Horace and His Influence

his way home struggles against the crowd as it pushes its way down town amid the dust and din of the busy city. He shrugs his shoulders in good-humored despair as the sirocco brings lassitude and irritation from beyond the Mediterranean, or he sits huddled up in some village by the sea, shivering with the winds from the Alps, reading, and waiting for the first swallow to herald the spring.

We see him at a mild game of tennis in the broad grounds of the Campus Martius. We see him of an evening vagabonding among the nameless common folk of Rome, engaging in small talk with dealers in small merchandise. He may look in upon a party of carousing friends, with banter that is not without reproof. We find him lionized in the homes of the first men of the city in peace and war, where he mystifies the not too intellectual fair guests with graceful and provokingly passionless gallantry. He sits at ease with greater enjoyment under the opaque vine and trellis of his own garden. He appears in the midst of his household