Even Augustus wrote bad epigrams and a worse tragedy. Public libraries were numerous,--there were twenty-nine,--and busts of great masters were placed beside their works. Authors were petted and flattered, and they flattered their patrons in turn. These were the days when Horace lived at his ease on his Sabine farm, gently satirizing the follies and vices that were preparing the decay of this pleasure-loving world, posing a little perhaps, and taking a lofty tone toward the courtly Mæcenas and his powerful master, who honored the brilliant poet and were glad to let him do as he liked. “Do you know that I am angry with you for not addressing to me one of your epistles?” wrote Augustus. “Are you afraid that posterity will reproach you for being my friend? If you are so proud as to scorn my friendship, that is no reason why I should lightly esteem yours in return.” The epistle came, but the little gray-haired man, who saw so clearly and wrote so wisely, went on his way serenely among his own hills, stretching himself lazily on the grass by some ruined temple or running stream, and sending pleasant though sometimes caustic words to the friends he would not take the trouble to go and see unless peremptorily summoned. Such was the relation between the ruler of the world and those who conferred distinction on his reign. Ovid discoursed upon love, and became a lion, until he forgot to confine himself to theory, and went a step too far in practice. Then he was sent away from his honored place among the gilded youth who basked in the smiles of an emperor’s granddaughter, to meditate on the vanity of life and the uncertainty of fame, by the desolate shores of the Euxine.