the occasion of Ode 11, and he is spoken of in terms of the old affection; but (1) we have no hint now of his being still interested in politics, a change which tallies with the date assigned by Dio (54. 19) to his loss of Augustus' favour and retirement from public affairs in B.C. 16; and (2) he is no longer the patron to whose praise Horace looks as his highest reward. The three Books of Odes have been published for some time, and the verdict anticipated in 3. 30 has been accorded to them. Their author is now the intimate of Augustus. He has been chosen to compose the hymn for the Secular Games, and the public voice ratified the emperor's selection. He is now writing, not in the hope of winning a name for himself, but at Augustus' desire, and because his praise will confessedly give lustre to the emperor and his family.

It may be added, that the versification of the leading Odes gives some witness to the lateness of their composition; the Sapphic Odes in the frequency of the hexemimeral caesura, which assimilates them to the Carm. Sec.; and the Alcaic in the greater strictness with respect to the structure of v. 3 of the stanza, and the complete exclusion of the short anacrusis in vv. 1, 2, 3 (see Index of Metres).

It has been said before (p. 8) that Book iv exhibits more proofs of artistic purpose in its arrangement than any other collection of Horace's poems.

1. The most obvious instance, perhaps, is 'the disposition of the four Odes for the sake of which we may say the Book was composed. They stand in two pairs (evidently not on any chronological ground, for Ode 6 must be at least two years earlier than any of them) at the beginning of the Book (after a prelude, which will be noticed presently) and at its end. Each pair is divided between Augustus and one of the young princes; so that any praises of the latter may seem to lead up to and merge themselves in the glory of the former.

2. Scarcely less noticeable is the sequence of thought expressed or suggested in the three Odes which precede the main theme. It has been remarked before (p. 9) that a somewhat similar relation may be traced in the first Ode of Book i;

but the prelude here is more elaborate, and the irony is more conscious. He has been asked to take up his lyre again to sing the glory of the emperor and his step-sons, and he begins as usual with 'denial vain and coy excuse.' 'He will take his lyre, indeed, but it is at Venus' bidding, to renew under her compulsion the bitter-sweet themes which he hoped he had laid aside.' Ode 2 is to the same purport, though it carries us a little further by the end. 'He is no swan of Pindaric song, such as is needed for so high a task. Some greater poet, Antonius himself, may sing of Augustus returning in triumph with the Sygambri at his chariot wheels, and of the people's joy. It may be, in the rapture of that happy day, even he too may find a voice and sing his best, and shout with the shouting people, and make his humble offerings.' And yet the tone changes in Ode 3-he remembers that 'he is a poet, set apart from his birth by the Muse from common ambitions and glories, recognised as such by the voice of Rome; and so, though all the glory is the Muse's, not his own, he will venture, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.'

3. The middle of the Book is occupied with the expansion of the same theme as that of Ode 3, the only theme besides the triumphs and blessings of the empire which seems to wake him to any of his old lyric fire, the consciousness of his own poetic power, and the immortality which he can confer on others as he has secured it for himself1. Odes 6, 8, 9, like Ode 3, while they express Horace's inmost feelings, lead also directly to the main purpose of the Book. In his own words he gives Augustus the panegyric for which he had asked, and 'pretium dicit muneri.' They are divided by Ode 7, which enforces the lesson that no other immortality must be looked for; high blood, eloquence, piety, are alike powerless to save from the ending of all mortality—a handful of dust and a shadow. They are followed by the Ode to Ligurinus, a forced

1 We must remember the great importance which Horace always attaches to this metaphorical immortality,' the only immortality apparently in which he believed. Cp. Od. 2. 20, 3. 30. 6 foll. and see on 3. 2. 20 and 3. 3. 12.

tribute to the professions of Ode 1, and with reference to it. Then he finds a place not too conspicuous for his private friendship for Maecenas. Two more Odes in his old character as a poet of wine and of love, the second manifestly a companion and sequel to an Ode of Book iii, complete what he thinks necessary to give the relief of variety, and he returns to Tiberius' victory and, what he values more, the domestic peace of Augustus' reign.

SUMMARY OF THE HISTORICAL EVENTS
REFERRED TO IN THE BOOK.

I. In B. C. 16 M. Lollius was in command on the left bank of the Rhine as legatus of the emperor, when an important irruption occurred of some German tribes, of whom the most formidable were the Sygambri, a name which is supposed still to survive in the river Sieg, which joins the Rhine opposite Bonn. Lollius met them and suffered a defeat, which, though Suetonius makes less of it ('maioris infamiae quam detrimenti,' Aug. 23), is ranked by Tacitus with that of Varus (Ann. I. 10). At any rate it was sufficient to make Augustus set out in person from Rome. Before, however, he reached the frontier, the Sygambri, finding that Lollius was rallying his forces, and that reinforcements were on their way from Rome, made a hasty peace, and retired again beyond the Rhine. See Dio 54. 20. Augustus remained in Gaul during the whole of the two following years, and did not return to Rome till the July of B.C. 13.

2. In the meantime, in the year 15, an important and permanent conquest had been effected by Tiberius and Drusus, the sons of Livia, by her former husband Ti. Claudius Nero. Merivale recounts (vol. iv, ch. 34, p. 142) the operations by which secure possession was gained by Rome in Augustus' reign of the western passes of the Alps, the Corniche Road, the passes that lead from France to Turin, and the St. Bernard passes into the Val d'Aosta. The work of Tiberius and Drusus was

directed to the similar object of obtaining military command of the more eastern passes into the valleys of the Rhine and the Inn, which were still unsafe for the armies of Rome or her allies, and from which the mountain-tribes even issued from time to time to plunder Italian soil. Drusus forced what is now known as the Brenner pass, meeting and overthrowing the Rhaetians in the valley near Tridentum, now Trent. In the meantime, or as soon as Drusus' success was assured, Tiberius was detached from Augustus' army in Gaul, with the purpose of taking the enemy in the rear. He ascended the Rhine valley to the Lake of Constance, where he launched a flotilla of boats, and entering at once several of the valleys which open on the lake, 'penetrated the gorges of the Upper Rhine and Inn in every direction, so that at the conclusion of a brilliant and rapid campaign, the two brothers had effected the complete subjugation of the country of the Grisons and the Tyrol.' 'The free tribes of the Eastern Alps appear then for the first time in history, only to disappear again for a thousand years.' Merivale, vol. iv, ch. 35, p. 222, Dio 54. 22, Vell. 2. 95, Strab. 4. 6, p. 206.