Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/85

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ode v.
ODES OF HORACE.
67

ODE V.[1]

ON THE RECOVERY OF THE STANDARDS FROM PHRAATES.

We believe[2] from his thundering that Jupiter has dominion in the heavens: Augustus shall be esteemed a present deity the Britons and terrible Parthians being added to the empire. What! has any soldier of Crassus lived, a degraded husband with a barbarian wife? And has (O [corrupted] senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of the sacred bucklers, of the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter[3] and the city being in safety? The prudent mind of Regulus had provided against this, dissenting[4] from ignominious terms, and inferring from such a precedent destruction to the succeeding age, if the captive youth were not to perish unpitied. I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken away from our soldiers without bloodshed. I have beheld the arms of our citizens bound behind their free-born backs, and the gates [of the enemy] unshut, and the fields, which were depopulated by our battles, cultivated anew. The

  1. In the year of Rome 731, Phraates received his son, who was detained as a hostage at Rome, from Augustus, on the express condition that he would restore the Roman standards taken from the army of Crassus. Phraates however considered that distance was safety, and accordingly neglected to fulfill his engagement, until a rumor prevailed that Augustus would no longer be trifled with, and had already advanced as far as Syria, with the intention of renewing the war. By policy then the standards were restored, yet the vanity of the Romans transformed this peaceable transaction into the result of a violent warfare, and accordingly it was celebrated by triumphal arches, monuments and coins. Wh. "History, with correct simplicity, assures us (F. H. 228), that in b.c. 23, Tiridates being then at Rome, on an embassy arriving from Phraates, Augustus seized the occasion, among other points, to demand the restitution of the standards; and to the natural expectation of prompt compliance, which such a demand would create, Mr. Clinton thinks may be referred this splendid stanza, when hope is at once converted into certainty." Tate.
  2. Credididmus, i.e. semper, atque etiam nunc credimus." Orelli.
  3. Jove. "Salvo capitolio." Schol.
  4. We have adopted the reading of MSS. with the interpretation of Jahn, "of Regulus dissenting from this base proposal, and deducing from this precedent destruction for all futurity," etc. Wheeler.