This is the only allusion throughout the poem, to the object of the journey. The previous day, Horace had been baulked of his dinner, the water being so bad, and his stomach so delicate, that he chose to fast rather than run the risk of making himself ill with it. And now at Terracina he found his eyes, which were weak, so troublesome, that he had to dose them well with a black wash. These are the first indications we get of habitual delicacy of health, which, if not due altogether to the fatigues and exposure of his campaign with Brutus, had probably been increased by them. "Meanwhile beloved Maecenas came, Cocceius too, and brought with them Fonteius Capito, a man Endowed with every grace that can A perfect gentleman attend, And Antony's especial friend." They push on next day to Formiae, and are amused at Fundi (Fondi) on the way by the consequential airs of the prefect of the place. It would seem as if the peacock nature must break out the moment a man becomes a prefect or a mayor. "There having rested for the night, With inexpressible delight We hail the dawn,--for we that day At Sinuessa, on our way With Plotius, [1] Virgil, Varius too, Have an appointed rendezvous; Souls all, than whom the earth ne'er saw More noble, more exempt from flaw, Nor are there any on its round To whom I am more firmly bound. Oh! what embracings, and what mirth! Nothing, no, nothing, on this earth, Whilst I have reason, shall I e'er With a true genial friend compare!" [1] Plotius Tucca, himself a poet, and associated by Virgil with Varius in editing the Aeneid after the poet's death. Next day they reach Capua, where, so soon as their mules are unpacked, away "Maecenas hies, at ball to play; To sleep myself and Virgil go, For tennis-practice is, we know, Injurious, quite beyond all question, Both to weak eyes and weak digestion." With these and suchlike details Horace carries us pleasantly on with his party to Brundusium. They were manifestly in no hurry, for they took fourteen days, according to Gibbon's careful estimate, to travel 378 Roman miles. That they might have got over the ground much faster, if necessary, is certain from what is known of other journeys. Caesar posted 100 miles a-day. Tiberius travelled 200 miles in twenty-four hours, when he was hastening to close the eyes of his brother Drusus; and Statius (Sylv. 14, Carm. 3) talks of a man leaving Rome in the morning, and being at Baiae or Puteoli, 127 miles off, before night. "Have but the will, be sure you'll find the way. What shall stop him, who starts at break of day From sleeping Rome, and on the Lucrine sails Before the sunshine into twilight pales?" Just as, according to Sydney Smith, in his famous allusion to the triumphs of railway travelling, "the early Scotchman scratches himself in the morning mists of the North, and has his porridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun."