16

brave are generated by the brave and good; there is in steers, there is in horses, the virtue of their sires; nor do the cou rageous eagles procreate the unwarlike dove. But learning improves the innate force, and good discipline confirms the mind: whenever morals are deficient, vices disgrace what is naturally good. What thou owest, O Rome, to the Neros," the river Metaurus is a witness, and the defeated Asdrubal, and that day illustrious by the dispelling of darkness from Italy, and which first smiled with benignant victory;" when the terrible African rode through the Latian cities, like a fire through the pitchy pines, or the east wind through the Sicilian waves. After this the Roman youth increased continually in successful exploits, and temples, laid waste by the impious outrage of the Carthaginians, had the [statues of] their gods set up again. And at length the perfidious Hannibal said; "We, like stags, the prey of rapacious wolves, follow of our own accord those, whom to deceive and escape is a signal triumph. That wife Livia to Augustus, and by his last will named that prince not only a guardian of Tiberius, who was then four years old, but of Drusus, who was born three months after his mother was married to Augustus. In this manner the emperor was a second father to both the Neros. ED. DUBL.

15 Claudius Nero, being encamped in Lucania, in view of Hannibal, went with six thousand foot and a thousand horse to join his colleague Salinator, and oppose the passage of Asdrubal, who was bringing a con siderable re-enforcement to his brother. This diligence preserved Italy; for Asdrubal was defeated near the river Metaurus; and Nero, returning to his camp before the Carthaginians perceived that he had been absent, ordered Asdrubal's head to be thrown into Hannibal's camp, who cried out, "Agnosco fortunam Carthaginis," I acknowledge the fate of Carthage.

Horace has chosen this action, not only because it was one of the most important performed by the family, but because Drusus and Tiberius were descended from both those consuls. ED. DUBL.

16 The river Metaurus. Asdrubal, who was brother to Hannibal, and the same who had defeated the two Scipios in Spain, was sent from Carthage, with a powerful re-enforcement, to join his brother in Italy. Claudius Nero, who was then encamped in Lucania, in sight of Hannibal, privately left his camp with 6,000 foot and 1,000 horse, and arriving in a few days in Umbria, joined his colleague Livius Salinator, who march ing on together, and meeting with Asdrubal at the river Metaurus, defeated and slew him. Nero immediately returned, nor did the Carthaginians know of his departure, till he had caused the head of Asdrubal to be thrown into their camp. WATSON.

17 Alma risit adored. Adorea was properly a distribution of corn, which was made to the soldiers after a victory, from whence it was used for victory itself. FRAN.

nation, which, tossed in the Etrurian waves, bravely transported their gods, and sons, and aged fathers, from the burned Troy to the Italian cities, like an oak lopped by sturdy axes in Algidum abounding in dusky leaves, through losses and through wounds derives strength and spirit from the very steel. The Hydra' did not with more vigor grow upon Hercules grieving to be overcome, nor did the Colchians, or the Echionian Thebes, produce a greater prodigy. Should you sink it in the depth, it will come out more beautiful: should you contend with it, with great glory will it overthrow the conqueror unhurt before, and will fight battles to be the talk of wives. No longer can I send boasting messengers to Carthage all the hope and success of my name is fallen, is fallen by the death of Asdrubal. There is nothing, but what the Claudian hands will perform; which both Jupiter defends with his propitious divinity, and sagacious precaution conducts through the sharp trials of war."

.19

20

ODE V.

TO AUGUSTUS.

O BEST guardian of the Roman"1 people, born under propitious gods, already art thou too long absent: after having promised

18 Two prodigies, perfectly alike, were performed in two different countries. Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon in Colchis, and Cadmus did the same in Boeotia two hundred years afterward. The teeth were instantly transformed into men, who destroyed each other. Echion, with four others, who remained of those sown by Cadmus, assisted him in building the walls of Thebes, from whence the poet calls it Echioniæ Theba. CRUQ.

19 After the battle of Cannæ, Hannibal sent his brother Mago to Carthage with the news of his victory. He talked in very pompous terms of Hannibal's success, and ordered all the rings which had been taken from the Roman knights to be thrown before the gate of the senatehouse, that the senators might compute from thence the number of the slain. To this story the poet alludes. LAMB.

20 It is no longer Hannibal who speaks, but the poet, who resumes the subject of his ode; nor are these words to be applied only to Claudius Nero, but to all his descendants, and particularly to Drusus. TORR. 21 Cf. Virg. Æn. vii. 877, "Romula tellus."

a mature arrival" to the sacred council of the senators, return. Restore, O excellent chieftain, the light to thy country; for, like the spring, wherever thy countenance has shone, the day passes more agreeably for the people, and the sun has a superior luster. As a mother, with vows, omens, and prayers, calls for her son (whom the south wind with adverse gales detains from his sweet home, staying more than a year beyond the Carpathian Sea), nor turns aside her looks from the curved shore; in like manner, inspired with loyal wishes, his country seeks for Cæsar. For, [under your auspices,] the ox in safety traverses the meadows: Ceres nourishes the ground, and abundant Prosperity: the sailors skim through the calm ocean and Faith is in dread of being censured. The chaste family is polluted by no adulteries: morality and the law have got the better of that foul crime; the child-bearing women are commended for an offspring resembling [the father; and] punishment presses as a companion upon guilt. Who can fear the Parthian ?23 Who, the frozen Scythian? Who, the progeny that rough Germany produces, while Cæsar is in safety? Who cares for the war of fierce Spain? Every man puts a period to the day amid his own hills, and weds the vine to the widowed elm-trees; hence he returns joyful to his wine, and invites you, as a deity, to his second course; thee, with many a prayer, thee he pursues with wine poured out [in libation] from the cups; and joins your divinity to that of his household gods, in the same manner as Greece was mindful of Castor and the great Hercules. May you, excellent chieftain, bestow a lasting festivity upon Italy! This is our language, when we are sober at the early day; this is our language, when we have well drunk, at the time the sun is beneath the ocean.

22 Augustus was absent from Rome about two years and a half; and his promise of a speedy return made his absence more insupportable. SAN.

23 Augustus had either subdued, or reduced to peace the whole east, north, and west. The east is marked by Parthia; the north by Scythia and Germany; and the west by Spain. Dion reckons the reduction of Spain, by sending colonies thither, to be one of the happiest successes of Augustus in this expedition. SAN.

ODE VI.

HYMN TO APOLLO.

THOU god, whom the offspring of Niobe" experienced as avenger of a presumptuous tongue, and the ravisher Tityus, and also the Thessalian Achilles, almost the conqueror of lofty Troy, a warrior superior to all others, but unequal to thee; though, son of the sea-goddess, Thetis, he shook the Dardanian towers, warring with his dreadful spear. He, as it were a pine smitten with the burning ax, or a cypress prostrated by the east wind, fell extended far, and reclined his neck in the Trojan dust. He would not, by being shut up in a [wooden] horse, that belied the sacred rights of Minerva, have surprised the Trojans reveling in an evil hour, and the court of Priam making merry in the dance; but openly inexorable to his captives, (oh impious! oh!) would have burned speechless babes with Grecian fires, even him concealed in his mother's womb: had not the father of the gods, prevailed upon by thy entreaties and those of the beauteous Venus, granted to the affairs of Æneas wails founded under happier auspices. Thou lyrist Phoebus, tutor of the harmonious Thalia, who bathest thy locks in the river Xanthus, O delicate Agyieus, support the dignity of the Latian muse. Phoebus gave me genius, Phoebus the art of composing verse, and the title of poet. Ye virgins of the first distinction, and ye youths born of illustrious parents, ye wards of the Delian goddess, who stops with her bow the flying lynxes, and the stags, observe the Lesbian measure, and the motion of my thumb; duly celebrating the son of Latona, duly [celebrating] the goddess that enlightens the night with her shining crescent, propitious to the fruits, and expeditious in rolling on the precipitate months. Shortly

"This Niobe, says Lambinus, was the daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion king of Thebes. She had twelve children, six males and as many females, of which she was so proud, as to reproach Latona for having only two, Apollo and Diana. The goddess, provoked at her insolence, complained to her own children, who killed all those of Niobe; Apollo, the males, and Diana, the females. Niobe, overwhelmed with grief for her loss, dissolved into tears. Jupiter, compassionating her miseries, converted her into a stone; from which were said to issue several springs of water. WATSON.

a bride you will say: "I, skilled in the measures of the poet Horace, recited an ode which was acceptable to the gods, when the secular period" brought back the festal days.”

ODE VII.

TO TORQUATUS.

THE snows are fled, the herbage now returns to the fields, and the leaves to the trees. The earth changes its appearance, and the decreasing rivers glide along their banks: the elder Grace, together with the Nymphs, and her two sisters, ventures naked to lead off the dance. That you are not to expect things permanent, the year, and the hour that hurries away the agreeable day, admonish us. The colds are mitigated by the zephyrs: the summer follows close upon the spring, shortly to die itself, as soon as fruitful autumn shall have shed its fruits and anon sluggish winter returns again. Nevertheless the quick-revolving moons repair their wanings in the skies; but when we descend [to those regions] where pious Æneas, where Tullus and the wealthy Ancus [have gone before us], we become dust and a mere shade. Who knows whether the gods above will add to this day's reckoning the space of to-morrow? Every thing, which you shall indulge to your beloved soul," will escape the greedy hands of your heir. When once, Torquatus," you shall be dead,

25

The Sæcular games were celebrated once every hundred and ten years. Before the Julian reformation of the calendar, the Roman was a lunar year, which was brought, or was meant to be brought, into harmony with the solar year, by the insertion of an intercalary month. Joseph Scaliger has shown that the principle was to intercalate a month, alternately of twenty-two and twenty-three days, every other year during periods of twenty-two years, in each of which periods such an intercalary month was inserted ten times, the last biennium being passed over. As five years made a lustrum, so five of these periods made a sæculum of one hundred and ten years. (Scaliger de Emendat. Temp. p. 80 sqq. Niehbuhr's Roman History, vol. i. p. 334. Hare and Thirlwall's transl.) 26 i. e. thyself. See Orelli.

ANTHON.

27 Torquatus was descended from Manlius, who, in a combat at Anio, defeated Uncagula the Gaul, and took a gold chain from his neck WATSON.