Q. Horatius Flaccus Satires 2.3

Christopher Smart (Translator), ed. Theodore Alois Buckley

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Satires. Q. Horatius Flaccus. Christopher Smart (Translator), ed. Theodore Alois Buckley. New York. 1863.

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Funding provided by Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.

Current edition Perseus

Satires (English) (Horace. The Works of Horace. Vol. II. Smart, Christopher, translator. Buckley, Theodoore Alois, editor. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1862.)

Editions (1)
Satyrarum libri Perseus (Horace. The Works of Horace. Vol. II. Smart, Christopher, editor. Philadelphia: J. Whetham, 1836.) — 2.3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Satires

1.
The name of Janus was sometimes given to those great arcades which crossed the streets of Rome . Livy tells us there were three of them erected in the forum, the middle of which Horace means, and which he distinguishes from the Ianus summus and Ianus imus.
2.
Mercuriale.
 Damasippus, ever in character, boasts of a surname, which was given him in raillery. Mercury was the god of commerce, and when a man had an uncommon skill in buying and selling, he was usually called Mercurialis, or favorite of Mercury. A number of merchants, in 259, formed themselves into a body with this title, and dedicated a temple to the god.
3.
It was an absurd and ridiculous maxim among the Stoics, that all vicious people were equally fools and madmen. Prope does not therefore lessen the universality of the proposition, for the Latins frequently use prope and fere for semper. In the next line, si is not said in any manner of doubt, but has the force of an affirmative.
4.
They who devoted themselves to death for the good of their country, covered their heads with their robe; and it is pleasant enough to see Damasippus doing that, in an excess of despair and folly, which Decius did in a transport of religion and generosity. This image gives rise to the raillery of Stertinius, when he says,
nil verbi, pereas quin fortiter, addam.
5.
Dexter.
 — Opportunus, propitius. The right was by the ancients esteemed the lucky side.
6.
Cave faxis.
 The Stoics despised death when it was honorable or necessary, but to drown himself in despair was a villainous death for a philosopher. But the pleasantry of the scene is, that Stertinius is going to convince him he is a fool, and then advises him not to do any thing which may dishonor his character.
7.
Chrysippi porticus.
 The Porticus was a famous gallery at Athens , where Zeno held his school, which, from the Greek word στόα, Porticus, took the name of Stoic.
8.
Caudam trahat.
 A metaphor, as the old commentator well observes, taken from a custom among children, who tied a tail behind a person whom they had a mind to laugh at.
9.
Fufius was an actor who, playing the character of Ilione, was supposed to be asleep, when the ghost of her son Polydore called to her, "Dear mother, hear me." Fufius, having drunk too much, fell really asleep; and Catienus, who played Polydore, having called to him, without waking him, the whole house, as if each of them was a Catienus, cried out, "Dear mother, hear me," The number of twelve hundred is a pleasant exaggeration. Accius or Pacuvius wrote a tragedy on the story of Ilione, and the whole passage is preserved to us in Cicero :
Mater, te adpello, tu quae somno curam suspensam levas,
Neque te mei miseret, surge et sepeli natum
Priusquam ferae volucresque.
10.
Stertinius goes on to prove, not only that Damasippus is not a fool, in buying statues, since he does not pay for them, but that he would be a fool indeed, to refuse the favor which Mercury offers him, in the credulity of Perillius.
11.
Scribere is sometimes used in the sense "to acknowledge the receipt of a sum borrowed"; hence some have supposed that the meaning here is scribe te decem sestertia accepisse a Nerio, as said by Damasippus' creditor. Thus, Nerius is a banker, with whom Damasippus' creditor (Perillius) had lodged his money, and in whose books Damasippus, when drawing the ten sestertia, was required to acknowledge ( scribere) the receipt of so much money. But I prefer Gesner's interpretation, scribe decem tabulas a Nerio, i.e. "draw out ten bonds with all the niceties of Nerius," a usurer, well known for his care in wording the bonds, so that there could be no evasion.
12.
Cicuta was an old notary, who knew too well the practice of bonds, to neglect any clauses or forms, capable of finding these engagements. Such is the force of
nodosus
. Tabulae are the bonds or contracts, from whence notaries were called tabularii.
13.
People are not usually too careful of what belongs to others, from whence this kind of proverbial expression, "laughing with another man's cheeks." Dacier very well observes, that our poet hath translated it from Homer, when he says of Penelope's lovers,
Οἴ δ' ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελώων ἀλλορίοισι
ODYSS. lib. xx. v. 346.
14.
Damnati populo.
 Alluding to the form of the will, in which the testator required any thing of his heir, HERES DAMNAS ESTO.
15.
Aristippus was the chief of the Cyrenaic sect. He held that pleasure was the summum bonum, and virtue only valuable as it was a means of gaining that pleasure. Epicurus was perfectly rigid when compared to his master Aristippus, and by our author's manner of mentioning him in many parts of his works, we may believe he was no enemy to so convenient a philosophy. Staberius, who was a Stoic, has given an ill-natured turn to this story, which is much commended by Cicero; for Aristippus had only one slave, whom he commanded to throw away as much of his money as was too heavy to carry.
16.
This wine was of a very poor kind. See Lamb and Orelli.
17.
Ptisanarium.
 The diminutive from ptsana, unhusked barley or rice, from πτίσσω, tundo, tundendo decortico. Here it means a decoction, a kind of gruel made of oryza, rice. Rice was not then cultivated in Italy , but brought from Egypt . The physician purposely uses the diminutive ptisanarium, lest he should terrify the patient.
18.
All the good and bad accidents that happened in families were generally attributed to the domestic gods, and as these gods were the sons of the goddess of madness, they were particularly worshiped by persons disordered in their understanding. Stertinius therefore advises the man, who, by the favor of these gods, is neither perjured nor a miser, gratefully to sacrifice a swine to them, which was their usual sacrifice.
Fruge Lares, avidaque porca.
Od. xxiii. lib. ii.
19.
Distributions of these were frequently made to the people by candidates for offices, or by the aediles at the celebration of the games, etc. Oppidius asks whether his son would be so mad as to squander his property in largesses, for the sake of obtaining an office in the state. Comp. Pers. Sat. v. 177:
Vigila et cicer ingere large
Rixanti populo, nostra ut Floralia possint
Aprici meminisse senes.
20.
This compliment to Agrippa is introduced with great art, as if it escaped accidentally, and it is enlivened by a comparison, short but noble. Although Agrippa had been consul in 717, yet he condescended to accept the office of aedile in 720, when he entertained the people with a magnificence and expense beyond what they had ever seen.
21.
Here opens another scene, in which a king and a Stoic are engaged, and in which the philosopher proves in good form, that this greatest of monarchs is a fool and a madman. The debate arises from an incident in a play of Sophocles, in which Agamemnon refuses to let Ajax be buried. (Ajax 1223-1375)
22.
Agamemnon finding his answer, I am a king, a little too tyrannical, adds, our decree was just. Perhaps the humility of the philosopher, either ironical or serious, in seeming to allow his royal manner of deciding the question, extorted this condescension from the monarch.
23.
i. e. the perturbation of mind leading to the commission of impious deeds.
24.
i. e. of madness.
25.
A proverbial expression. Are they to be acquitted or condemned? Are they wise or foolish?
26.
Polemon was a young Athenian, who, running one day through the streets, inflamed with wine, had the curiosity to go into the school of Xenocrates to hear him. The philosopher dexterously turned his discourse upon sobriety, and spoke with so much force, that Polemon from that moment renounced his intemperance, and pursued his studies with such application, as to succeed Xenocrates in his school. Thus, as Valerius Maximus remarks, being cured by the wholesome medicine of one oration, he became a celebrated philosopher, from an infamous prodigal.
27.
The allusion is to a habit of determining the good or bad fortune of love by trying to strike the ceiling of a room with the pippins of apples. They were raised by pressing them between the first two fingers. If they struck the ceiling, it was considered a good omen.
28.
Ignum gladio scrutare
, a proverbial precept of Pythagoras, "Do not stir the fire with a sword." Our poet uses it. as an easy transition from the folly to the madness of lovers. We shall have another proverb in the same sense,
Oleum adde camino.
29.
For an action would lay against those who gave a false character to a slave.
30.
The Romans had regular fasts in honor of Jupiter, which were usually celebrated on Thursday, which was consecrated to that god. They began on the eve; and the next morning, which was properly the fastday, was observed with great rigor and austerity. Aristophanes, in his Clouds, introduces the chorus, complaining that they had a fast, rather than a feast( Clouds 578 ); which was observed on the third day of the festival of Ceres .
31.
Respicere ignoto.
 This passage may be explained by the fifty-third line,
caudam trahat
, or by the fable, which says that Jupiter threw over the shoulder of every mortal two bags; that the faults of his neighbor were put into the bag before him, and his own into that behind him.