Ode XIV
Augustus, first in war. Under thy auspices Drusus has overthrown the fierce tribes of the Alps, and Tiberius descended upon the Raeti as Auster descends on the storm waves or Aufidus in flood time on the fertile fields. For three lustres, since the day when Alexandria opened to thee her harbor and her deserted palaces, fortune has crowned with success all they campaigns. All the peoples of the earth bow beneath thy yoke, from India to Britain, from the Nile to the Tigris and the Danube. For the events alluded to, cf. 4.4. Intr and Sellar, pp.156-157. There is an imitation, in the form of an ode to Queen Anne, in Dodsley's Poems, 1, p.69.
Poetic variation of the official formula, Senatus populusque Romanus.
plenis: iustis, adequate.--honorum: magistracies.
in aevum: forever; cf. on 3.11.35-36; Epist. 1.3.8.--Auguste: cf. on 1.2.52; 3.3.11; 3.5.3.
titulos: inscriptions. Cf. notis publicis (4.8.13).--memoresque fastos: recording annals; cf. on 3.17.4; Claudian, 1.279, Longaque perpetui ducent in saecula fasti.
aeternet: perpetuate; ae(vi)ternet (with aevum as ludum ludere, 3.29.50), a rare archaic word. Cf. F. Q. 1.10.59, 'in the immortal book of fame to be eternized'; Milton, 'their names eternize here on earth'; Dante, 'Come l' uom si eterna.'
habltabilis . . . oras: ἡ οἰκουμένη.
maxime principum: i.e. maxime princeps. Cf. on 1.2.50.
quem . . . didicere . . . quod . . . posses: the Greek construction, 'I know thee who thou art.' Cf. Tennyson's 'Hast thou heard the butterflies, |What they say between their wings?'
legis expertes: i.e. as yet unsubdued.
didicere: cf. 4.4.25, sensere.
Drusus: son of Livia and step-son of Augustus. -- Genaunos: one of the tribes of the Raeti. They lived in the valley of the Inn.--implacidum: first found here.--genus: cf. Verg. Aen. 4.40, Hinc Gaetulae urbes, genus insuperabile bello.
Breuni: a Raetian tribe. Their name survives in the "Brenner Pass."
Cf. Crinagoras, Anth. Pal. 9.283.
impositas: 3.13.14; Sat. 1.5.26; Epist. 2.1.253.
deiecit: a slight zeugma with Breunos and arcis. Cf. Epist. 2.2.30, praesidium regale loco deiecit.--plus vice simplici: with more than simple requital, i.e. inflicting heavier loss than he suffered. For plus, cf. Lex. s.v. multus II. A. δ. for vice, cf. on 1.28.32.
maior Neronum: Tiberius, brother of Drusus and afterwards emperor (A.D 14-37.). His name is not mentioned here because it is a nomen, 'quod versu dicere non est.' Cf. on 4.4.28; Cons. ad Liviam, 149, Nec quom victorem referetur adesse Neronem, |Dicere iam potero 'maior an alter adest' ? --mox: the attack of Tiberius from the north came a little later. Cf. the description of the campaign in Vell. 2.95, and Dio, 54. 22.
immanis: cf. 3.4.43; 3.11.15. For their cruelty, cf. Strabo, 4.6.8.
spectandus . . . fatigaret: cf. on 7-10.
Note absence of normal caesura. Cf. 1.37.14.
devota: cf. 3.4.27; 3.23.10; Wordsworth, 'the guardian Pass, | Where stood, sublime, Leonidas |Devoted to the tomb.'--morti . . . liberae: death in freedom's cause.
indomitas: slightly personifies the waves. Literally, the Raeti were not 'unsubdued,' but their tempers were as tameless as the waves.--prope seems a rather prosaic limitation. Cf. Sat. 2.3.268; Epist. 2.2.61 (?). Perhaps Horace is trying to reproduce the Greek σχεδόν τι.--qualis . . . Auster: like Auster when.
exercet: frets; cf. Epod. 9.31; Milt. P. L. 2, 'Pain of unextinguishable fire |Must exercise us without hope of end.'--Auster: cf. 3.3.4.--choro: cf. Propert. 4.5.36, Pleiadum spisso cur coit igne chorus.
scindente nubis: cf. Tennyson's 'When |Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades | Vext the dim sea.'
impiger . . . vexare: cf. on 4.12.19,
vexare: cf. 3.2.4.--turmas: cf. 2.16.22.
per ignis: the fires of the burning villages, if the fire of battle is thought too sudden a plunge into metaphor. Bentley read per ensis, Cf. Silius, 14.175, per medios ignis mediosque per ensis.
Cf. Macaulay, Regillus, 36, 'So comes the Po in flood-time |Upon the Celtic plain'; Iliad, 5.87 sqq.
tauriformis: ταυρόμορφος. Cf. triformis (3.22.5). For the most part Horace avoids the picturesque compounds of Greek and early Latin poetry. Diespiter (1. 34. 5), noctilucam (4.6.38), homicidam (Ep. 17. 12) are archaic or legal. Naufragus, locuples, and sacrilegus were in common use. Otherwise he does not often venture beyond compounds with numerals or prepositions, e.g. centimanus (2.17.14). Greek art and poetry represent the genii of rivers with head and horns of a bull,symbolizing, perhaps, the roar of the rushing stream. Cf. Il.21.237, μεμυκὼς ἠύτε ταῦρος; Verg. Georg. 4.371; Jebb on Soph. Trach. 507.--Aufidus: cf. 3.30.10; 4.9.2.
Dauni: cf. 1.22. 14; 3.30. 11.--praefluit: cf. on 4.3.10. It is on the boundary.
diluviem: cf. 3.29.40.--meditatur: plans; some Mss,, minitatur.
Claudius: Tiberius. Cf. on 14, supra, and Epist. 1. 3.2.
Cf. Homer's ἔρρηξε φάλαγγας and Tennyson's 'clad in iron burst the ranks of war,'
ferrata probably refers to the use of mail (cf. Tac. Ann 3.43.3).
metendo: cf on 4. 11.30. For image, cf. Il.11.67, 19.223; Catull. 64.353-355; Verg. Aen. 10.513; Aeschyl. Suppl. 637; Gray, The Bard, 'And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way' ; Macaulay, Regillus, 23, 'Like corn before the sickle | The stout Lavinians fell'; Swinburne, Erectheus, 'Sickles of man-slaughtering edge| Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain'; Shaks. Tro. and Cress. 5.5, 'And there the strawy Greeks ripe for his edge |Fall down before him like the mower's swath.'
stravit: cf. 3.17.12.--sine clade: maiore cum periculo quam damno Romani exercitus (Vell. 2.95.2). Cf. Shaks. Much Ado, 1.1, 'A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home fuil numbers.'
I.e. (ductu) atque auspiciis tuis. Cf. on 1.7.27.
quo die: from the day when, rather than on the anniversary of the day. Alexandria was taken and the civil wars ended B.C. 30, in the month Sextilis, to which the name Augustus was given by decree of the Senate B.C. 8.
vacuam: cf. on 1.37.25. Abandoned by Cleopatra.
lustro . . . tertio: through three lustrums, perhaps, rather than at the expiration of the third lustrum. This effect is helped by the position of prospera between lustro and tertio. The continued favor of fortune through fifteen years is the point.--prospera: cf. on 4.6.39.
laudem . . adrogavit: and has associated with the accomplishment of thy imperial commands the glory and honor that was coveted. With optatum cf. 4.8.30; Epp. 2.3.412. Imperiis is dat. with arrogavit, which is virtually equivalent to addidit.
The subject nations, victae longo ordine gentes (Verg. Aen. 8.722). For a similar imperial theme, cf. Oscar Wilde's Ave Imperatrix, 'The brazen-throated clarion blows |Across the Pathan's reedy fen, |And the high steeps of Indian snows |Shake to the tread of armed men. . . . The fleet-foot Marri scout who comes |To tell how he hath heard afar |The measured roli of English drums |Beat at the gates of Kandahar.'
Cantaber: cf. 2.6.2; 3.8.22.--non ante: 1.29.3.
profugus: cf. 1.35.9; 3.24 9.--Medus: cf. on 1.2.22. --Indus: cf. Suet. Aug.21; Mon. Ancyr. 5.5.
Cf; Cons. ad Liv. 473; Martial, 5.1.7 (of Domitian) O rerum felix tutela salusque As Lucan says, 5.385, Namque omnes voces per quas iam tempore tanto |mentimur dominis haec primum repperit aetas. Cf. on 3.3.11.
tutela: cf. 2.17.23; 4.6.33. --praesens: Cf. 1.35,2; 3.5.2.
dominae: cf. on 4.3. 13, and Martial, 1.3. 3; 10. 103.9.
A commonplace of classical poetry. Tibull. 1.7, 23; Lucan, 10.193. Cf. Swift, Apollo's Edict, 'No simile shall be begun |With rising or with setting sun,| And let the secret head of Nile | Be ever banished from your isle.'
Nilus: the Aethiopians (Mon. Ancyr. 108). --Hister: the Dacians (4.15.21; Verg. Georg. 2. 497). --Tigris: cf. on 2.9.21.
beluosus: cf. on 1.3.18; 3.27.26; Milton, Lycidas, 'Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide| Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.' Cf. Homer's μεγακήτης (Od. 3.158), commonly interpreted 'monster-teeming.'
obstrepit: 2.18, 20; 3.30.10.--Britannis: cf. on 1. 35.30.
The Romans imagined that the teaching of the Druids kept the Gauls from fearing death. Cf. Caesar, B.G. 6.14.5; Lucan, 1.459; Arnold on Celtic Lit., p.38.
Sygambri: cf. on 4.2.36.
Resembles, in metrical structure, 1.9.20.
