The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

262 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK I., ODE II.
ed back."—1 4. Litore Etrusco. The violence of the stonn forced the waved
of the Tiber from the upper oi* Tuscan shore, and caused an inundation on
the lower bank, or left side of the river, where Rome was situated. Some
make litore Etrusco refer to the sea-coast, and suppose that the violence
of the storm drove back the waters of the Tiber from the mouth of the
river, and that this retrocession caused the inundation spoken of. Oav
explanation, however, suits the context better, and especially the **sinistra
labitur ripa" in line 18, seq.—15. Monumenta regis. " The venerated
memorial of King; Numa." Observe the force of the plm'al in monumenta^
which we have ventured to express by an epithet. The allusion is to the
palace of Numa, which, according to Plutarch, stood in the immediate
vicinity of the Temple of Vesta, and was ^stinct from his other residence
on the auirinal Hill. ' [Plut., Vit. Num., c. 14.)—16. Vesta, What made
the omen a peculiarly alarming one was, that the sacred fire was kept in
this temple, on the preservation of which the safety of the empire was
supposed in a great measure to depend. If a vestal virgin allowed the
sacred fire to be extinguished, she was scourged by the Poutifex Maximas.
Such an accident was always esteemed most unlucky, and expiated
by offdl'ing extraordinary sacrifices. The fire was lighte.d up again, not
from another fire, but from the rays of the sun, in which manner it was
renewed every year on the first of March, that day being anciently the beginning
of the year.
17-19. 17. Ilia dum se, &c. " While the god of the stream, lending
too ready an ear to his spouse, proudly shows himself an avenger to the
too complaining Ilia." We have followed Orelli in joining nimium with
querenti. It may also be taken with ultorem, " an intemperate avenger,"
but the collocation of the words seems to be more in favor of the former, as
Orelli correctly remarks. The allusion is to Ilia or Ilea Silvia, the mother
of Romulus and Remus, and the ancestress of Julius GEesar, whose, assas-
sination she is here represented as making the subject of too prolonged a
complaint, since the expiatory sufferings of Rome bad already been suffi-
ciently severe. Ancient authorities differ in relation to her fate. Ennias,
cited by Porphyrion in his scholia on this ode, makes her to have been
cast into the Tiber, previously to which she had become the bride of the
Anio. Horace, on the contrary, speaks of her as having married the god
of the Tiber, which he here designates as uxorius amnis. Servius {ad
urfEtt., 1, 274) alludes to this version of ,the fable, as adopted by Horace
and others. Acron also, in his scholia on the present passage, speaks of
Ilia as having married the god of the Tiber. According to the account
which he gives, Hia was buried on the banks of the Anio, and the river,
having overflowed its borders, carried her remains down to the Tiber;
hence she was said to have espoused the deity of the last-mentioned
stream. It may not be improper to add here a remark of Niebuhr's in
relation to the name of this female. " The reading Rhea" observes the
historian, "is a corruption introduced by the editors, who very unseason-
ably bethought themselves of the goddess : rea seems only to have signi-
fied 'the culprit,' or *the guilty woman:' it reminds us of rea fetnina,
which often occurs, particularly in Boccacio." {Niebukr's Roman His-
tory^ vol. i., p. 176, Camhr. transl:)—19. Jove non probante. Jupiter did
flot approve that the Tiber should undertalce to avenge the death of Ctesar,
a task which he had reserved for Augustus.