six books, the history of the struggles of AEneas in Italy, are
based on the plan of the battles of the Iliad. Latinus, the king of the
Latini, offers in marriage to the Trojan hero his daughter Lavinia, who
had been betrothed to Turnus, the warlike king of the Rutuli. The
contest is ended by the death of Turnus, who falls by the hand of AEneas.
The fortunes of AEneas and his final settlement in Italy are the subjects
of the AEneid, but the glories of Rome and the Julian house, to which
Augustus belonged, are indirectly the poet's theme. In the first book
the foundation of Alba Longa is promised by Jupiter to Venus, and the
transfer of empire from Alba to Rome; from the line of AEneas will
descend the "Trojan Caesar," whose empire will only be limited by the
ocean, and his glory by the heavens. The ultimate triumphs of Rome are
predicted.

Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS, usually called HORACE, was born at Venusia, in
Apulia, B.C. 65. His father was a freedman. He had received his
manumission before the birth of the poet, who was of ingenuous birth,
but who did not altogether escape the taunt which adhered to persons
even of remote servile origin. His father's occupation was that of a
collector (_coactor_) of taxes. With the profits of his office he had
purchased a small farm in the neighborhood of Venusia. Though by no
means rich, he declined to send the young Horace to the common school,
kept in Venusia by one Flavius, to which the children of the rural
aristocracy resorted. Probably about his twelfth year his father carried
him to Rome to receive the usual education of a knight's or senator's
son. He frequented the best schools in the capital. One of these was
kept by Orbilius, a retired military man, whose flogging propensities
have been immortalized by his pupil. The names of his other teachers are
not recorded by the poet. He was instructed in the Greek and Latin
languages: the poets were the usual school-books--Homer in the Greek,
and the old tragic writer, Livius Andronicus, in the Latin. In his
eighteenth year Horace proceeded to Athens, in order to continue his
studies at that seat of learning. When Brutus came to Athens after the
death of Caesar, Horace joined his army, and received at once the rank of
a military tribune and the command of a legion. He was present at the
battle of Philippi, and shared in the flight of the republican army. In
one of his poems he playfully alludes to his flight, and throwing away
his shiel