Caius Sallustius Crispus, the addressee, was the great-nephew and adopted son of the historian of the same name: ode 2.1 has just commended the statesman and poet Pollio for taking up work on the latter’s history of the civil wars, unfinished at his death. The younger Crispus is presented by the somewhat later writers Seneca and Tacitus as a friend and assistant to Augustus. The moralising about the need to maintain indifference towards money echoes Stoic doctrines. Crispus was rich, so the line of thought in the poem seems to be that his indifference to money was especially creditable given that he had so much of it. Assuming that no irony is intended, the point that money has value only when put to use is presumably a reference to some unspecified act of generosity on Crispus’s part.
The commentators cannot point to any ancient sources for details of the generosity of Proculeius to his brothers. Libya and Cadiz are chosen as representing the farthest boundaries of the Mediterranean world. Phraates was restored to the Parthian throne in 25 BCE, so the poem must have been written after then.
Metre: Sapphics.
See the illustrated blog post here.
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