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

i^42 EXPLANATORY NOTES. ON ROMAN SATIRE, •
it ia collected by the slower processea of art, commerce, and indastry. At
Home a corruption of morals, occasioned chiefly by an influx of wealth,
had commenced in the age of Lucilius ; but virtue had stiU further declined
in that of Horace. Luciliua arrayed himself on the side of those who affected
the austerity of ancient manners, and who tried to stem the torrent
of vice, which Grreece and the Oriental nations even then began to pour
into the heart of the republic. By the time of Horace, the bulwark had
been broken down, and those who reared it swept away. Civil war had
burst asunder the bonds of sociely; property had become insecure; and
the eflect of this general dissolution remained even after the government
was steadUy administered by a wise and all-powerful despot. B^me had
become not oidy the seat of universal government and wealth, but also
the centre of attraction to the whole family of adventurers, the magnet
which was perpetually drawing within its circle the collected worthless
ness of the world. Expense, and luxury, and lovje of magnificence had
succeeded to the austerity and moderation of the ancient republic.^ The
example, too, of the chief minister, inclined the Romans to indulge ia that
voluptuous IWe, which so well accorded with the imperial plans for the
stability and security of the government. A greater change of manners
was produced by the loss of liberty than even by the increase of wealth.
The voice of genuine freedom had been last heard in the last Philippic of
Cicero. Some of the distinguished Romans, who had known and prized
the republican forms of government, had fallen in the field of civjl conten-
tion, or been sacriflced during the proscriptions. Of those who survived,
many were conciliated by benefits and royal favor, while others, in the
enjoyment of the calm that followed the storms by which the state had
been lately agitated, acquiesced in the imperial sway as now aflbrding
the only security for property and life. Courtly compliance, in consequence,
took place of that boldness and independence which characterized
d Roman citizen in the age of Lucilius. The senators had now poUtical
superiors to address, and the demeanor which they had employed, toward
the emperor and his advisers became habitual to them in their intercourse
with their equals. Hence there prevailed a politeness of behavior and
conversation, which differed both irotu the roughness of Cato the censor,
and from the open-hearted urbanity of Scipio of Iiselins. Satires, direct*
ed, like those of Lucilius, and the comic writers of Chreece, against politic
cal characters in the state, were precluded by the nnity -and despotism
of power. If Lucilius arraigned in his verses Mutius and Lupus, he wm
supported by Scipio and Lselius, or some other heads of a faction. But in
the time of Horace there were no political leaders except those tolerated
by the emperor, and who would have protected a satirist in the Augustan
age from ,the resentment of Maecenas or Agrippa 1
The rise and influence of men like Maecenas, in whom power and wealth
were united with elegant taste and love of splendor, introduced what in
modern times has been Qtll^dfetshion^ They, of course, were irequently
Imitated in their villas and entertainments by those who had no preton
sions to emulate such superiors, or who vied with them ungracefully. Tba
wealthy ireedman and provincial magistrate rendered themselves ridica
lous by this species of rivalry, and supplied endless topics of sportita
satire; for it would appear that Maecenas, and those vrithin the pale of
fashion, had not made that progress in true politeness which induces