Sat. i. 6, 54,
‘Optimus olim
Vergilius, post hunc Varius dixere quid essem ...
Abeo, et revocas nono post mense iubesque (l. 61)
esse in amicorum numero.’
In Sat. ii. 6, 40-58 Horace describes how intimate he was socially with Maecenas, who, however, did not make him a confidant in political matters. The most noteworthy event of this period is described in Sat. i. 5, viz. Horace’s journey to Brundisium in the train of Maecenas and Cocceius, who went to arrange some matters between Augustus and Antony. His companions were Virgil, Varius, Plotius, and the Greek rhetorician, Heliodorus. Plotius, Virgil, and Varius are thus referred to (Sat. i. 5, 41):
‘Animae quales neque candidiores
terra tulit neque quis me sit devinctior alter.’[54]
In B.C. 34 Maecenas gave Horace an estate in the country of the Sabines. The question of its position was settled last century by the abbé Capmartin de Chaupy. The only place that suits Horace’s description is east of Tivoli, and in the neighbourhood of Vicovaro, which is the same as the Varia of Horace (Ep. i. 14, 3), the market-town of his tenants. Near it is the stream Licenza, the Digentia of Horace, on which stands Bardela (the Mandela of Hor.). Ep. i. 18, 104,
‘Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus,
quem Mandela bibit, rugosus frigore pagus.’
The site of his villa may be pretty closely determined from Ep. i. 10, 49,
‘Haec tibi dictabam post fanum putre Vacunae.’
Vacuna is a Sabine goddess, identified with Victoria: near the village an inscription has been found which was erected by Vespasian, ‘Aedem Victoriae vetustate dilapsam sua impensa restituit,’ and the natural inference is that this is the temple mentioned by Horace.[55] Horace stayed a great deal at his country-house, and his works contain many references to it.
Sueton. vit. Hor., ‘Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini, domusque eius ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum.’