Epistle XIII. — To Ursulus, a Grammarian of Treves, to whom he had caused to be paid the bounty which had not been given to him by the Emperor on the First of January

Fullest enjoyment of a sweet distinction for thee were this — to have an auspicious gift from Imperial hands: next — though far inferior in degree — that thy quaestor-friend took tireless pains to gain thy New Year's bounty. Therefore of royal coinage, of Philippes d'or waylaid by me receive as many as two Geryons; as three pair of horses, or as the Muses less one-third their band, or as those stars of the Zodiac that are above the earth; as many as the heroes to whom were committed the destinies of Rome and Alba,- or as the hours wherein thou dost teach or wherein thou dost rest at home; as many as the jarring gates which open on one half of the circus, excepting that which looks along the axis of the course; " as many as the feet whereon bees and Homer's verses move, or as the hours of the tide's flow and ebb; as many as the dramatic plots put on the stage by him who rests in the midst of Arcadia's bosom, or as the angles which the geometric figure of the honey-cell forms by the meeting of its extreme and intervening sides;" as many as that which is approved the one and only perfect number; ' as that which consists equally of odd and even numbers, which alone unites in itself twice three and thrice two — the only number which, if doubled, contains as many units as the numbers above it and below when added contain, and as the joint total of the Hyades and Pleiades.

So many sovereigns take as thy New Year's gift, Ursulas, famed as colleague of Harmonius — Harmonius, whom Claranus, whom Scaurus and Asper, whom Varro would rank as his equal, or Crates in earlier days, or he who gathered the mangled limbs of sacred Homer; or who placed symbols to mark out spurious verses: Harmonius, glory alike of the Attic and the Latin Muse, who alone dost mingle wine of Chios and Aminaea/'