The other epistle to Lollius, though he is addressed with mock solemnity in the first line as “most mighty Lollius,” is clearly written to a boy: “while you are spouting Homer at Rome I have read him over again at Præneste.” The recitation of the Homeric poems was an early step in the educational course of the Romans, and preceded the technical course in rhetoric. At the end of the letter Horace says: “Now is the time, boy, to drink in the words of wisdom with a clean heart; present yourself now to the higher influences.” Horace begins with drawing moral lessons from the Homer which he has been reading, and then passes on to general advice: “Don’t wait to enter on the path of virtue, don’t put off your moral discipline, or the time will go by,” “The man who is a slave to cupidity or anxiety cannot enjoy anything,” “Despise sensual pleasures; sensual pleasure is bought with pain and carries a curse,” “The greedy man is always a poor man; fix a limit to your desires,” “The Sicilian tyrants never discovered a worse torture than envy,” “Anger is a short fit of madness; control your temper, it must be slave or despot; bridle it, bind it with chains.” These might seem to be mere general moralizings, applicable to anybody, but we have already had some of them in the previous letter, and they occur again in the ode addressed to Lollius. “Lest you should happen to think that the words which I fit to music will perish, I would have you to remember that though Homer stands first, other poets are not unknown. Many heroes have lived and died besides those commemorated by Homer, but their names are lost and their deeds forgotten, because they never found their inspired bard; therefore I will not permit your many virtues, Lollius, to pass unmentioned in my pages. You have an acute intellect, which preserves its balance whether things go well or ill. The man who punishes dishonest avarice, abstaining from money the universal tempter, and is Consul not for one year only, but whenever the good and honest prefer honour to bribes, flings away the gifts of corruption with lofty countenance, and victoriously carries his arms through opposing squadrons. It is not the man with large possessions that you will rightly call happy; he more correctly claims the name who knows how to use the gifts of the gods wisely, and can bear the hardships of poverty and dreads wickedness worse than death; such an one has no fear of dying for the friends he loves or his fatherland.” Even if we admit that the rendering of the tenth and eleventh stanzas of this ode is beset with difficulties, there is no question about the last two with their praise of poverty.