absconded, being afraid of the lash that hangs in the staircase.[1] Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which I have expected, does not offend you.” In my opinion, the man may take his price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract[2] was told you. Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent:[3] I told you I was almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in angry mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand. What then have I profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for me? On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my word, I do not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships, was robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in the night quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally exasperated at himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs, he beat off a royal guard from a post (as they report) very strongly fortified, and well supplied with stores. Famous on account of this exploit, he is adorned with honorable rewards, and receives twenty thousand sesterces into the bargain. It happened about this time that his officer being inclined to batter down a certain fort, began to encourage the same man, with words that might even have given courage to a coward: “Go, my brave fellow, whither your valor calls you: go with prosperous step, certain to receive ample rewards for your merit. Why do you hesitate?” Upon this, he arch, though a rustic: “He who has lost his purse,[4] will go whither you wish,” says he.
- ↑ The construction is, latuit metuens habenæ pendentis in scalis. That their slaves might have the punishment always before their eyes, the whip was hung on the staircase. Tore. Dac.
- ↑ Lex does not here signify law, but the form, the condition of the bargain when the sale was made, des nummos, excepta nihil te si fuga lædat, without which, the merchant was liable to an action, actionem redhibitoriam during six months. Ed. Dubl.
- ↑ The first of seven reasons, which Horace gives for not writing, is his natural indolence. The second is an allusion to the story of Lucullua his soldier; that a poet of an easy fortune should write verses only for his amusement. Sax.
- ↑ The ancients carried their money in a purse tied to their girdles, from whence we find in Plautus, “sector zonarius,” a cut-purse. Alexander Severus, used to say, a soldier is never afraid but when he is well armed, well clothed, well fed, and has money in his purse. When he is poor and hungry, he is fit for any desperate action. Fran.
