ned with
the heat of passion; its divisions of friends and families; its
lawlessness and violence; its terrifying uncertainties and adventurous
plunges; its tragedies of confiscation, murder, fire, proscription,
feud, insurrection, riot, war; the dramatic exits of the leading actors
in the great play,--of Catiline at Pistoria, of Crassus in the eastern
deserts, of Clodius at Bovillae within sight of the gates of Rome, of
Pompey in Egypt, of Cato in Africa, of Caesar, Servius Sulpicius,
Marcellus, Trebonius and Dolabella, Hirtius and Pansa, Decimus Brutus,
the Ciceros, Marcus Brutus and Cassius, Sextus the son of Pompey, Antony
and Cleopatra,--as one after another

"S_trutted and fretted his hour upon the stage_,
A_nd then was heard no more_."

It is in relief against a background such as this that Horace's works
should be read,--the _Satires_, published in 35 and 30, which the poet
himself calls _Sermones_, "Conversations," "Talks," or _Causeries_; the
collection of lyrics called _Epodes_, in 29; three books of _Odes_ in
23; a book of _Epistles_, or further _Causeries_, in 20; the _Secular
Hymn_ in 17; a second book of _Epistles_ in 14; a fourth book of _Odes_
in 13; and a final _Epistle_, _On the Art of Poetry_, at a later and
uncertain date.

It is above all against such a background that Horace's invocation to
Fortune should be read:

G_oddess, at lovely Antium is thy shrine_:
R_eady art thou to raise with grace divine_
O_ur mortal frame from lowliest dust of earth_,
O_r turn triumph to funeral for thy mirth_;

or that other expression of the inscrutable uncertainty of the human
lot:

F_ortune, whose joy is e'er our woe and shame_,
W_ith hard persistence plays her mocking game_;
B_estowing favors all inconstantly_,
K_indly to others now, and now to me_.
W_ith me, I praise her; if her wings she lift_
T_o leave me, I resign her every gift_,
A_nd, cloaked about in my own virtue's pride_,
W_ed honest poverty, the dowerless bride_.

Horace is not here the idle singer of an empty day. His utterance may be
a universal, but in the light of history it is no commonplace. It is the
eloquent record of the life of Rome in an age which for intensity is
unparalleled in the annals of the ancient world.

And yet men may live a longer span of years than fell to the lot of
Horace, and in times no less pregnant with event, and still fail to come
into really close contact with life. Horace's expe