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Updated: May 1, 2025
I can not reckon myself a lucky fellow on this account, as if it were by accident that I got you for my friend; for no kind of accident threw you in my way. That best of men, Virgil, long ago, and after him, Varius, told you what I was.
If we imagine that Varius had been by any of his contemporaries celebrated under the appellation of Musarum ales, "the swan of the Muses," the language of Horace becomes graceful and familiar; and that such a compliment was at least possible, we know from the transformation feigned by Horace of himself. The most elegant compliment that was paid to Addison, is of this obscure and perishable kind;
Thus in great strength he repassed the Alps, leading with him into Italy seventeen legions and ten thousand horse, besides six legions which he left in garrison under the command of Varius, one of his familiar friends and boon companions, whom they used to call by the nickname of Cotylon.
Only last week Varius told me that he thinks Virgil himself is obsessed by the idea that he may die before he has finished his work, he has begged him so often to promise to destroy whatever is left uncompleted." A sudden sadness, like the shadow of familiar pain, fell upon Maecenas's face.
The injunction was never carried out, by the express command of the emperor, who directed Varius to publish the poem without any additions of any kind. An order carefully executed, for as the "Æneid" stands there are numerous imperfect lines. This epic poem on the foundation of Rome by a colony from Troy is based on an old Latin tradition, and is modelled on the form of the poems of Homer.
That the four friends continued in intimate relationship with Philodemus, appears from fragments of the rolls. Hor. Mus., 1890, p. 172. Of the general question of Philodemus' influence upon Varius and Vergil, Varus and Horace, the critics and poets who shaped the ideals of the Augustan literature, it is not yet time to speak.
For my own part, I am rather of the opinion that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than retrenched. I know it may be answered by such as think Virgil the author of the four lines that he asserts his title to the "AEneis" in the beginning of this work, as he did to the two former, in the last lines of the fourth Georgic.
His revenge was not satisfied even with the death of his victim; he forbade the burial of the dead bodies: he gave orders anticipated, it is true, in this respect by Sulla that the heads of the senators slain should be fixed to the rostra in the Forum; he ordered particular corpses to be dragged through the Forum, and that of Gaius Caesar to be stabbed afresh at the tomb of Quintus Varius, whom Caesar presumably had once impeached; he publicly embraced the man who delivered to him as he sat at table the head of Antonius, whom he had been with difficulty restrained from seeking out in his hiding-place, an slaying with his own hand.
But why should the Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and Varius? Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native tongue, and produced new names of things? It has been, and ever will be, allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request.
We may guess of MENANDER's excellency by the Plays of TERENCE; who translated some of his, and yet wanted so much of him, that he was called by C. CAESAR, the Half-MENANDER: and of VARIUS, by the testimonies of HORACE, MARTIAL, and VELLEIUS PATERCULUS. 'Tis probable that these, could they be recovered, would decide the controversy.
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