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

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466 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK I., SATIRE VI.
ftU concern about the affairs of men." Horace here acknowledges his be
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lief in one of the most remarkable doctrines of the Epicnrean school.
99. Trisies. "Disquieting themselves about us."— 100. Brundiaium.
The most ancient and celebrated town on the coast of Apulia, now BHndUi.
Satire YI. This poem, addressed to Maecenas, is chiefly ralaable for
the information it contains concerning the life of our author, particularly
his early education, and the circumstances attending his first introduction
to that minister. He also descants on the virtue and frugality of his own
life— ^he mentions candidly some of his foibles, and describes his table,
equipage, and amusements. Here every particular is interesting. We
behold him, though a courtier, simple in his pleasures, and in his temper
and his manners, honest, warm, and candid, as the old Auruncan. [Dun
lop'a Roman Literature, vol. iii.j p. 251.)
1-10. 1. JVon, quiOt Mtscenas, &c. The order of construction is as follows
: MmcenaSf 7io7i, ut plerique solenf, suspendis adunco naso ignotos,
ut Tne naium l^ertina patre, quia Tiemo Lydorum, quidquid Lydvrvm incoluit
EtruscOsJineSt est generosiqrie, riec quod maternus, atquepatemus
avusfuit tibi qui dim imperitarunt rnagnis legionibus. " Maecenas, tboa
dost not, as most are wont to do, regard with a sneer persons of lowly
birth, as, for instapce, me, the son of a freedman, because no one of the
Lydians that ever settled in the Etrurian territories is of nobler origin
than thou, nor because thou host maternal and paternal ancestors, who in
former days commanded powerful armies." The idea intended to be conveyed
is simply this : Though of the noblest origin, O Mcecenas, thou dost
not, as most others do, regard high extraction as carrying with it a right
to sneer at the low-bom. Lydorum quidquid EtruscoSf Sec. It was the
popular hut erroneous belief that Etruria bfid been colonized from Lydia.
Horace means, by the lan^age of the text, to describe the origin of Mgbcenas
as equaling, if not surpassing, in nobility, that of any individaal in
the whole S^mirian nation. Compare notes on Ode i., 1, 1. i. Legioni-
bus. The term legio is here put, Romano morCt for exerciius.— Im^ieritarunt.
This reading has been adopted by Fea, Keisig, and Wustemann,
and is undoubtedly the true one. The original reading was imperitarmt,
for which Bentley gave, from several MSS., imperitarint—5. Naso suspendis
adunco. This, in a literal traosiation, is precisely equivalent to
jur vulgar phrase, "to turn up the nose at one." Thus, "thou dost not,
as most are wont to do, turn up thy nose at persons of lowly birth."
B. Dum ingenUus. "Provided he be a man of [trorth." There is a singu-
)ar beauty in the use of the term ingenuus on the present occasion. By
ingen/ui, among the Romans, were meant those wlio were bom of parents
that had always been free. The poet, however, here applies the 6pithet
to a higher kind of freedom, that of the mind and of the heart ; a freedom
from all moral contaniinatlon, and a nobility of thought and action, in re-
spect of which the nobly-born are sometimes even the vilest of slaves.
9. Tulli. Servius TuUius. Ignobile regnum. An allusion to the servile
origin of th|s monarch. The idea which the poet intends to convey is this,
that, before the reignofTnllias, many individuals, as meanly bom as him-
self had often obtained honors equally as high, and led a life equally as
praiseworthy.—10. Nullis maiorihus ortos. "Sprung from no long line
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