Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/14

viii While engaged in the study of philosophy at Athens, a study which was hereafter to form the ground-work of his literary fame, the assassination of Julius Cæsar brought on the crisis between the contending interest of Rome. Horace joined the republican party, and attained the rank of a military tribune under Brutus. In whatever light we regard his flight at the subsequent battle of Philippi, it is certain that the disgrace was shared but by too many upon that day, in which the Romans lost their last hopes of freedom, and exchanged public virtue for private luxury and refinement.

With the probability that his small possessions, like those of Virgil, were confiscated to remunerate a soldiery who had fought against their own countrymen, we may fairly suppose that this misfortune first tended to develop the poetical genius of Horace, and that his necessities became a powerful motive for the exertion of talents which had been chastened and ripened by every advantage afforded by the times. Gradually his powers of wit and repartee, aided perhaps by the propitiatory oblation of little poems "upon occasion," increased his friendship with the great, and introduced him to the intimacy of Mæcenas. A friendship of the firmest kind sprang up from what was at first but a distant and patronizing courtesy, and Horace, like Virgil, henceforth became the constant friend and associate of Mæcenas, whom he accompanied upon the most confidential missions. About the year 37, (for the date is very uncertain,) Horace followed his