters have the property of preventing alcoholic fermentation from passing into the acetous, no doubt the fruit of this will answer the same purpose as heps in making yeast. An infusion of the leaves and young shoots is said to possess anthelmintic properties. HOR, in Biblical geography, a mountain near the southern boundary of eastern Palestine, upon which Aaron, the brother of Moses, died. It is now generally identified with the Jebel Nebi Harun (mountain of the Prophet Aaron), the highest and most conspicuous of the range of the sandstone mountains of Edom, on the E. side of the great valley of the Arabah. Its height is 4,800 ft. above the Mediterranean. HORACE (QuiNTus HOKATIUS FLACOTJS), a Roman poet, born in Venusia, Apulia, Dec. 8, 65 B. C., died Nov. 27, 8 B. 0. His father was a freedman, collector, and proprietor of a farm, and though of servile origin determined to de- vote his time and fortune to the education of his son. He took him to Rome, where he was educated as the son of a knight or senator. One of his teachers, the flogging Orbilius (plagosum Orbilium), the poet has immortal- ized. He studied the Greek and Latin poets, especially Homer and Livius Andronicus, and went through the usual course of rhetorical instructions. From Rome he was sent in his 18th year to Athens to continue his studies, and, though he chiefly attached himself to the philosophical tenets of the Academy, he heard also Cratippus the Peripatetic and Philodemus 412 VOL. VIIL 52 the Epicurean. There, too, he read Homer again, the masterpieces of Grecian tragedy and comedy, and especially the Greek lyric poets. When Brutus arrived in Athens on his way to Macedonia after the death of Caesar, Horace enthusiastically joined him with other Roman students, and notwithstanding his youth and inexperience was advanced to the rank of a military tribune and the command of a legion in the republican army. To his share in the battle of Philippi, the loss of his shield, and his hasty flight, he playfully alludes (Carm. ii. 7), intimating that he knew when he was beaten, and ascribing his escape to Mercury, the god of poets. He returned to Rome with no prospects, his paternal estate having been confiscated, but was enabled to buy a clerkship in the quaestor's office, which furnished scanty emolument. Poverty, he says, impelled him to write verses. His ef- forts soon won the attention of Virgil and Varius, who introduced him to Maecenas. The latter dismissed him with few words and no promises, and took no further notice of him for nine months, after which their friendship rapidly ripened into intimacy. In the follow- ing year (37) he accompanied his patron on the journey to Brundusium which is the subject of Satire i. 5. He soon after received from Maecenas the gift of his Sabine farm, which he has often described, and which secured him the means of support and enjoyment for the rest of his life. His constant intercourse with Maecenas introduced him to the society of other distinguished men, and won the notice of Augustus himself, who was ambitious of being celebrated by the poet, but whose offers of advancement the latter seems to have de- clined, though he expresses in his odes the prevailing admiration for " the tutelary guar- dian of peace, civilization, and progress." His friendship with Maecenas was unbroken till the death of the latter, who in his last words com- mended him to the emperor : Horatii Flacci, ut mei, este memor. Horace died a few weeks later, so suddenly that he had no time to make his will, and appointed Augustus his executor and heir. He was buried on the slope of the Esquiline hill. His poems contain many par- ticulars as to his person, habits, tastes, and temperament. He was of short stature, with dark hair which early turned gray, and dark eyes, and in advanced life was very corpulent. He was never married. He appears to have been of a singularly contented and happy na- ture, adopting a practical, if not speculative, Epicureanism, a lover of choice wines and good society, but generally simple and frugal in his habits. His edes are exquisitely finished, and are marked by a faultless taste and a mastery of metre and of language, by keen observation and a joyous amenity. His satires are sketches of the life and manners of the Romans in the reign of Augustus, and present a striking con- trast to the more grave and severe productions of Juvenal. His epistles, including De Arte