One of the tasks is this, believe,
Which you are destined to achieve!'"

This is just such a squib as a young fellow might be expected to dash
off for the amusement of his brother officers, while the incident
which led to it was yet fresh in their minds. Slight as it is, one
feels sure its preservation by so severe a critic of his own writings
as Horace was due to some charm of association, or possibly to the
fact that in it he had made his first essay in satire. The defeat of
Brutus at Philippi (B.C. 42) brought Horace's military career to a
close. Even before this decisive event, his dream of the re-
establishment of liberty and the old Roman constitution had probably
begun to fade away, under his actual experience of the true aims and
motives of the mass of those whom Brutus and Cassius had hitherto been
leading to victory, and satiating with plunder. Young aristocrats, who
sneered at the freedman's son, were not likely to found any system of
liberty worthy of the name, or to use success for nobler purposes than
those of selfish ambition. Fighting was not Horace's vocation, and
with the death of Brutus and those nobler spirits, who fell at
Philippi rather than survive their hopes of freedom, his motive for
fighting was at an end. To prolong a contest which its leaders had
surrendered in despair was hopeless. He did not, therefore, like
Pompeius Varus and others of his friends, join the party which, for a
time, protracted the struggle under the younger Pompey. But, like his
great leader, he had fought for a principle; nor could he have
regarded otherwise than with horror the men who had overthrown Brutus,
reeking as they were with the blood of a thousand proscriptions, and
reckless as they had shown themselves of every civil right and social
obligation. As little, therefore, was he inclined to follow the
example of others of his distinguished friends and companions in arms,