despite Epicurean scorn for political ambition. Caesar had been friendly to the school; his father-in-law, Piso, had been Philodemus' life-long friend and patron, and, if

Pansa had been chosen consuls for the following year by Caesar. To add to the

sly from Rome, it was Piso who stepped into the breach, not to support Brutus and Cassius, but to check the usurpation of Antony. This gave Cicero a program. In September he entered the lists against Antony; in December he accepted the support of Octavian who had with astonishing daring for a youth of eighteen collected a strong army of Caesar's veterans and placed himself at the service of Cicero and the Senate in their warfare against Antony. Spring found the new consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, both Caesarians, with the aid of Octavian, Caesar's heir, besieging Antony at the bidding of the Senate in the defence of Decimus Brutus, one of

ther hand, they had no reason for supporting the usurpations of Antony, and seem to have enjoyed Cicero's Philippics in so far as these attacked Antony. Extreme measures were, however, not agreeable to Epicu

s a reaction in favor of Antony might set in. We find this position reflected even in Vergil. He never speaks harshly of the liberators, to be sure; in fact his indirect reference to Brutus in the Aeneid is remarkably sympathetic for an Augustan poet, but we have two epigrams of his attacking partizans of Antony in terms that remind us of pa

pretio atq

: Hermes, 1

umed by some critics to be direct attacks upon Antony, but the

the orator in the Philippics charges Antony with having used Caesar's seal ring for lucrative forgeries in state documents. It is interesting

tium populis ag

leges pretio

ius is constantly referred to as an epic poet (Horace, Sat. I. 10, 43; Carm. I. 6 and Porphyrio ad loc). His poem was written

een to Antony. The circle was clearl

ce Catullus' yacht had been towed up the Mincio past Vergil's home when he was a lad of about thirteen. Indeed we hope he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning travelers. Parodies are usually not works

lio even when he was at school, for the post-road for Caesar's great trains of supplies led through Cremona. After the war Caesar rewarded Ventidius further by letting him stand for magistracies and become a senator-which of course shocked the nobility. Muleteers in the Senate! The man changed his cognomen to be sure, called himself Sabinus on the election posters, but Vergil remembered what name he bore at Cremona. Caesar finally designated him for the judge's bench, as praetor, and this high office he entered in 43. He at once att

e, quem vide

e navium

natantis im

aeterire, s

volare si

at minacis

us insulas

bilem horrid

trucemve Po

st phaselus

a: nam Cyto

epe sibilum

tica et Cyt

isse et esse

us: ultima

se dicit i

e palmulas

t per inpo

se, laeva

, sive utrum

dus incidis

vota lito

acta, cum v

c ad usque li

us fuere; nu

te seque d

tor et geme

ough the Gallic mire for Catullus' graceful yacht speeding home

, quem videt

e mulio c

s volantis

aeterire, s

volare si

t Tryphonis

lem insulam

t Sabinus, a

cit attodi

lla, ne C

ra volnus e

gida et lut

isse et esse

s: ultima

e (dicit) i

ude deposi

t per orbi

se, laeva s

a sive utrum

*

vota semi

ta praeter ho

a proximumq

ius fuere:

de seque de

tor et geme

Classical Philolo

nius Cimber, a despised rhetorician who had been helped to high political office by A

m amator is

tor, namque q

Britannus, A

in et sphin ut

ta verba mis

nd as little a Thucydides as he is a British prince, the bane of Attic style! It was a

Vergil seems to imply that the brogue as well as the name Cimber had been assumed to hide his Asiatic parentage. The second point seems to be that Cimber, though a teacher of rhetoric, was so ignorant of Greek, that while proclaiming himself an Atticist, he used non-Attic forms and vaunted Thucydides instead of Lysias as the model of the simple s

There may well have been a number of similar epigrams directed at Antony himself, but if so they would of course have been de