Tyrian Hannibal and our generals and the Molossian king,1 and to carry cohorts on their backs-no small fraction of a war-whole towers going forth to battle! Therefore Novius2 would not hesitate, Pacuvius Hister 2 would not hesitate, to lead that ivoried monster to the altar, and offer it to Gallitta's Lares, the only victim worthy of such august divinities, and of those who hunt their gold. For the latter worthy, if permitted, will vow to sacrifice the tallest and comeliest of his slaves; he will place fillets on the brows of his slave-boys and maidservants; if he has a marriageable Iphigenia at home, he will place her upon the altar, though he could never hope for the hind of tragic story to provide a secret substitute.4

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121 I commend the wisdom of my fellow townsman, nor can I compare a thousand ships to an inheritance; for if the sick man escape the Goddess of Death, he will be caught within the net, he will destroy his will, and after the prodigious services of Pacuvius will maybe by a single word, make him heir to all his possessions, and Pacuvius will strut proudly over his vanquished rivals. You see therefore how well worth while it was to slaughter that maiden at Mycenae! Long live Pacuvius! may he live, I pray, as many years as Nestor; may he possess as much as Nero plundered; may he pile up gold mountain-high; may he love no one, and be by none beloved!

Later tradition pretended that a hind had been substituted for Iphigenia.

SATVRA XIII

EXEMPLO quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi displicet auctori: prima est haec ultio, quod se iudice nemo nocens absolvitur, improba quamvis gratia fallaci praetoris vicerit urna.

quid sentire putas omnes, Calvine, recenti de scelere et fidei violatae crimine? sed nec tam tenuis census tibi contigit, ut mediocris iacturae te mergat onus, nec rara videmus quae pateris; casus multis hic cognitus ac iam tritus et e medio fortunae ductus acervo. ponamus nimios gemitus. flagrantior aequo non debet dolor esse viri nec vulnere maior. tu quamvis levium minimam exiguamque malorum particulam vix ferre potes spumantibus ardens visceribus, sacrum tibi quod non reddat amicus depositum; stupet haec qui iam post terga reliquit sexaginta annos Fonteio consule natus? an nihil in melius tot rerum proficis 1 usu?

Magna quidem, sacris quae dat praecepta libellis, victrix fortunae sapientia; ducimus autem hos quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda vitae nec iactare iugum vita didicere magistra. quae tam festa dies, ut cesset prodere furem, perfidiam, fraudes atque omni ex crimine lucrum quaesitum et partos gladio vel pyxide nummos?

1 proficit P: proficis & and Housm.

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1 C. Fonteius Capito, consul A. D. 67. That fixes the date of this Satire to the year A.D. 127.

SATIRE XIII

THE TERRORS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE

No deed that sets an example of evil brings joy to the doer of it. The first punishment is this: that no guilty man is acquitted at the bar of his own conscience, though he have won his cause by a juggling urn, and the corrupt favour of the judge. What do you suppose, Calvinus, that people are now thinking about the recent villainy and the charge of trust betrayed? Your means are not so small that the weight of a slight loss will weigh you down; nor is your misfortune rare. Such a mishap has been known to many; it is one of the common kind, plucked at random out of Fortune's heap. Away with undue lamentations! a man's wrath should not be hotter than is fit, nor greater than the loss sustained. You are scarce able to bear the very smallest particle of misfortune; your bowels foam hot within you because your friend will not give up to you the sacred trust committed to him; does this amaze one who was born in the Consulship of Fonteius,1 and has left sixty years behind him? Have you gained nothing from all your experience?

19 Great indeed is Philosophy, the conqueror of Fortune, and sacred are her precepts; but they too are to be deemed happy who have learnt under the schooling of life to endure its ills without fretting against the yoke. What day is there, however festal, which fails to disclose theft, treachery and fraud: gain made out of every kind of crime, and money won by the dagger or the bowl?2 For honest men Pyxis is any bowl made of boxwood.

rari quippe boni: numera, vix sunt totidem quot Thebarum portae vel divitis ostia Nili. nona 1 aetas agitur peioraque saecula ferri temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa nomen et a nullo posuit natura metallo. nos hominum divumque fidem clamore ciemus quanto Faesidium laudat vocalis agentem sportula. dic, senior bulla dignissime, nescis quas habeat veneres aliena pecunia? nescis quem tua simplicitas risum vulgo moveat, cum exigis a quoquam ne peieret et putet ullis esse aliquod numen templis araeque rubenti? quondam hoc indigenae vivebant more, priusquam sumeret agrestem posito diademate falcem Saturnus fugiens, tunc cum virguncula Iuno et privatus adhuc Idaeis Iuppiter antris ; nulla super nubes convivia caelicolarum, nec puer Iliacus formosa nec Herculis uxor ad cyathos, et iam siccato nectare tergens bracchia Vulcanus Liparaea nigra taberna. prandebat sibi quisque deus, nec turba deorum talis ut est hodie, contentaque sidera paucis numinibus miserum urguebant Atlanta minori pondere, nondum aliquis 2 sortitus triste profundi

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1 nona. So and Housm.: non FG: P Büch. and Owen have the unmeaning nunc.

2 aliquis is read by, but omitted by P. Housm. conj. imi. See Journal of Phil. No. 67, p. 42.

1 Thebes had seven gates, the Nile seven mouths.

2 The dole (sportula) is called "vocal" because it secures to the patron the applause of his client when he pleads in

court.

are scarce; hardly so numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the enriching Nile.1 We are living in a ninth age; an age more evil than that of iron-one for whose wickedness Nature herself can find no name, no metal from which to call it. We summon Gods and men to our aid with cries as loud as that with which the vocal dole 2 applauds Faesidius when he pleads. Tell me, you old gentleman, that should be wearing the bulla3 of childhood, do you know nothing of the charm of other people's money ? Are you ignorant of how the world laughs at your simplicity when you demand of any man that he shall not perjure himself, and believe that some divinity is to be found in temples or in altars red with blood? Primitive men lived thus in the olden days, before Saturn laid down his diadem and fled, betaking himself to the rustic sickle; in the days when Juno was a little maid, and Jupiter still a private gentleman in the caves of Ida. In those days there were no banquets of the heavenly host above the clouds, there was no Trojan youth, no fair wife of Hercules 5 for cup-bearer, no Vulcan wiping arms begrimed by the Liparaean forge after tossing off his nectar. Each God then dined by himself; there was no such mob of deities as there is to-day; the stars were satisfied with a few divinities, and pressed with a lighter load upon the hapless Atlas. No monarch had as yet had the gloomy realms below allotted to him; there was no grim Pluto with a

* The bulla was a case of gold containing an amulet against the evil eye, worn by all free-born boys until they put on the toga virilis.

4 Mount Ida in Crete where Zeus was born. 5 Hebe. Lipari, the group of islands elsewhere called Aeolian (i. 7), where Vulcan's forge was placed.