Tully observes of Achilles, that had not Homer written, his valour had been without praise:
Nisi Ilias illa extitisset, idem tumulus qui corpus ejus contexerat,
nomen ejus obruisset.
Unless the Iliad had been published, his name had been lost in the
tomb that covered his body.
Horace tells us with more energy that there were brave men before the wars of Troy, but they were lost in oblivion for want of a poet:
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longá
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
Before great Agamemnon reign'd,
Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave,
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd
In the small compass of a grave:
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown:
No bard had they to make all time their own. FRANCIS.
Tully inquires, in the same oration, why, but for fame, we disturb a short life with so many fatigues?
Quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vitae curriculo et tam brevi, tantis
nos in laboribus exerceamus?
Why in so small a circuit of life should we employ ourselves in so
many fatigues?
Horace inquires in the same manner,