The conciseness of the expression made it necessary to open the poet’s sense at large. We now see, that his intention, in these two lines, was to expose, in the way of argumentative illustration, the ground of that absurdity, which the preceding verses had represented as, at first sight, so shocking to common sense.
33. Unctis.] This is by no means a general unmeaning epithet: but is beautifully chosen to express the unwearied assiduity of the Greek artists. For the practice of anointing being essential to their agonistic trials, the poet elegantly puts the attending circumstance for the thing itself. And so, in speaking of them, as UNCTI, he does the same, as if he had called them “the industrious, or exercising Greeks;” which was the very idea his argument required him to suggest to us.
43.—Honeste.] Expressing the credit such a piece was held in, as had the fortune to be ranked inter veteres, agreeably to what he said above—PERFECTOS veteresque v. 37—and—vetus atque PROBUS v. 39: which affords a fresh presumption in favour of Dr. Bentley’s conjecture on v. 41, where, instead of veteres poetas, he would read,
Inter quos referendus erit? veteresne PROBOSQUE,
An quos &c.
54. Adeo sanctum est vetus omne poema.] The reader is not to suppose, that Horace, in this ridicule of the foolish adorers of antiquity, intended any contempt of the old Roman poets, who, as the old writers in every country, abound in strong sense, vigorous expression, and the truest representation of life and manners. His quarrel is only with the critic:
Qui redit in fastos et virtutem aestimat annis.
An affectation, which for its folly, if it had not too apparently sprung from a worse principle, deserved to be laughed at.