Book 2
6
The seventh year approaching to the eighth is now elapsed, from the time that Maecenas began to reckon me in the number of his friends; only thus far, as one he would like to take along with him in his chariot, when he went a journey, and to whom he would trust such kind of trifles as these: "What is the hour?" "Is Gallina, the Thracian, a match for [the gladiator] Syrus?" "The cold morning air begins to pinch those that are ill provided against it;" — and such things as are well enough intrusted to a leaky ear. For all this time, every day and hour, I have been more subjected to envy. Our son of fortune here, says every body, witnessed the shows in company with [Maecenas], and played with him in the Campus Martius. Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through the streets, whoever comes in my way cousults me [concerning it]: "Good sir, have you (for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods) heard any thing relating to the Dacians?" The Dacians had engaged in Antony's army at the battle of Actium, in 723, and Octavius had disobliged them by refusing some favors which they demanded by their embassadors. He was obliged to send Marcus Crassus against them the year following. SAN. "Nothing at all for my part," [I reply]. "How you ever are a sneerer!" "But may all the gods torture me, if I know any thing of the matter." "What? will Caesar give the lands Octavius promised the soldiers who had served under him in reducing Sicily, that he would divide some of the conquered lands among them. But the war in which he was engaged against Antony obliged him to defer the division, and immediately after the battle of Actium, the troops, which he had sent to Brundusium, mutinied on this occasion. He went himself to stop the beginning of a revolt, which might have been attended with most dangerous consequences. This affair was all the news at Rome when our poet wrote the present Satire. Sicily was called Triquetra from its triangular figure, and in some ancient coins it is represented under the figure of a woman with three legs. he promised the soldiers, in Sicily, or in Italy?" As I am swearing I know nothing about it, they wonder at me, [thinking] me, to be sure, a creature of profound and extraordinary secrecy.
