That I was not of noble lineage sprung: Far other creed inspires my heart and tongue. For now should Nature bid all living men Retrace their years, and live them o'er again, Each culling, as his inclination bent, His parents for himself, with mine content, I would not choose whom men endow as great With the insignia and seats of state; And, though I seemed insane to vulgar eyes, Thou wouldst perchance esteem me truly wise, In thus refusing to assume the care Of irksome state I was unused to bear." The education, of which Horace's father had laid the foundation at Rome, would not have been complete without a course of study at Athens, then the capital of literature and philosophy, as Rome was of political power. Thither Horace went somewhere between the age of 17 and 20. "At Rome," he says (Epistles, II. ii. 23), "I had my schooling, and was taught Achilles' wrath, and all the woes it brought; At classic Athens, where I went ere long, I learned to draw the line 'twixt right and wrong, And search for truth, if so she might be seen, In Academic groves of blissful green." (C.) At Athens he found many young men of the leading Roman families--Bibulus, Messalla, Corvinus, the younger Cicero, and others--engaged in the same pursuits with himself, and he contracted among them many enduring friendships. In the political lull which ensued between the battle of Pharsalia (B.C. 48) and the death of Julius Caesar (B.C. 44), he was enabled to devote himself without interruption to the studies which had drawn him to that home of literature and the arts. But these were destined before long to be rudely broken. The tidings of that startling event had been hailed with delight by the youthful spirits, some of whom saw in the downfall of the great Dictator the dawn of a new era of liberty, while others hoped from it the return to power of the aristocratic party to which they belonged. In this mood Brutus found them when he arrived in Athens along with Cassius, on their way to take command of the Eastern provinces which had been assigned to them by the Senate. Cassius hurried on to his post in Syria, but Brutus lingered behind, ostensibly absorbed in the philosophical studies of the schools, but at the same time recruiting a staff of officers for his army from among the young Romans of wealth and family whom it was important he should attach to his party, and who were all eagerness to make his cause their own. Horace, infected by the general enthusiasm, joined his standard; and, though then only twenty-two, without experience, and with no special aptitude, physical or mental, for a military life, he was intrusted by Brutus with the command of a legion. There is no reason to suppose that he owed a command of such importance to any dearth of men of good family qualified to act as officers. It is, therefore, only reasonable to conclude, that even at this early period he was recognised