on that passage of Tacitus. I will add only by the way that the
whole family of the Caesars and all their relations were included in
the law, because the majesty of the Romans in the time of the Empire
was wholly in that house: Omnia Caesar erat; they were all
accounted sacred who belonged to him. As for Cassius Severus, he
was contemporary with Horace, and was the same poet against whom he
writes in his epodes under this title, In Cassium Severum, maledicum
poctam--perhaps intending to kill two crows, according to our
proverb, with one stone, and revenge both himself and his emperor
together.

From hence I may reasonably conclude that Augustus, who was not
altogether so good as he was wise, had some by-respect in the
enacting of this law; for to do anything for nothing was not his
maxim. Horace, as he was a courtier, complied with the interest of
his master; and, avoiding the lashing of greater crimes, confined
himself to the ridiculing of petty vices and common follies,
excepting only some reserved cases in his odes and epodes of his own
particular quarrels (which either with permission of the magistrate
or without it, every man will revenge, though I say not that he
should; for prior laesit is a good excuse in the civil law if
Christianity had not taught us to forgive). However, he was not the
proper man to arraign great vices; at least, if the stories which we
hear of him are true--that he practised some which I will not here
mention, out of honour to him. It was not for a Clodius to accuse
adulterers, especially when Augustus was of that number. So that,
though his age was not exempted from the worst of villainies, there
was no freedom left to reprehend them by reason of the edict; and
our poet was not fit to represent them in an odious character,
because himself was dipped in the same actions. Upon this account,