The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 35

Maecenatis erunt vera tropaea fides.

Do. ii. 1. 36:-

Et sumta et posita pace fidele caput.

46 Velleius ii. 88.

47 Tac. Ann. iii. 30: 'Ille quamquam prompto ad capessendos honores aditu, Maecenatem aemulatus sine dignitate senatoria multos triumphalium consulariumque potentia anteiit, diversus a veterum inst.i.tuto per cultum et munditias, copiaque et affluentia luxu propior: suberat tamen vigor animi ingentibus negotiis par, eo acrior quo somnum et inertiam magis ostentabat.'

48 'Gallus for whom my love grows from hour to hour even as the green alder-tree shoots up in the early spring.'

49 Eclog. vi. 70, etc.

50 Sat. vii. 93, 94.

51 'When you say it makes no matter what a man's father was, provided he is of free-birth.' Sat. i. 6. 78.

52 'And as when often in a mighty mult.i.tude discord has arisen and the base rabble storms with pa.s.sion.'

53 'Ancus, unduly vain, even already delighting too much in the veering wind of the people's favour.'

54 Cp. Merivale's Roman Empire.

55 Vester, Camenae, vester in arduos Tollor Sabinos; seu mihi frigidum Praeneste, seu Tibur supinum, Seu liquidae placuere Baiae. Od. iii. 4. 2124.

56 Cf. the lines of Juvenal, vii. 6668, in especial reference to Virgil:-

Magnae mentis opus nec de lodice paranda Attonitae, currus et equos, faciesque Deorum Aspicere, et qualis Rutulum confundat Erinnys, etc.

57 ''Gainst flaming Sirius' fury thou Art proof, and grateful cool dost yield To oxen wearied with the plough, And flocks that range afield.' Martin.

58 'May my delight be in the fields and the flowing streams in the dales; unknown to fame may I love the rivers and the woods. O to be, where are the plains, and the Spercheos, and the heights, roamed over in their revels by Laconian maidens, the heights of Taygetus.'

59 Cf. Virg. Georg. ii. 470: 'Mollesque sub arbore somni.'

Hor. Ep. i. 14. 35: 'Prope rivum somnus in herba.'

Virg. Eclog. ii. 40: 'Nec tuta mihi valle reperti.'

Hor. Ep. i. 11. 10: 'Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem.'

60 'It is great riches for a man to live sparingly with a contented mind.'

61 Ep. i. 14. 3435.

62 Compare Munro's Lucretius, p. 306 (third edition).

63 'To be sleepless through the calm nights, searching by what words and verse I may succeed in holding a bright light before your mind, by which you may be able to see thoroughly things hidden from view.'

64 'While I seem ever to be plying this task, to be searching into the nature of things, and revealing it, when discovered, in writings in my native speech.'

65 iii. 8.

66 Virg. Eclog. vi. 72; x. 50.

67 Tusc. Disp. iii. 19.

68 'All other themes which might have charmed the idle mind in song,'

etc.

69 Born at Alexandria, but afterwards settled at Rhodes. He ultimately returned to Alexandria.

70 'Often did Macer, now advanced in years, read to me his poem on birds, and of the serpent whose sting is deadly, and of the herb that heals.' Trist. iv. 10. 4344.

71 Sueton. De Viris Ill.u.s.tribus.

72 'Lead him home from the city, my strain, lead Daphnis home.'

73 Woermann, Ueber den landschaftlichen Natursinn der Griechen und Romer; Helbig, Campanische Wandmalerei.

74 Cf. 'Senecae praedivitis hortos.' Juv. 'Pariterque hortis inhians, quos ille a Lucullo coeptos insigni magnificentia extollebat.' Tac.

Ann. xi. 1.

75 The substance of these remarks is derived from Helbig's Campanische Wandmalerei.

76 Cf. Plautus, Pseudolus, i. 2. 14:-

Neque Alexandrina beluata conchuliata tapetia.

77 Scholium quoted by W. S. Teuffel in his account of L. Varius.

78 Tristia, iv. 10. 41, etc.

79 W. S. Teuffel.

80 Discedo Alcaeus puncto illius: ille meo quis?

Quis nisi Callimachus? Si plus adposcere visus, Fit Mimnermus, et optivo cognomine crescit. Ep. ii. 2. 99.

Propertius may have been dead at the time when these lines were published; but we may remember that the famous lines on 'Atticus'

did not see the light till after the death of Addison.

81 'And the musical voice of Horace charmed my ears, while he makes his polished song resound on the Ausonian lyre.'

82 Od. iv. 3. 13. 16:-

'At Rome, of all earth's cities queen, Men deign to rank me in the n.o.ble press Of bards beloved of man: and now, I ween, Doth envy's rancorous tooth a.s.sail me less.' Martin.

83 Ep. i. 19. 1920.

'O servile crew! how oft your antics mean Have moved my laughter, oh, how oft my spleen.' Martin.