He now became a prosperous man, was a member of the literary society which graced the table of Mæcenas, and basked in sunshine of court favour. Horace, Virgil, Plotius, and Varius, were united by the closest bonds of friendship with Mæecenas, and accompanied him on that cheerful expedition to Brundisium,[536] when he went thither in order to negotiate a reconciliation between Octavius and Antony. Henceforth Virgil’s favourite residence was Naples.[537] Its sunny climate suited his pulmonary weakness far better than the low and damp banks of his native Mincius (Menzo.) He had, besides, a villa in Sicily, and when at Rome he lived in a pleasant house on the Esquiline, situated near those of his friends Mæcenas and Horace. It is difficult to say how Virgil became so rich: patrons were liberal in those days, and he doubtless owed a portion of his affluence to their munificence. The liberality of Mæcenas is well known; and Martial attributes the prosperity of Virgil to the favour of “the Tuscan knight.”[538] Augustus also had great wealth at his disposal, and was profuse in the distribution of it amongst his favourites. There is a passage in the Odes of Horace[539] which seems to hint that he engaged to a slight extent in mercantile concerns: even if this formed one source of his wealth, the love of gain (studium lucri,) and anxiety about the means of living, do not appear to have hindered him from devoting his hours of serious occupation to literary labours and the diligent use of his well-stored library, whilst his leisure was given to the delights of social intercourse, for which he was so eminently qualified by his sweet temper and amiable disposition. The poet’s term of life was not extended far beyond fifty years. He had never been healthy or robust: he sometimes spat blood, and frequently suffered from headache and indigestion.[540] Ill health was the only drawback to a life otherwise passed in calm felicity. In the year B. C. 19 he meditated a tour in Greece, intending, during the course of it, to give the final polish to his great epic poem. Greece and her classic scenes, the favourite haunts of the Muses, the time-honoured contests of Olympia, the living and breathing statues which he beheld in that home of art, evidently inspired the beautiful imagery which adorns the introduction to the third Georgic. He, however, only reached Athens: there he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both returned together. On the occasion of this voyage, Horace wrote that tender ode[541] in which he affectionately calls him “the half of his soul:”— Navis quæ tibi creditum Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis Reddas incolumem precor Et serves animæ dimidium meæ.