Abstract

So far his weapons of defence are taken from a common armoury; but in the next verses he develops the argumentum ad hominem which was foreshadowed in ‘eques’ and ‘intra fortunam qui cupis esse tuam.’ Such promptings, says he, come strangely from Maecenas, whose own discreetness and self-repression will be famous in history, and whom he is resolved, so far as in him lies, to imitate