"M_ourned of men and Muses nine_, T_hey laid him on the Esquiline_," there occurred the series of great events, to men in their midst incomprehensible, bewildering, and disheartening, which after times could readily interpret as the inevitable change from the ancient and decaying Republic to the better knit if less free life of the Empire. We are at an immense distance, and the differences have long since been composed. The menacing murmur of trumpets is no longer audible, and the seas are no longer red with blood. The picture is old, and faded, and darkened, and leaves us cold, until we illuminate it with the light of imagination. Then first we see, or rather feel, the magnitude of the time: its hatreds and its selfishness; its differences of opinion, sometimes honest and sometimes disingenuous, but always maintained with the heat of passion; its divisions of friends and families; its lawlessness and violence; its terrifying uncertainties and adventurous plunges; its tragedies of confiscation, murder, fire, proscription, feud, insurrection, riot, war; the dramatic exits of the leading actors in the great play,--of Catiline at Pistoria, of Crassus in the eastern deserts, of Clodius at Bovillae within sight of the gates of Rome, of Pompey in Egypt, of Cato in Africa, of Caesar, Servius Sulpicius, Marcellus, Trebonius and Dolabella, Hirtius and Pansa, Decimus Brutus, the Ciceros, Marcus Brutus and Cassius, Sextus the son of Pompey, Antony and Cleopatra,--as one after another "S_trutted and fretted his hour upon the stage_, A_nd then was heard no more_." It is in relief against a background such as this that Horace's works should be read,--the _Satires_, published in 35 and 30, which the poet himself calls _Sermones_, "Conversations," "Talks," or _Causeries_; the collection of lyrics called _Epodes_, in 29; three books of _Odes_ in 23; a book of _Epistles_, or further _Causeries_, in 20; the _Secular Hymn_ in 17; a second book of _Epistles_ in 14; a fourth book of _Odes_ in 13; and a final _Epistle_, _On the Art of Poetry_, at a later and uncertain date. It is above all against such a background that Horace's invocation to Fortune should be read: G_oddess, at lovely Antium is thy shrine_: R_eady art thou to raise with grace divine_ O_ur mortal frame from lowliest dust of earth_, O_r turn triumph to funeral for thy mirth_; or that other expression of the inscrutable uncertainty of the human lot: F_ortune, whose joy is e'er our woe and shame_, W_ith hard persistence plays her mocking game_; B_estowing favors all inconstantly_, K_indly to others now, and now to me_. W_ith me, I praise her; if her wings she lift_ T_o leave me, I resign her every gift_, A_nd, cloaked about in my own virtue's pride_, W_ed honest poverty, the dowerless bride_.