PREFACE. In the present edition of Smart's Horace, the translation has been revised wherever it seemed capable of being rendered closer and more accurate. Orelli's text has been generally followed, and a considerable number of useful annotations, selected from the best commentaries, ancient and modern, have been added. Several quotations from Hurd on the "Ars Poetica," though somewhat lengthy, have been introduced, as their admirable taste cannot but render them acceptable to readers of class. every 1 THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, CHRIST CHURCH. 2865 .2855 261288 INTRODUCTION. QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS was born on the 8th of December, in the year 65, B. C., at Venusium, a town situated between Apulia and Lucania. Although a freedman, his father possessed competent means, and left him a comfortable patrimony on the banks of the Aufidus. To the education of our poet the greatest attention was paid, and no means were spared to endow him with the highest gifts of mental culture. The severe Orbilius was his guide through the realms of Roman literature, for the poets of which he seems to have conceived an early distaste, preferring the more finished and less rugged beauties of the Greek originals, from whose sources he was himself destined hereafter to draw so largely, and with such distinguished success. The life of Horace, although spent in the society of those who were most actively mixed up with public affairs, is rather a detail of every-day transactions with the ordinary world, a table-talk of private acts and feelings, than a succession of stirring political relations, exploits, and embarrassments. Whilst engaged in the study of philosophy at Athens, a study which was hereafter to form the ground-work of his literary fame, the assassination of Julius Cæsar brought on the crisis between the contending interests of Rome. Horace joined the republican party, and attained the rank of a military tribune under Brutus. In whatever light we regard his flight at the subsequent battle of Philippi, it is certain that |
