s of his memory. Was it
possible that his fight on that field of defeat had been, not a folly,
but the golden moment of his life? Had Athens taught him something
even profounder than the art which had made him Rome's best lyric
poet? He had forgotten much of her humiliation, and of his own Roman
pride in her subjection during those days when he had lived, in
youthful hero-worship, with the spirits of her great past. Had she,
after all, not only taught the sons of her masters philosophy and
the arts, but taken them captive, as well, by the imperious ideals
of her own youth, by her love of freedom and of truth?

Horace remembered a day when he and Messala had hired at the Piraeus
a boat rigged with bright canvas, and sped before the wind to Salamis,
their readiness for any holiday guided by a recent reading of
Herodotus and AEschylus, and by a desire to see the actual waters
and shores where brute force had been compelled to put its neck
beneath wisdom and courage. The day had been a radiant one, the sky
fresh and blue, although flecked here and there by clouds, and the
sea and the hills and the islands rich in brilliant colour. They had
worked their way through the shipping of the harbour, and then sailed
straight for the shore of Salamis. When they passed the island of
Psyttaleia, where the "dance-loving Pan had once walked up and down,"
they had been able to see very plainly how the Persian and Greek
fleets lay of old, to imagine the narrow strait once more choked with
upturned keels, and fighting or flying triremes, to picture Greeks
leaping into the sea in full armour to swim to Psyttaleia and grapple
with the Persians who paced the beach in insolent assurance. The wind
whistled in their ears, freighted, as it seemed to them, with the
full-throated shout which, according to the AEschylean story, rang
through the battle:--

Sons of the Hellenes! On! Set free your native land!
Your children free, your wives, ancestral shrines of gods,
And tombs of fathers' fathers! Now for all we strive!

A thunder-storm had arisen before they left Salamis, and their
homeward sail had satisfied their love for adventure. Clouds and sun
had battled vehemently, and as they finally walked back to the city
from the harbour, they had seen the Parthenon rising in grave
splendour against the warring sky, a living symbol of an ancient
victory.

At another time, the same group of friends had chosen a hot day of
midsummer to ride on m