"Religious men, who give to God and men their dues,"--the Apulian
freedman had a fund of homely wisdom at command, not gathered from
books, but instinct with the freshness and force of direct observation
and personal conviction. The following exquisite tribute by Horace to
his worth is conclusive evidence how often and how deeply he had
occasion to be grateful, not only for the affectionate care of this
admirable father, but also for the bias and strength which that
father's character had given to his own. It has a further interest, as
occurring in a poem addressed to Maecenas, a man of ancient family and
vast wealth, in the early days of that acquaintance with the poet
which was afterwards to ripen into a lifelong friendship.

"Yet if some trivial faults, and these but few,
My nature, else not much amiss, imbue
(Just as you wish away, yet scarcely blame,
A mole or two upon a comely frame),
If no man may arraign me of the vice
Of lewdness, meanness, nor of avarice;
If pure and innocent I live, and dear
To those I love (self-praise is venial here),
All this I owe my father, who, though poor,
Lord of some few lean acres, and no more,
Was loath to send me to the village school,
Whereto the sons of men of mark and rule,--
Centurions, and the like,--were wont to swarm,
With slate and satchel on sinister arm,
And the poor dole of scanty pence to pay
The starveling teacher on the quarter-day;
But boldly took me, when a boy, to Rome,
There to be taught all arts that grace the home