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

384 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK IV., ODE IX.
a eaccessful issue the prayers of tlie hasbandmen." In other words, By
the songs of the hards Bacchus is gifted with the privileges and attri
bates of divinity. Consult note on Ode iii., 8, 7.
Ods IX. In the preceding ode the poet asserts that the only path to
immortality is through the verses of the bard. The same idea again
meets us in the present piece, and Horace promises, through the medium
of his numbers, an eternity of fame to Lollins.
** My lyric poems are not
destined to perish," he exclaims; "for^ even though Homer enjoys the
first rank among the votaries of the Muse, still the strains of Pindar, SimonideB,
Stesichorns, Anacreon, and Sappho, live in the remembrance of
men; and my own productions, therefore, in which I have followed the
footsteps of these illustrious children of song, will, I know, be rescued
from the night of oblivion. The memoryof those whom they celebrate deacends
to after ages with the numbers of the bard, while, if a poet be
wanting, the bravest of heroes sleeps forgotten in the tomb. Thy praises
theDf LoUius, shall be my theme, and thy numerous virtues shall live in
the immortality of verse."
M. LoUius Falicanns, to whom this ode is addressed, enjoyed, for a long
time, a very high reputation. Augustus gave him, A.U.O. 728, the government
of Galatia, with the title of proprastoy. He acquitted himaolf so
well in this office, that the emperor, in order to recompense his services,
named him consul, in 732, with L. ^milius Lepidas. In this year the
present ode was written, and thus far nothing had occurred to tarnish hia
fame. Being sent, in 737, to engage the Germans, who had made an irruption
into Gaul, he had the misfortune, aflter some successes, to expe-
rience a defeat, known in history by the name ot Lolliana Clades, and in
which he lost the eagle of the fifth legion. It appears, however, that be
was able to repair this disaster and regain the confidence of Augustus
for this monarch chose him, about the year 751, to accompany his grandson,
Caius Caesar, into the East, as a kind of director of his youth {"vdvU
moderator jiwentce.^* Veil. Pat, ii., 102). It was in this mission to the
East, seven or eight years after the death of our poet, that be became
guilty of the greatest depredations, and formed secret plots, which were
disclosed to Caius CsBsar by the king of the Farthians. LoUius died suddenly
a few days after this, leaving behind him an odious memory.
Whether his end was voluntary or otherwise, Velleius Paterculus declares
himself unable to decide. We mast not confound this individual
with the- LoUius to whom the second and eighteenth epistles of the first
book are inscribed, a mistake into which Dacier has fallen, and which he
endeavors to support by very feeble arguments. Sanadon has clearly
shown that these two epistles are evidently addressed to a very young
man, the father, probably, of Lollia Paulina, whom Caligula took away
from C. Memmlua, in order to espouse her himself, and Whom he repudiated
soon after. We have in Pliny {N, H., ix., 35) a curious passage respecting
the enormous riehes which tliis Lollia had inherited from ber
grandfather.
1-9. 1. Ne forte credas., &c. "Bo not perchance believe that those
words are destined to perish, which I, bom near the banka of the farresounding
Anfidus, am wont to utter, to be accompanied by the strings
;