Epode IV
A bitter invective against a typical parvenu of those troublous times. Still scarred with the brands of slavery, he struts down the Sacred Way, farms huge Apulian estates, sits in the knights' place at the theater, and commands the soldiers of Rome. Variously referred by seholiasts and moderns to Menas or Menodorus, the freedman of Sextus Pompey, who twice deserted to Augustus (cf. on 3. 16. 15, and Merivale, 3. 194); and to a Vedius Rufus supposed to be the magnus nebulo of Cic. ad Att. 6. 1.25. Cf. Anacreon, fr. 21.
sortito: by nature, allotted to each through the operation of the law of nature. The enmity of wolves and lambs was proverbial from Il.22.263. Cf. Ov. Ibis, 43.
Hibericis: thongs of Spanish broom used for whips. --peruste: scarred. Cf. θάλπος, and Epp. 1. 16. 47, loris non ureris; Sat. 2.7.58, uri virgis; Martial, 10.12.6, colla perusta iugo; Anth. Pal. 5.254, μάστιξ κατασμυξῃ.
dura: Tibull. 1. 7. 42, crura licet dura compede pulsa sonent.
ambules: strut. Cf. 5.71; Odes, 4.5.17.
Sacram . . . viam: the fashionable lounge. Cf. Sat. 1.9. 1, ibam forte via Sacra sicut meus est mos; 4.2.35. n.--metiente: striding along, pacing; Ov. Met. 9.447; Lucan, 5.556; Wordsworth, 'the sailor measuring o'er and o'er |His short domain upon the vessel's deck.'
bis trium ulnarum: three yards wide. Most Mss. read ter.
ut: cf. 1.9.1.--vertat: the scholiast and Nauck interpret 'averts'; Kiessling, 'changes their color, makes them flush with anger.' Cf. Sat. 2.8.35, vertere pallor tum . . . faciem. Others, 'plucks all gaze your way.' Cf. Epp. 2.1.196, vulgi converteret ora. The last is the most probable. When people see a bit of parade upon the street, they neither turn away nor flush with anger. They turn and look at it. For huc et huc with euntium we should expect huc et illuc Cf. hinc et hinc (2.31). 11 sqq. The expression of the liberrima indignatio. Cf. libera bilis (11. 16).
sectus: a stronger caesus.--triumviralibus: the triumviri capitales inflicted summary punishment on slaves, foreigners, and the lower classes.
praeconis ad fastidium: till the crier was weary. It was the duty of the praeco to proclaim the nature of the offense during the whipping. Cf. Plato's Laws, 917 D.
'Plows' is a poetical 'possesses.' Cf. 1. 26.
'In his cool hall with haggard eyes | The Roman noble lay.| He drove abroad in furious guise |Upon the Appian way' (Arnold, Obermann). --mannis: 3. 27. 7; Lucret. 3. 1061, currit agens mannos ad villam praecipitanter. The Appian Way led to the Falernian vineyards.--terut: cf. Martial, 11.13, quisquis Flaminiam teris viator; Statius, Silv. 2. 2. 12, Appia longarum teritur regina viarum.
He snaps his fingers at the famous law of L. Roscius Otho, Tribune of the people 67 B.C., which reserved for the equites the fourteen rows of seats in the theater next to the senators, who occupied the orchestra. Cf. Epp. 1.1.58, and Juvenal and Martial passim.
magnus: with scornful irony.
quid attinet: what is the use of sending ships against the runaway slaves of Poiiipey's piratical fleet, when we ourselves make military tribunes out of slaves?
ora rostrata navium: virtually equals navis rostratas.
hoc, hoc: this angry repetition frequent in epodes. Cf. 5.53; 6.11; 7.1; 14.6; 17.1; 17.7.
