ranks of
protesting friends to keep faith with the pitiless executioners of
Carthage. Regulus, and the Scauri, and Paulus, who poured out his great
spirit on the disastrous field of Cannae, and Fabricius, of simple heart
and absolute integrity, he holds up as examples to his generation. In
praise of the sturdy Roman qualities of courage and steadfastness he
writes his most inspired lines:

The righteous man of unswerving purpose is shaken in his solid will
neither by the unworthy demands of inflamed citizens, nor by the
frowning face of the threatening tyrant, nor by the East-wind, turbid
ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor by the great hand of fulminating
Jove himself. If the heavens should fall asunder, the crashing fragments
would descend upon him unterrified.

He preaches the gospel of faithfulness not only to family, country, and
purpose, but to religion. He will shun the man who violates the secrets
of the mysteries. The curse of the gods is upon all such, and pursues
them to the day of doom.

Faithfulness to friendship stands out with no less distinctness. While
Horace is in his right mind, he will value nothing so highly as a
delightful friend. He is ready, whenever fate calls, to enter with
Maecenas even upon the last journey. Among the blest is he who is
unafraid to die for dear friends or native land.

Honor, too,--the fine spirit of old Roman times, that refused bribes,
that would not take advantage of an enemy's weakness, that asked no
questions save the question of what was right, that never turned its
back upon duty, that swore to its own hurt and changed not; the same
lofty spirit the recording of whose manifestations never fails to bring
the glow to Livy's cheek and the gleam to his eye,--honor is also first
and foremost in Horace's esteem. Regulus, the self-sacrificing; Curius,
despising the Samnite gold; Camillus, yielding private grievance to come
to his country's aid; Cato, dying for his convictions after Thapsus, are
his inspirations. The hero of his ideal fears disgrace worse than death.
The diadem and the laurel are for him only who can pass on without the
backward glance upon stores of treasure.

Finally, not least among the qualities which enter into the ideal of
Horace is the simplicity of the olden time, when the armies of Rome were
made up of citizen-soldiers, and the eye of every Roman was single to
the glory of the State, and the selfishness of luxury was yet unknown.

S_cant were