strain of compliment.
Te multa prece, te prosequitur mero
Defuso pateris; et Laribus tuum
Miscet numen, uti Graecia Castoris
Et magni memor Herculis. Carm. IV. 5.
To thee he chants the sacred song,
To thee the rich libation pours;
Thee placed his household gods among,
With solemn daily prayer adores
So Castor and great Hercules of old,
Were with her gods by grateful Greece enrolled.
(155) The panegyric bestowed upon Augustus by the great poets of that time, appears to have had a farther object than the mere gratification of vanity. It was the ambition of this emperor to reign in the hearts as well as over the persons of his subjects; and with this view he was desirous of endearing himself to their imagination. Both he and Mecaenas had a delicate sensibility to the beauties of poetical composition;