135. Pone ad. Set (the dish) before. Cf. ad pedes, ad manum; and on pono Aen. i. 706: pocula ponunt.

Frater. Horat. Epp. i. 6, 54: frater, pater, adde; ut cuique est aetas, ita quemque facetus adopta.

136. Ilia=lumbus. "Would n't you like a nice slice off the loin (of the boar)?”

137 sq. If, as a rich man, you would be your patron's lord and master, you must be childless, that he may court you for a legacy. 141. Nunc, as it is; now (that you are poor).

Mygale. Your wife.

143. Viridem thoraca, a green doublet. Green was a favorite color for the dress of children and women.

146-155. The desert. The finest mushrooms and fragrant apples for the patron and the other grandees, doubtful funguses for the client, and scabby apples, such as monkeys munch. 147. Set (sed) quales, aye, and such as. The emperor Claudius was very fond of mushrooms. His wife Agrippina poisoned him with one A. D. 54.

See note on iv. 26 sq.

151. Homer (Odys. vii.) represents the gardens of Alcinous, king of the Phæacians, as filled with perpetual fruits.

152. Sororibus Afris. The Hesperides.

153. In aggere. On the rampart of Servius Tullius.

154 sq. A monkey is here represented, dressed up in regimentals and sitting on a goat, Launching an apple in the intervals of throwing a dart for the amusement of spectators [and perhaps his master's gain]. So at last Mayor. Ab capella in the sense of from the back of a goat is justified by ab equo in Propert. iii. 11, 13, and Ovid. a. A. i. 210.

157. Hoc agit, this is his aim; he is bent upon this. Cf. v. 157; vii. 20, 48.

159. Si nescis. "Elegans formula pro ut hoc scias, ne hoc ignores.” 163-5. Who that wore in his boyhood the golden bulla, or even the leathern bulla of the freedman's son, would so degrade himself as twice to submit to the insults of such a host? (Mayor.) The bulla, worn by children born free and rich, was hollow, and of two parts, globular or heart-shaped. It was suspended from the neck, and rested on the breast. The practice was of Etruscan origin. A leather strap with a knot at the end of it answered the same purpose with the poor. Signum, i. e. signum libertatis.

166. Jam, presently.

168. Minor, too small for my lord. (Mayor.) Others take it as equivalent to semesa.

168 sq. Inde tacetis. Thence it is that (or, in hope of this) you all sit in silent expectation, with the bread you have extorted from the slaves uneaten and grasped in your hands like a drawn sword ready for action.

171. The morio or stupidus was a standing character in comedy and mime. He is introduced with shaven crown, and cuffed and knocked about. Parasites sometimes suffered similar treatment at feasts. Cf. Ter. Eun. 243 sq.: at ego infelix neque ridiculus esse neque plagas pati possum. Plaut. Capt. 86 sq., 469.

SATIRE VII.

ARGUMENT.

1-16. THE hope and motive of our studies is in Caesar only. He only cares for the Muses in these times when poets leave the vales of Helicon and live by baths, by baking, or by auctioneering. For if Pierian woods won't give you bread, you must e'en ply the crier's trade. And this is better than to rise to wealth by the base art of lying in the courts, though Asiatic and Cappadocian and Bithynian knights may do it. 17-35. Henceforth, however, no poet shall be degraded to do dirty work. Up and bestir yourselves! the prince is seeking whom he may reward. If you are looking for encouragement from any other quarter, burn your poems or leave them to the worms; go break your pens and wipe out all your lines; the rich men but admire and praise, as children do a peacock. But the useful years of life are passing, and when old age comes on, weary and poor though eloquent, it hates itself and its own Muse. 36-52. But hear their arts. To avoid giving poets their due, the rich man will be a brother poet (equal to Homer save in years), and free of the guild; at most, he will (which he can do without expense) lend a dusty room for recitation and freedmen to applaud; but he'll not give as much as the benches cost to hire. Still the poetic frenzy is not cured by all this neglect.

53-97. But a rare bard, none of your common sort, is made so by a mind free from care and free from all bitterness, loving the woods and Muses' springs. 'Tis not for poverty to sing. Horace was full when he cried Euhoe! What room for genius if other cares than for his verse disturb the poet's breast? If Virgil had not had a servant and a tolerable house, the snakes had dropped from his Fury's head, her trumpet had been dumb. We expect forsooth that our poor playwright should rise to the old cothurnus, who to produce his play must pawn his dishes and his cloak. Numitor, poor man, has nothing for his friend, but plenty for his mistress and his lion - of course the brute eats less than a poet. Lucan may lie in his fine gardens content with his great fame, but what is fame to poor Serranus and Saleius, suppose they get it? Statius delights the town who crowd to hear him; but after all he starves if Paris does not buy his play.

Paris procures honors for the poet, a player what the great should do. Yet will you pay your court to those noble people? Praefects and tribunes come of plays; but you'd not envy him who gets his living by the stage. Where will you find me now any of those Maecenases of old, in whose days many found it worth their while to pale their cheek with study and keep from wine through all December's holidays?

98-104. Next to speak of historians,- are their labors more productive? History demands more time and pains than poetry. Yet vast as the field is, how scanty a crop does it yield! 105-149. "But historians are an idle herd." Well, what do the lawyers get for all their roaring? However (to deceive creditors or allure clients) they magnify their gains, the patrimonies of a hundred of them are counterbalanced by that of one driver in the circus. The court have taken their seats; pale Ajax rises to plead for a man's liberty with a clown for judex. What is your pay? A little quarter of rusty pork, or a jar of thunnies, or old roots, black slaves' rations, or five jars of bad wine. If, after four pleadings, you get a gold-piece, the attorneys must have a part according to agreement. Aemilius is a rich nobleman, and has a statue and triumphal chariot, and so he gets the largest fee allowed by the laws, and yet we can conduct a case better than he can. 'Tis this that brought Pedo to bankruptcy, and Matho too; this was Tongilius's ruin, whose broad purples got him credit. And yet these fine clothes are of use; it's policy to make a noise and wear the look of wealth. Trust we our eloquence? Why Cicero would get nothing now unless he wore a great ring on his finger. No man employs you till he hears how many slaves you keep. So Paulus hired a ring and got more fees than Basilus or Cossus. Eloquence in rags is rare. What chance has Basilus of being heard? Go off to Gaul or Africa and practise if you have set a value on your tongue.

150-214. Do you teach rhetoric? O nerves of steel, when your whole class is slaying savage tyrants! They sit and read, and then get up and say it word for word from first to last, -the same old cabbage served again, killing the wretched teacher. All would learn rhetoric, but none will pay. Your fee? what have I learnt?" "Of course it's the teacher's fault that the boy is a blockhead, whose 'Hannibal' has stunned me week by week. Ask what you will I'll give it, if you can make his father listen as often as I have listened to his nonsense." Nor is Vettius a singular instance of a rhetorician who must leave his school-declamations for real strife in the courts, to sue his pupils for payment. Since then it is so small a pittance that the rhetor earns, not amounting at best to more than the cost of a ticket for bread, and since even for that he must go to law, I would advise him rather to follow any other profession. See how much the musicmaster gets, and you'll tear up your "Elements of Rhetoric." He builds him costly baths, and porticoes to ride in when it rains. What, must he wait till the sky clears, and go splash in the mud? And then a dining-room on marble pillars. Whatever his house costs, he has his butlers and his cooks besides. Meantime Quintilian gets his two sestertia, and that a splendid fee! There's nothing a father will not pay more for than for his son. How then is Quintilian

so rich? He is a lucky man; and your lucky man is everything that's great and good and wise and eloquent. It makes a great difference under what star you were born. Fortune can make a rhetorician consul, and if she please a consul rhetorician. What was Ventidius, what Tullius? what but a star and influence of hidden destiny? Fate can give a slave a kingdom and a prisoner triumphs. But Quintilian is a lucky rhetorician, rare as a white raven. Many grow weary of the fruitless teacher's chair-witness Carrinas and Thrasymachus; he too was poor to whom Athens could give nothing but cold hemlock. Light lie the earth and fragrant be the flowers above the worthies of old time who held the teacher in the place of parent! Achilles on his father's hills learnt singing, and reverenced the rod when now grown up, unable to laugh even at the tail of his master the Centaur. But Rufus and the rest are flogged by their own pupils.

215-229. Who pays the grammar-master what his toil deserves? E'en from his little fee the pedagogue nibbles part, and the paymaster will take his slice. Bear with the fraud, and bate a little of your just demand, like retailers selling blankets, provided only you do not utterly lose the trifle for which you've sat from midnight till the dawn, where a blacksmith or a weaver would not sit, and smelt the lamps whose smoke stains Horace and blackens Virgil. But fees are few which can be recovered without a trial before the tribune.

229-241. But lay strict terms upon them, that the teacher speak grammatically, and know all history and all authors as well as the nails on his hand; so that at any moment he can tell who was Anchises' nurse, who and whence Archemorus' stepmother, how long Acestes lived, and how much wine he gave the Phrygians. Require that he shall mould his pupils' morals as a man makes a face of wax; require that he be their father, and keep them from vice. "This do," they say, "and when the year comes round you'll have a gold-piece, as much as a jockey earns in a single race.” MACLEANE and MAYOR, with modifications.

1. Ratio, motive; "the raison-d'étre."

Studiorum, as here, in the sense of studies, without an addition such as artium liberalium, is post-classical.

Caesare. Probably Hadrian.

4. Gabiis. For any small country town, in which but little custom could be expected. Cf. iii. 192.

Furnos, ovens; bake-houses.

6. Praecones, criers. They got persons to attend auctions, in which they called out the biddings, and stimulated the purchasers, while the magister auctionis knocked the lots down. silence in public assemblies, like “ushers of the court."

They kept

Their call