pitable breast, and unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated vigor.

CANIDIA'S ANSWER.

WHY do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut [against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries," sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops, ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him], wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain: but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open your breast with the Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious shoulders; and the whole earth

days after they were interred; and perhaps the number nine might have had somewhat mysterious in it, which was thought to give force to their enchantments. The laws of the twelve tables had nothing determined concerning the number of days which a corpse should be kept before it was to be carried out to burial. SAN.

49 Riseris Cotyttia vulgata.-Cotyttia vulganda ridendo proposueris. Cotys, or Cotytto, was the goddess of impurity; and although she did not preside over assemblies of witches, yet, as there were many vile and infamous ceremonies practiced in them, the poet satirically makes Canidia call them the feasts of Cotys. Better to explain his design, he adds liberi Cupidinis sacrum, mysteries of a licentious and unbounded love. A Roman proverb calls a person of dissolute and vicious manners, Cotyos contubernalis, a companion of Cotys. POLITIAN.

shall acknowledge my unexampled power. What shall I, who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself, inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are burned, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of my art having no efficacy upon you?

THE SECULAR POEM

OF

HORACE.

TO APOLLO AND DIANA.

PHOEBUS, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrius ornaments of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration and ever adored, bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths should sing a hymn to the deities, to whom the seven hills [of Rome] are acceptable. O genial sun,' who in your splendid car draw forth and obscure the day, and who arise another and the same, may it never be in your power to behold any thing more glorious than the city of Rome! O Ilithyia, of lenient power to produce the timely birth, protect the matrons [in labor]; whether you choose the title of Lucina, or Genitalis. goddess, multiply our offspring; and prosper the decrees of the senate in relation to the joining of women in wedlock, and the matrimonial law' about to teem with a new race; that

1 Alme Sol. It was a superstitious custom of the heathen in their hymns, to give the gods all their different names, for fear of omitting any that might be more agreeable. In this piece, the boys call the son of Latona, Phoebe, alme Sol, Apollo, Augur, decoras arcu, acceptus novem Camanis; and the girls call the sister of this god, Ilithya, Lucina, Genitalis, siderum regina, Diana, and Luna. FRAN.

2 Lege marita. In the year 736, Augustus made a law de maritandis ordinibus, in which he proposed rewards to those who would marry, and punishments or fines for those who continued in celibacy. In 762, he made another law, by the consuls Marcus Papius Mutilus, and Quintus Poppeus Secundus. The first called the Julian, the second, the Papian law. They were intended to restore to Rome the number of her citizens which had been greatly lessened during the civil wars; yet Augustus only revived those ancient ordinances which expressly commanded the censors

the stated revolution of a hundred and ten years' may bring back the hymns and the games, three times by bright daylight restored to in crowds, and as often in the welcome night. And you, ye fatal sisters, infallible in having predicted what is established, and what the settled order of things preserves, add propitious fates to those already past. Let the earth, fertile in fruits and flocks, present Ceres with a sheafy crown: may both salubrious rains and Jove's air cherish the young blood! Apollo, mild and gentle with your sheathed arrows, hear the suppliant youths: O moon, thou horned queen of stars, hear the virgins. If Rome be your

not to permit the citizens to live unmarried. Calibes esse prohibento. These laws as equally regarded men as women; but the choir of virgins naturally mention that sex alone of which they themselves are a part. FRAN.

3 Undenos decies per annos. There were among the Latins two opinions concerning the duration of an age. Before the time of Augustus it reckoned exactly a hundred years, and the Sibylline Oracle, which then subsisted, marked precisely the same number. The fifth secular games gave occasion to a new opinion. Augustus, persuaded that it was of great consequence to the state not to omit the celebration of this festival, gave order to the Sibylline priests to consult at what time of the current age it ought to be celebrated. They perceiving that it had been neglected in 705, under Julius Cæsar, were anxious to find some way of covering their fault, that they might not be thought answerable for all the calamities of the civil war. Three things made their imposture easy. They were the sole depositaries of the Sibylline books; the world was not in general agreed upon the year by which the games should be regulated; and it was divided even upon the date of those in which they had formerly been celebrated. The priests did not fail to take advantage of this diversity of sentiments to flatter Augustus, by persuading him that this secular year regularly fell upon 737. To this purpose they published commentaries upon the Sibylline books, in which they proved by the very words of the Sibyl (though with some alteration from their ancient reading), that an age ought to contain a hundred and ten years, and not a hundred only.

The authority of these priests being infinitely respected by a superstitious people, instantly put this falsehood into the place of truth, without any person daring to contradict it, since it was forbidden, upon pain of death, to communicate the books of the Sibyls. The Prince, charmed to see that the gods had reserved to his time the celebration of so great a festival, immediately supported the imposture by his edicts to authorize the discovery of the priests. Whether in flattery or credulity, the poet gave himself to the public opinion; and indeed he must, with a very bad grace, have followed the ancient system in a poem composed by order of Augustus, and sung in the presence of that prince, and of the priests in the name of the whole empire. FRAN.

work, and the Trojan troops arrived on the Tuscan shore (the part, commanded [by your oracles] to change their homes and city) by a successful navigation: for whom pious Æneas, surviving his country, secured a free passage through Troy, burning not by his treachery, about to give them more ample possessions than those that were left behind. 0 ye deities, grant to the tractable youth probity of manners; to old age, ye deities, grant a pleasing retirement; to the Roman people, wealth, and progeny, and every kind of glory. And may the illustrious issue of Anchises and Venus, who worships you with [offerings of] white bulls, reign superior to the warring enemy, merciful to the prostrate. Now the Parthian, by sea and land, dreads our powerful forces and the Roman axes: now the Scythians beg [to know] our commands, and the Indians but lately so arrogant. Now truth, and peace, and honor, and ancient modesty, and neglected virtue dare to return, and happy plenty appears, with her horn full to the brim. Phoebus, the god of augury, and conspicuous for his shinning bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious, surveys the Palatine altars-may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Algidus, regard the prayers of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications

4 Augur et fulgente, etc. Torrentius observes that Horace has collected, in these four verses, the four principal attributes of Apollo; divination, archery, music, and physic.

5 Quindecim virorum. The oracles, which concerned the Roman empire, were anciently put into a coffer of stone, and deposited in a subterraneous place in the Capitol. They were intrusted to the care of two priests called duumviri sacrorum, whose principal business was to consult those books on all occasions of the state, but never without a decree of the senate. Tarquin added two officers, maintained at the public expense, to assist and watch over them in their ministry. In 388, were added eight persons to the two first, and the number was afterward augmented to fifteen, from whence they were called Decemviri and Quindecemviri, which last name remained when they were multiplied to forty, and even to sixty. Cæsar added a sixteenth, and the senate permitted Augustus to enlarge the number as he pleased.

The Capitol having been burned in 671, the Sibylline books perished in the fire. Sylla rebuilt the Capitol, and the senate sent three deputies into Ionia to collect whatever verses of the Sibyl Eritria tradition had preserved, which were almost a thousand. Augustus gathered in Asia