domestic degradation of the time, so full of color and heat and
picturesqueness:

'T_was not the sons of parents such as these_
T_hat tinged with Punic blood the rolling seas_,
L_aid low the cruel Hannibal, and brought_
G_reat Pyrrhus and Antiochus to naught_;

B_ut the manly brood of rustic soldier folk_,
T_aught, when the mother or the father spoke_
T_he word austere, obediently to wield_
T_he heavy mattock in the Sabine field_,

O_r cut and bear home fagots from the height_,
A_s mountain shadows deepened into night_,
A_nd the sun's car, departing down the west_,
B_rought to the wearied steer the friendly rest_.


_iii_. THE INTERPRETER OF ROMAN RELIGION

Still farther, Horace is an eloquent interpreter of the religion of the
countryside. He knows, of course, the gods of Greece and the
East,--Venus of Cythera and Paphos, of Eryx and Cnidus, Mercury, deity
of gain and benefactor of men, Diana, Lady of the mountain and the
glade, Delian Apollo, who bathes his unbound locks in the pure waters of
Castalia, and Juno, sister and consort of fulminating Jove. He is
impressed by the glittering pomp of religious processions winding their
way to the summit of the Capitol. In all this, and even in the
emperor-worship, now in its first stages at Rome and more political than