This appeal elicited from the poet that excellent epistle which traces the history and criticises the merits of Latin poetry. From all this we may be sure that when Augustus's measures are celebrated, as they are in the third book of the Odes and other places, with emphatic commendation, though the language may be that of poetical exaggeration, the sentiment is in the main sincere. It is a greater honour to the prudent ruler to have won the tardy approval of Horace, than to have enlisted from the outset the enthusiastic devotion of Virgil.
We left Horace installed as one of Maecenas's circle. This position naturally gained him many enemies; nor was his character one to conciliate his less fortunate rivals. He was choleric and sensitive, prompt to resent an insult, though quite free from malice or vindictiveness. He had not yet reached that high sense of his position when he could afford to treat the envious crowd with contempt. [24] He records in the satires which he now wrote, painting with inimitable humour each incident that arose, the attempts of the outsiders to obtain from him an introduction to Maecenas, [25] or some of that political information of which he was supposed to be the confidant. [26] At this period of his career he lived a good deal with his patron both in Rome and at his Tiburtine villa. Within a few years, however (probably 31 B.C.), he was put in possession of what he had always desired, [27] a small competence of his own. This was the Sabine estate in the valley of Ustica, not far from Tivoli, given him by Maecenas, the subject of many beautiful allusions, and the cause of his warmest gratitude. [28] Here he resided during some part of each year [29] in the enjoyment of that independence which was to him the greatest good; and during the seven years that followed he wrote, and at their close published, the first three books of the Odes. [30] The death of Virgil, which happened when Horace was forty-six years of age, and soon afterwards that of Tibullus, threw his affections once more upon his early patrons. He now resided more frequently at Rome, and was often to be seen at the palace. How he filled the arduous position of a courtier may be gathered from many, of the Epistles of the first book. The one which introduces Septimus to Tiberius is a masterpiece; [31] and those to Scaeva and Lellius [32] are models of high-bred courtesy. No one ever mingled compliment and advice with such consummate skill. Horace had made his position at court for himself, and though he still loved the country best, [33] he found both interest and profit in his daily intercourse with the great.