Thanks to the glowing personal nature of Horace's works, we know who
many of these friends and patrons were who so enlarged his vision and
deepened his inspiration. Almost without exception his poems are
addressed or dedicated to men with whom he was on terms of more than
ordinary friendship. They were rare men,--fit audience, though few; men
of experience in affairs at home and in the field, men of natural taste
and real cultivation, of broad and sane outlook, of warm heart and deep
sympathies. There was Virgil, whom he calls the half of his own being.
There was Plotius, and there was Varius, bird of Maeonian song, whom he
ranks with the singer of the _Aeneid_ himself as the most luminously
pure of souls on earth. There was Quintilius, whose death was bewailed
by many good men;--when would incorruptible Faith and Truth find his
equal? There was Maecenas, well-bred and worldly-wise, the pillar and
ornament of his fortunes. There was Septimius, the hoped-for companion
of his mellow old age in the little corner of earth that smiled on him
beyond all others. There was Iccius, procurator of Agrippa's estates in
Sicily, sharing Horace's delight in philosophy.
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