Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
lyric poet
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...
during the time of
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
(also known as Octavian). The rhetorician
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...
regarded his ''
Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
[Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, ]Caesius Bassus
Gaius Caesius Bassus (d. AD 79) was a Roman lyric poet who lived in the reign of Nero.
He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (''Schol. on Persius'', vi. I). He had a great reputa ...
(R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280)
Horace also crafted elegant
hexameter verses (''
Satires
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
'' and ''
Epistles
An epistle (; el, ἐπιστολή, ''epistolē,'' "letter") is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part ...
'') and caustic
iambic poetry
Iambus or iambic poetry was a genre of ancient Greek poetry that included but was not restricted to the iambic meter and whose origins modern scholars have traced to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus. The genre featured insulting and obscene lan ...
(''
Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings".
[Translated from Persius' own 'Satires' 1.116–17: "omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico / tangit et admissus circum praecordia ludit."]
His career coincided with Rome's momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the republican army defeated at the
Battle of Philippi
The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (of the Second Triumvirate) and the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassination, Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, at P ...
in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs,
Maecenas
Gaius Cilnius Maecenas ( – 8 BC) was a friend and political advisor to Octavian (who later reigned as emperor Augustus). He was also an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. During the rei ...
, and became a spokesman for the new regime. For some commentators, his association with the regime was a delicate balance in which he maintained a strong measure of independence (he was "a master of the graceful sidestep")
[J. Michie, ''The Odes of Horace'', 14] but for others he was, in
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's phrase, "a well-mannered court slave".
[Quoted by N. Rudd from John Dryden's ''Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire'', excerpted from W.P.Ker's edition of Dryden's essays, Oxford 1926, vol. 2, pp. 86–87]
Life
Horace can be regarded as the world's first autobiographer. In his writings, he tells us far more about himself, his character, his development, and his way of life, than any other great poet of antiquity. Some of the biographical material contained in his work can be supplemented from the short but valuable "Life of Horace" by
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
(in his ''Lives of the Poets'').
Childhood
He was born on 8 December 65 BC
[The year is given in ''Odes'' 3.21.1 ( "Consule Manlio"), the month in ''Epistles'' 1.20.27, the day in Suetonius' biography ''Vita'' (R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 7)] in the
Samnite south of
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
. His home town,
Venusia, lay on a trade route in the border region between
Apulia
it, Pugliese
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, demographic ...
and
Lucania (
Basilicata
it, Lucano (man) it, Lucana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
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...
). Various Italic dialects were spoken in the area and this perhaps enriched his feeling for language. He could have been familiar with Greek words even as a young boy and later he poked fun at the jargon of mixed Greek and Oscan spoken in neighbouring
Canusium. One of the works he probably studied in school was the ''Odyssia'' of
Livius Andronicus
Lucius Livius Andronicus (; el, Λούκιος Λίβιος Ανδρόνικος; c. 284 – c. 204 BC) was a Greco-Roman dramatist and epic poet of the Old Latin period during the Roman Republic. He began as an educator in the service of a n ...
, taught by teachers like the '
Orbilius
Lucius Orbilius Pupillus (114 BC – c. 14 BC) was a Latin Philologist, grammarian of the 1st century BC, who taught at school, first at Benevento and then at Rome, where the poet Horace was one of his pupils. Horace (''Epistles'', ii) criticizes ...
' mentioned in one of his poems. Army veterans could have been settled there at the expense of local families uprooted by Rome as punishment for their part in the
Social War (91–88 BC) Social War may refer to:
* Social War (357–355 BC), or the War of the Allies, fought between the Second Athenian Empire and the allies of Chios, Rhodes, and Cos as well as Byzantium
* Social War (220–217 BC), fought among the southern Greek sta ...
. Such state-sponsored migration must have added still more linguistic variety to the area. According to a local tradition reported by Horace, a colony of Romans or Latins had been installed in Venusia after the
Samnites
The Samnites () were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy.
An Oscan-speaking people, who may have originated as an offshoot of the Sabines, they for ...
had been driven out early in the third century. In that case, young Horace could have felt himself to be a Roman though there are also indications that he regarded himself as a Samnite or
Sabellus
Sabellians is a collective ethnonym for a group of Italic peoples or tribes inhabiting central and southern Italy at the time of the rise of Rome. The name was first applied by Niebuhr and encompassed the Sabines, Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini ...
by birth. Italians in modern and ancient times have always been devoted to their home towns, even after success in the wider world, and Horace was no different. Images of his childhood setting and references to it are found throughout his poems.
Horace's father was probably a Venutian taken captive by Romans in the Social War, or possibly he was descended from a
Sabine captured in the
Samnite Wars
The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars (343–341 BC, 326–304 BC, and 298–290 BC) were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe.
...
. Either way, he was a slave for at least part of his life. He was evidently a man of strong abilities however and managed to gain his freedom and improve his social position. Thus Horace claimed to be the free-born son of a prosperous 'coactor'.
[V. Kiernan, ''Horace: Poetics and Politics'', 24] The term 'coactor' could denote various roles, such as tax collector, but its use by Horace was explained by
scholia
Scholia (singular scholium or scholion, from grc, σχόλιον, "comment, interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of th ...
as a reference to 'coactor argentareus' i.e. an auctioneer with some of the functions of a banker, paying the seller out of his own funds and later recovering the sum with interest from the buyer.
The father spent a small fortune on his son's education, eventually accompanying him to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
to oversee his schooling and moral development. The poet later paid tribute to him in a poem
[''Satires'' 1.6] that one modern scholar considers the best memorial by any son to his father.
["No son ever set a finer monument to his father than Horace did in the sixth satire of Book I...Horace's description of his father is warm-hearted but free from sentimentality or exaggeration. We see before us one of the common people, a hard-working, open-minded, and thoroughly honest man of simple habits and strict convictions, representing some of the best qualities that at the end of the Republic could still be found in the unsophisticated society of the Italian ''municipia''" E. Fraenkel, ''Horace'', 5–6] The poem includes this passage:
If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few scattered blemishes on an otherwise immaculate surface, if no one can accuse me of greed, or of prurience, or of profligacy, if I live a virtuous life, free of defilement (pardon, for a moment, my self-praise), and if I am to my friends a good friend, my father deserves all the credit... As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude and praise. I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedman's son. ''Satires 1.6.65–92''
He never mentioned his mother in his verses and he might not have known much about her. Perhaps she also had been a slave.
Adulthood
Horace left Rome, possibly after his father's death, and continued his formal education in Athens, a great centre of learning in the ancient world, where he arrived at nineteen years of age, enrolling in
The Academy. Founded by
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, The Academy was now dominated by
Epicureans
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
and
Stoics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that th ...
, whose theories and practises made a deep impression on the young man from Venusia. Meanwhile, he mixed and lounged about with the elite of Roman youth, such as Marcus, the idle son of
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
, and the Pompeius to whom he later addressed a poem. It was in Athens too that he probably acquired deep familiarity with the ancient tradition of Greek lyric poetry, at that time largely the preserve of grammarians and academic specialists (access to such material was easier in Athens than in Rome, where the public libraries had yet to be built by
Asinius Pollio
Gaius Asinius Pollio (75 BC – AD 4) was a Roman soldier, politician, orator, poet, playwright, literary critic, and historian, whose lost contemporary history provided much of the material used by the historians Appian and Plutarch. Poll ...
and Augustus).
Rome's troubles following the assassination of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
were soon to catch up with him.
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...
came to Athens seeking support for the republican cause. Brutus was fêted around town in grand receptions and he made a point of attending academic lectures, all the while recruiting supporters among the young men studying there, including Horace. An educated young Roman could begin military service high in the ranks and Horace was made
tribunus militum (one of six senior officers of a typical legion), a post usually reserved for men of senatorial or equestrian rank and which seems to have inspired jealousy among his well-born confederates.
[R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 8] He learned the basics of military life while on the march, particularly in the wilds of northern Greece, whose rugged scenery became a backdrop to some of his later poems. It was there in 42 BC that
Octavian (later
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
) and his associate
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autoc ...
crushed the republican forces at the
Battle of Philippi
The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (of the Second Triumvirate) and the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassination, Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, at P ...
. Horace later recorded it as a day of embarrassment for himself, when he fled without his shield, but allowance should be made for his self-deprecating humour. Moreover, the incident allowed him to identify himself with some famous poets who had long ago abandoned their shields in battle, notably his heroes
Alcaeus and
Archilochus
Archilochus (; grc-gre, Ἀρχίλοχος ''Arkhilokhos''; c. 680 – c. 645 BC) was a Greek lyric poet of the Archaic period from the island of Paros. He is celebrated for his versatile and innovative use of poetic meters, and is the ea ...
. The comparison with the latter poet is uncanny: Archilochus lost his shield in a part of Thrace near Philippi, and he was deeply involved in the Greek colonization of
Thasos
Thasos or Thassos ( el, Θάσος, ''Thásos'') is a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea. It is the northernmost major Greek island, and 12th largest by area.
The island has an area of and a population of about 13,000. It forms a separate re ...
, where Horace's die-hard comrades finally surrendered.
Octavian offered an early amnesty to his opponents and Horace quickly accepted it. On returning to Italy, he was confronted with yet another loss: his father's estate in Venusia was one of many throughout Italy to be confiscated for the settlement of veterans (
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
lost his estate in the north about the same time). Horace later claimed that he was reduced to poverty and this led him to try his hand at poetry. In reality, there was no money to be had from versifying. At best, it offered future prospects through contacts with other poets and their patrons among the rich. Meanwhile, he obtained the sinecure of ''scriba quaestorius'', a civil service position at the ''aerarium'' or Treasury, profitable enough to be purchased even by members of the ''ordo equester'' and not very demanding in its work-load, since tasks could be delegated to ''scribae'' or permanent clerks. It was about this time that he began writing his ''Satires'' and ''Epodes''.
He describes in glowing terms the country villa which his patron, Maecenas, had given him in a letter to his friend Quintius:
The remains of
Horace's Villa are situated on a wooded hillside above the river at
Licenza
Licenza is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about northeast of Rome.
Licenza borders the following municipalities: Mandela, Monteflavio, Percile, Roccagiovine, San Polo dei Cav ...
, which joins the Aniene as it flows on to Tivoli.
Poet
![Adalbert_von_Rössler_Horaz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Adalbert_von_R%C3%B6ssler_Horaz.jpg)
The ''Epodes'' belong to
iambic poetry
Iambus or iambic poetry was a genre of ancient Greek poetry that included but was not restricted to the iambic meter and whose origins modern scholars have traced to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus. The genre featured insulting and obscene lan ...
. Iambic poetry features insulting and obscene language; sometimes, it is referred to as ''blame poetry''. ''Blame poetry'', or ''shame poetry'', is poetry written to blame and shame fellow citizens into a sense of their social obligations. Each poem normally has a archetype person Horace decides to shame, or teach a lesson to. Horace modelled these poems on the poetry of
Archilochus
Archilochus (; grc-gre, Ἀρχίλοχος ''Arkhilokhos''; c. 680 – c. 645 BC) was a Greek lyric poet of the Archaic period from the island of Paros. He is celebrated for his versatile and innovative use of poetic meters, and is the ea ...
. Social bonds in Rome had been decaying since the destruction of
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
a little more than a hundred years earlier, due to the vast wealth that could be gained by plunder and corruption. These social ills were magnified by rivalry between Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and confederates like
Sextus Pompey, all jockeying for a bigger share of the spoils. One modern scholar has counted a dozen civil wars in the hundred years leading up to 31 BC, including the
Spartacus rebellion, eight years before Horace's birth. As the heirs to Hellenistic culture, Horace and his fellow Romans were not well prepared to deal with these problems:
Horace's Hellenistic background is clear in his Satires, even though the genre was unique to Latin literature. He brought to it a style and outlook suited to the social and ethical issues confronting Rome but he changed its role from public, social engagement to private meditation. Meanwhile, he was beginning to interest Octavian's supporters, a gradual process described by him in one of his satires.
The way was opened for him by his friend, the poet Virgil, who had gained admission into the privileged circle around Maecenas, Octavian's lieutenant, following the success of his ''
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil.
Background
Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...
''. An introduction soon followed and, after a discreet interval, Horace too was accepted. He depicted the process as an honourable one, based on merit and mutual respect, eventually leading to true friendship, and there is reason to believe that his relationship was genuinely friendly, not just with Maecenas but afterwards with Augustus as well. On the other hand, the poet has been unsympathetically described by one scholar as "a sharp and rising young man, with an eye to the main chance." There were advantages on both sides: Horace gained encouragement and material support, the politicians gained a hold on a potential dissident.
[R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 10] His republican sympathies, and his role at Philippi, may have caused him some pangs of remorse over his new status. However most Romans considered the civil wars to be the result of ''contentio dignitatis'', or rivalry between the foremost families of the city, and he too seems to have accepted the principate as Rome's last hope for much needed peace.
In 37 BC, Horace accompanied Maecenas on a journey to
Brundisium
Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
Histor ...
, described in one of his poems as a series of amusing incidents and charming encounters with other friends along the way, such as Virgil. In fact the journey was political in its motivation, with Maecenas en route to negotiatie the
Treaty of Tarentum
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal perso ...
with Antony, a fact Horace artfully keeps from the reader (political issues are largely avoided in the first book of satires).
Horace was probably also with Maecenas on one of Octavian's naval expeditions against the piratical Sextus Pompeius, which ended in a disastrous storm off
Palinurus
Palinurus (''Palinūrus''), in Roman mythology and especially Virgil's ''Aeneid'', is the coxswain of Aeneas' ship. Later authors used him as a general type of navigator or guide. Palinurus is an example of human sacrifice; his life is the price ...
in 36 BC, briefly alluded to by Horace in terms of near-drowning.
[''Odes'' 3.4.28: "nec (me extinxit) Sicula Palinurus unda"; "nor did Palinurus extinguish me with Sicilian waters". Maecenas' involvement is recorded by ]Appian
Appian of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἀππιανὸς Ἀλεξανδρεύς ''Appianòs Alexandreús''; la, Appianus Alexandrinus; ) was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who flourished during the reigns of Emperors of Rome Trajan, Hadr ...
''Bell. Civ.'' 5.99 but Horace's ode is the only historical reference to his own presence there, depending however on interpretation. (R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 10) There are also some indications in his verses that he was with Maecenas at the
Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where Octavian defeated his great rival, Antony.
[The point is much disputed among scholars and hinges on how the text is interpreted. ''Epodes'' 9 for example may offer proof of Horace's presence if 'ad hunc frementis' ('gnashing at this' man i.e. the traitrous Roman ) is a misreading of 'at huc...verterent' (but hither...they fled) in lines describing the defection of the Galatian cavalry, "ad hunc frementis verterunt bis mille equos / Galli canentes Caesarem" (R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 12).] By then Horace had already received from Maecenas the famous gift of his
Sabine farm, probably not long after the publication of the first book of ''Satires''. The gift, which included income from five tenants, may have ended his career at the Treasury, or at least allowed him to give it less time and energy. It signalled his identification with the Octavian regime yet, in the second book of ''Satires'' that soon followed, he continued the apolitical stance of the first book. By this time, he had attained the status of ''
eques Romanus'' (Roman 'cavalryman', 'knight'), perhaps as a result of his work at the Treasury.
Knight
''Odes'' 1–3 were the next focus for his artistic creativity. He adapted their forms and themes from Greek lyric poetry of the seventh and sixth centuries BC. The fragmented nature of the
Greek world
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in History of the Mediterranean region, Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as sig ...
had enabled his literary heroes to express themselves freely and his semi-retirement from the Treasury in Rome to
his own estate in the Sabine hills perhaps empowered him to some extent also yet even when his lyrics touched on public affairs they reinforced the importance of private life.
Nevertheless, his work in the period 30–27 BC began to show his closeness to the regime and his sensitivity to its developing ideology. In ''Odes'' 1.2, for example, he eulogized Octavian in hyperboles that echo Hellenistic court poetry. The name ''Augustus'', which Octavian assumed in 27 January BC, is first attested in ''Odes'' 3.3 and 3.5. In the period 27–24 BC, political allusions in the ''Odes'' concentrated on foreign wars in Britain (1.35), Arabia (1.29) Spain (3.8) and Parthia (2.2). He greeted Augustus on his return to Rome in 24 BC as a beloved ruler upon whose good health he depended for his own happiness (3.14).
The public reception of ''Odes'' 1–3 disappointed him, however. He attributed the lack of success to jealousy among imperial courtiers and to his isolation from literary cliques. Perhaps it was disappointment that led him to put aside the genre in favour of verse letters. He addressed his first book of ''Epistles'' to a variety of friends and acquaintances in an urbane style reflecting his new social status as a knight. In the opening poem, he professed a deeper interest in moral philosophy than poetry but, though the collection demonstrates a leaning towards stoic theory, it reveals no sustained thinking about ethics. Maecenas was still the dominant confidante but Horace had now begun to assert his own independence, suavely declining constant invitations to attend his patron. In the final poem of the first book of ''Epistles'', he revealed himself to be forty-four years old in the consulship of Lollius and Lepidus i.e. 21 BC, and "of small stature, fond of the sun, prematurely grey, quick-tempered but easily placated".
According to Suetonius, the second book of ''Epistles'' was prompted by Augustus, who desired a verse epistle to be addressed to himself. Augustus was in fact a prolific letter-writer and he once asked Horace to be his personal secretary. Horace refused the secretarial role but complied with the emperor's request for a verse letter. The letter to Augustus may have been slow in coming, being published possibly as late as 11 BC. It celebrated, among other things, the 15 BC military victories of his stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, yet it and the following letter were largely devoted to literary theory and criticism. The literary theme was explored still further in ''Ars Poetica'', published separately but written in the form of an epistle and sometimes referred to as ''Epistles'' 2.3 (possibly the last poem he ever wrote). He was also commissioned to write odes commemorating the victories of Drusus and Tiberius and one to be sung in a temple of Apollo for the
Secular Games, a long-abandoned festival that Augustus revived in accordance with his policy of recreating ancient customs (''Carmen Saeculare'').
Suetonius recorded some gossip about Horace's sexual activities late in life, claiming that the walls of his bedchamber were covered with obscene pictures and mirrors, so that he saw erotica wherever he looked.
[Suetonius signals that the report is based on rumours by employing the terms "traditur...dicitur" / "it is reported...it is said" (E. Fraenkel, ''Horace'', 21)] The poet died at 56 years of age, not long after his friend Maecenas, near whose tomb he was laid to rest. Both men bequeathed their property to Augustus, an honour that the emperor expected of his friends.
Works
The dating of Horace's works isn't known precisely and scholars often debate the exact order in which they were first 'published'. There are persuasive arguments for the following chronology:
* ''
Satires 1
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...
'' (c. 35–34 BC)
* ''
Satires 2'' (c. 30 BC)
* ''
Epodes'' (30 BC)
* ''
Odes 1–3'' (c. 23 BC)
[According to a recent theory, the three books of ''Odes'' were issued separately, possibly in 26, 24 and 23 BC (see G. Hutchinson (2002), ''Classical Quarterly'' 52: 517–37)]
* ''
Epistles 1'' (c. 21 BC)
* ''
Carmen Saeculare
The ''Carmen Saeculare'' (Latin for "Secular Hymn" or "Song of the Ages") is a hymn in Sapphic meter written by the Roman poet Horace. It was commissioned by the Roman emperor Augustus in 17 BC. The hymn was sung by a chorus of twenty-seven maid ...
'' (17 BC)
* ''
Epistles 2'' (c. 11 BC)
[19 BC is the usual estimate but c. 11 BC has good support too (see R. Nisbet, ''Horace: life and chronology'', 18–20]
* ''
Odes 4'' (c. 11 BC)
* ''
Ars Poetica'' (c. 10–8 BC)
[The date however is subject to much controversy with 22–18 BC another option (see for example R. Syme, ''The Augustan Aristocracy'', 379–81]
Historical context
Horace composed in traditional
metres borrowed from
Archaic Greece
Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the ...
, employing
hexameters in his ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'', and
iambs in his ''Epodes'', all of which were relatively easy to adapt into
Latin forms. His ''Odes'' featured more complex measures, including
alcaics The Alcaic stanza is a Greek lyrical meter, an Aeolic verse form traditionally believed to have been invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC. The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alcaeus' ...
and
sapphics
The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of four lines. Originally composed in quantitative verse and unrhymed, since the Middle Ages imitations of the form typically feature rhyme and accentual prosody. It is "the longest ...
, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
. Despite these traditional metres, he presented himself as a partisan in the development of a new and sophisticated style. He was influenced in particular by
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
aesthetics of brevity, elegance and polish, as modelled in the work of
Callimachus
Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety ...
.
In modern literary theory, a distinction is often made between immediate personal experience (''Urerlebnis'') and experience mediated by cultural vectors such as literature, philosophy and the visual arts (''Bildungserlebnis''). The distinction has little relevance for Horace however since his personal and literary experiences are implicated in each other. ''Satires'' 1.5, for example, recounts in detail a real trip Horace made with Virgil and some of his other literary friends, and which parallels a Satire by
Lucilius
The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vo ...
, his predecessor. Unlike much Hellenistic-inspired literature, however, his poetry was not composed for a small coterie of admirers and fellow poets, nor does it rely on abstruse allusions for many of its effects. Though elitist in its literary standards, it was written for a wide audience, as a public form of art. Ambivalence also characterizes his literary persona, since his presentation of himself as part of a small community of philosophically aware people, seeking true peace of mind while shunning vices like greed, was well adapted to Augustus's plans to reform public morality, corrupted by greed—his personal plea for moderation was part of the emperor's grand message to the nation.
Horace generally followed the examples of poets established as classics in different genres, such as
Archilochus
Archilochus (; grc-gre, Ἀρχίλοχος ''Arkhilokhos''; c. 680 – c. 645 BC) was a Greek lyric poet of the Archaic period from the island of Paros. He is celebrated for his versatile and innovative use of poetic meters, and is the ea ...
in the ''Epodes'', Lucilius in the ''Satires'' and
Alcaeus in the ''Odes'', later broadening his scope for the sake of variation and because his models weren't actually suited to the realities confronting him. Archilochus and Alcaeus were aristocratic Greeks whose poetry had a social and religious function that was immediately intelligible to their audiences but which became a mere artifice or literary motif when transposed to Rome. However, the artifice of the ''Odes'' is also integral to their success, since they could now accommodate a wide range of emotional effects, and the blend of Greek and Roman elements adds a sense of detachment and universality. Horace proudly claimed to introduce into Latin the spirit and iambic poetry of Archilochus but (unlike Archilochus) without persecuting anyone (''Epistles'' 1.19.23–25). It was no idle boast. His ''Epodes'' were modelled on the verses of the Greek poet, as 'blame poetry', yet he avoided targeting real
scapegoat
In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designate ...
s. Whereas Archilochus presented himself as a serious and vigorous opponent of wrong-doers, Horace aimed for comic effects and adopted the persona of a weak and ineffectual critic of his times (as symbolized for example in his surrender to the witch Canidia in the final epode). He also claimed to be the first to introduce into Latin the lyrical methods of Alcaeus (''Epistles'' 1.19.32–33) and he actually was the first Latin poet to make consistent use of Alcaic meters and themes: love, politics and the
symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...
. He imitated other Greek lyric poets as well, employing a 'motto' technique, beginning each ode with some reference to a Greek original and then diverging from it.
The satirical poet Lucilius was a senator's son who could castigate his peers with impunity. Horace was a mere freedman's son who had to tread carefully.
[E. Fraenkel, ''Horace'', 32, 80] Lucilius was a rugged patriot and a significant voice in Roman self-awareness, endearing himself to his countrymen by his blunt frankness and explicit politics. His work expressed genuine freedom or
libertas
Libertas (Latin for 'liberty' or 'freedom', ) is the Roman goddess and personification of liberty. She became a politicised figure in the Late Republic, featured on coins supporting the populares faction, and later those of the assassins of Jul ...
. His style included 'metrical vandalism' and looseness of structure. Horace instead adopted an oblique and ironic style of satire, ridiculing stock characters and anonymous targets. His libertas was the private freedom of a philosophical outlook, not a political or social privilege. His ''Satires'' are relatively easy-going in their use of meter (relative to the tight lyric meters of the ''Odes'') but formal and highly controlled relative to the poems of Lucilius, whom Horace mocked for his sloppy standards (''Satires'' 1.10.56–61)
[" ucilius..resembles a man whose only concern is to force / something into the framework of six feet, and who gaily produces / two hundred lines before dinner and another two hundred after."''Satire'' 1.10.59–61 (translated by Niall Rudd, ''The Satires of Horace and Persius'', Penguin Classics 1973, p. 69)]
The ''Epistles'' may be considered among Horace's most innovative works. There was nothing like it in Greek or Roman literature. Occasionally poems had had some resemblance to letters, including an elegiac poem from
Solon
Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...
to
Mimnermus
Mimnermus ( grc-gre, Μίμνερμος ''Mímnermos'') was a Greek elegiac poet from either Colophon or Smyrna in Ionia, who flourished about 632–629 BC (i.e. in the 37th Olympiad, according to Suda). He was strongly influenced by the examp ...
and some lyrical poems from
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...
to
Hieron of Syracuse
Hieron I ( el, Ἱέρων Α΄; usually Latinized Hiero) was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother, Polyzelos.
Life
During his ...
. Lucilius had composed a satire in the form of a letter, and some epistolary poems were composed by
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
and
Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.
Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of ''Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus a ...
. But nobody before Horace had ever composed an entire collection of verse letters, let alone letters with a focus on philosophical problems. The sophisticated and flexible style that he had developed in his ''Satires'' was adapted to the more serious needs of this new genre. Such refinement of style was not unusual for Horace. His craftsmanship as a wordsmith is apparent even in his earliest attempts at this or that kind of poetry, but his handling of each genre tended to improve over time as he adapted it to his own needs.
Thus for example it is generally agreed that his second book of ''Satires'', where human folly is revealed through dialogue between characters, is superior to the first, where he propounds his ethics in monologues. Nevertheless, the first book includes some of his most popular poems.
Themes
Horace developed a number of inter-related themes throughout his poetic career, including politics, love, philosophy and ethics, his own social role, as well as poetry itself. His ''Epodes'' and ''Satires'' are forms of 'blame poetry' and both have a natural affinity with the moralising and diatribes of
Cynicism
Cynic or Cynicism may refer to:
Modes of thought
* Cynicism (philosophy), a school of ancient Greek philosophy
* Cynicism (contemporary), modern use of the word for distrust of others' motives
Books
* ''The Cynic'', James Gordon Stuart Grant 1 ...
. This often takes the form of allusions to the work and philosophy of
Bion of Borysthenes
Bion of Borysthenes ( el, Βίων Βορυσθενίτης, ''gen''.: Βίωνος; BC) was a Greek philosopher. After being sold into slavery, and then released, he moved to Athens, where he studied in almost every school of philosophy. It ...
[There is one reference to Bion by name in ''Epistles'' 2.2.60, and the clearest allusion to him is in ''Satire'' 1.6, which parallels Bion fragments 1, 2, 16 ''Kindstrand''] but it is as much a literary game as a philosophical alignment.
By the time he composed his ''Epistles'', he was a critic of
Cynicism
Cynic or Cynicism may refer to:
Modes of thought
* Cynicism (philosophy), a school of ancient Greek philosophy
* Cynicism (contemporary), modern use of the word for distrust of others' motives
Books
* ''The Cynic'', James Gordon Stuart Grant 1 ...
along with all impractical and "high-falutin" philosophy in general.
[''Epistles'' 1.17 and 1.18.6–8 are critical of the extreme views of ]Diogenes
Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
and also of social adaptations of Cynic precepts, and yet ''Epistle'' 1.2 could be either Cynic or Stoic in its orientation (J. Moles, ''Philosophy and ethics'', p. 177
The ''Satires'' also include a strong element of
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
, with frequent allusions to the Epicurean poet
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
.
[''Satires'' 1.1.25–26, 74–75, 1.2.111–12, 1.3.76–77, 97–114, 1.5.44, 101–03, 1.6.128–31, 2.2.14–20, 25, 2.6.93–97] So for example the Epicurean sentiment ''
carpe diem
is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work ''Odes'' (23 BC).
Translation
is the second-person singular present active imperative of '' carpō'' "pick or pluck" used by Horace t ...
'' is the inspiration behind Horace's repeated punning on his own name (''Horatius ~ hora'') in ''Satires'' 2.6. The ''Satires'' also feature some
Stoic,
Peripatetic
Peripatetic may refer to:
*Peripatetic school, a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece
*Peripatetic axiom
* Peripatetic minority, a mobile population moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.
*Peripatetic Jats
There are several ...
and
Platonic (''Dialogues'') elements. In short, the ''Satires'' present a medley of philosophical programmes, dished up in no particular order—a style of argument typical of the
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
.
The ''Odes'' display a wide range of topics. Over time, he becomes more confident about his political voice. Although he is often thought of as an overly intellectual lover, he is ingenious in representing passion. The "Odes" weave various philosophical strands together, with allusions and statements of doctrine present in about a third of the ''Odes'' Books 1–3, ranging from the flippant (1.22, 3.28) to the solemn (2.10, 3.2, 3.3).
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
is the dominant influence, characterising about twice as many of these odes as Stoicism.
A group of odes combines these two influences in tense relationships, such as ''Odes'' 1.7, praising Stoic virility and devotion to public duty while also advocating private pleasures among friends. While generally favouring the Epicurean lifestyle, the lyric poet is as eclectic as the satiric poet, and in ''Odes'' 2.10 even proposes Aristotle's
golden mean as a remedy for Rome's political troubles.
Many of Horace's poems also contain much reflection on genre, the lyric tradition, and the function of poetry. ''Odes'' 4, thought to be composed at the emperor's request, takes the themes of the first three books of "Odes" to a new level. This book shows greater poetic confidence after the public performance of his "Carmen saeculare" or "Century hymn" at a public festival orchestrated by Augustus. In it, Horace addresses the emperor Augustus directly with more confidence and proclaims his power to grant poetic immortality to those he praises. It is the least philosophical collection of his verses, excepting the twelfth ode, addressed to the dead Virgil as if he were living. In that ode, the epic poet and the lyric poet are aligned with
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asser ...
and
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
respectively, in a mood of bitter-sweet pathos.
The first poem of the ''Epistles'' sets the philosophical tone for the rest of the collection: "So now I put aside both verses and all those other games: What is true and what befits is my care, this my question, this my whole concern." His poetic renunciation of poetry in favour of philosophy is intended to be ambiguous. Ambiguity is the hallmark of the ''Epistles''. It is uncertain if those being addressed by the self-mocking poet-philosopher are being honoured or criticised. Though he emerges as an
Epicurean, it is on the understanding that philosophical preferences, like political and social choices, are a matter of personal taste. Thus he depicts the ups and downs of the philosophical life more realistically than do most philosophers.
Reception
![Quinto Orazio Flacco](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Quinto_Orazio_Flacco.jpg)
The reception of Horace's work has varied from one epoch to another and varied markedly even in his own lifetime. ''Odes'' 1–3 were not well received when first 'published' in Rome, yet Augustus later commissioned a ceremonial ode for the Centennial Games in 17 BC and also encouraged the publication of ''Odes'' 4, after which Horace's reputation as Rome's premier lyricist was assured. His Odes were to become the best received of all his poems in ancient times, acquiring a classic status that discouraged imitation: no other poet produced a comparable body of lyrics in the four centuries that followed (though that might also be attributed to social causes, particularly the parasitism that Italy was sinking into). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ode-writing became highly fashionable in England and a large number of aspiring poets imitated Horace both in English and in Latin.
In a verse epistle to Augustus (Epistle 2.1), in 12 BC, Horace argued for classic status to be awarded to contemporary poets, including Virgil and apparently himself. In the final poem of his third book of Odes he claimed to have created for himself a monument more durable than bronze ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius", ''
Carmina
The ''Odes'' ( la, Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin lyric poems by Horace. The Horatian ode format and style has been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were published in 23 BC. A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, was ...
'' 3.30.1). For one modern scholar, however, Horace's personal qualities are more notable than the monumental quality of his achievement:
Yet for men like
Wilfred Owen, scarred by experiences of World War I, his poetry stood for discredited values:
The same motto, ''
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'', had been adapted to the ethos of martyrdom in the lyrics of early Christian poets like
Prudentius.
These preliminary comments touch on a small sample of developments in the reception of Horace's work. More developments are covered epoch by epoch in the following sections.
Antiquity
Horace's influence can be observed in the work of his near contemporaries,
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and
Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.
Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of ''Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus a ...
. Ovid followed his example in creating a completely natural style of expression in hexameter verse, and Propertius cheekily mimicked him in his third book of elegies.
[Propertius published his third book of elegies within a year or two of Horace's Odes 1–3 and mimicked him, for example, in the opening lines, characterizing himself in terms borrowed from Odes 3.1.13 and 3.30.13–14, as a priest of the Muses and as an adaptor of Greek forms of poetry (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 227)] His ''Epistles'' provided them both with a model for their own verse letters and it also shaped Ovid's exile poetry.
[Ovid for example probably borrowed from Horace's ''Epistle'' 1.20 the image of a poetry book as a slave boy eager to leave home, adapting it to the opening poems of ''Tristia'' 1 and 3 (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace''), and ''Tristia'' 2 May be understood as a counterpart to Horace's ''Epistles'' 2.1, both being letters addressed to Augustus on literary themes (A. Barchiesi, ''Speaking Volumes'', 79–103)]
His influence had a perverse aspect. As mentioned before, the brilliance of his ''Odes'' may have discouraged imitation. Conversely, they may have created a vogue for the lyrics of the archaic Greek poet
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...
, due to the fact that Horace had neglected that style of lyric (see
Influence and Legacy of Pindar). The iambic genre seems almost to have disappeared after publication of Horace's ''Epodes''. Ovid's ''Ibis'' was a rare attempt at the form but it was inspired mainly by
Callimachus
Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety ...
, and there are some iambic elements in
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...
but the main influence there was
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
. A revival of popular interest in the satires of Lucilius may have been inspired by Horace's criticism of his unpolished style. Both Horace and Lucilius were considered good role-models by
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
, who critiqued his own satires as lacking both the acerbity of Lucillius and the gentler touch of Horace.
[The comment is in Persius 1.114–18, yet that same satire has been found to have nearly 80 reminiscences of Horace; see D. Hooley, ''The Knotted Thong'', 29] Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...
's caustic satire was influenced mainly by Lucilius but Horace by then was a school classic and Juvenal could refer to him respectfully and in a round-about way as "''the Venusine lamp''".
[The allusion to ''Venusine'' comes via Horace's ''Sermones'' 2.1.35, while ''lamp'' signifies the lucubrations of a conscientious poet. According to Quintilian (93), however, many people in Flavian Rome preferred Lucilius not only to Horace but to all other Latin poets (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 279)]
Statius paid homage to Horace by composing one poem in Sapphic and one in Alcaic meter (the verse forms most often associated with ''Odes''), which he included in his collection of occasional poems, ''Silvae''. Ancient scholars wrote commentaries on the lyric meters of the ''Odes'', including the scholarly poet
Caesius Bassus
Gaius Caesius Bassus (d. AD 79) was a Roman lyric poet who lived in the reign of Nero.
He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (''Schol. on Persius'', vi. I). He had a great reputa ...
. By a process called ''derivatio'', he varied established meters through the addition or omission of syllables, a technique borrowed by
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
Seneca was born in ...
when adapting Horatian meters to the stage.
Horace's poems continued to be school texts into late antiquity. Works attributed to
Helenius Acro
Helenius Acron (or Acro) was a Roman commentator and grammarian, probably of the 3rd century AD, but whose precise date is not known.
Helenius Acron is known to have written on Terence ('' Adelphi'' and ''Eunuchus'' at least) and Horace. These ...
and
Pomponius Porphyrio are the remnants of a much larger body of Horatian scholarship. Porphyrio arranged the poems in non-chronological order, beginning with the ''Odes'', because of their general popularity and their appeal to scholars (the ''Odes'' were to retain this privileged position in the medieval manuscript tradition and thus in modern editions also). Horace was often evoked by poets of the fourth century, such as
Ausonius and
Claudian
Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...
.
Prudentius presented himself as a Christian Horace, adapting Horatian meters to his own poetry and giving Horatian motifs a Christian tone.
[Prudentius sometimes alludesto the ''Odes'' in a negative context, as expressions of a secular life he is abandoning. Thus for example ''male pertinax'', employed in Prudentius's ''Praefatio'' to describe a willful desire for victory, is lifted from ''Odes'' 1.9.24, where it describes a girl's half-hearted resistance to seduction. Elsewhere he borrows ''dux bone'' from ''Odes'' 4.5.5 and 37, where it refers to Augustus, and applies it to Christ (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 282] On the other hand,
St Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...
, modelled an uncompromising response to the pagan Horace, observing: "''What harmony can there be between Christ and the Devil? What has Horace to do with the Psalter?''"
[St Jerome, ''Epistles'' 22.29, incorporating a quote from ''2 'Corinthians'' 6.14: ''qui consensus Christo et Belial? quid facit cum psalterio Horatius?''(cited by K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 292)] By the early sixth century, Horace and Prudentius were both part of a classical heritage that was struggling to survive the disorder of the times.
Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the tr ...
, the last major author of classical Latin literature, could still take inspiration from Horace, sometimes mediated by Senecan tragedy.
[R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 283] It can be argued that Horace's influence extended beyond poetry to dignify core themes and values of the early Christian era, such as self-sufficiency, inner contentment and courage.
[''Odes'' 3.3.1–8 was especially influential in promoting the value of heroic calm in the face of danger, describing a man who could bear even the collapse of the world without fear (''si fractus illabatur orbis,/impavidum ferient ruinae''). Echoes are found in Seneca's ''Agamemnon'' 593–603, Prudentius's ''Peristephanon'' 4.5–12 and Boethius's ''Consolatio'' 1 metrum 4.(R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 283–85)]
Middle Ages and Renaissance
![Horaz beim Studium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Horaz_beim_Studium.jpg)
Classical texts almost ceased being copied in the period between the mid sixth century and the
Carolingian revival. Horace's work probably survived in just two or three books imported into northern Europe from Italy. These became the ancestors of six extant manuscripts dated to the ninth century. Two of those six manuscripts are French in origin, one was produced in
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
, and the other three show Irish influence but were probably written in continental monasteries (
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
for example). By the last half of the ninth century, it was not uncommon for literate people to have direct experience of Horace's poetry. His influence on the
Carolingian Renaissance
The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the State church of the Roman Emp ...
can be found in the poems of
Heiric of Auxerre
Heiric of Auxerre (841–876) was a French Benedictine theologian and writer.
He was an oblate of the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre from a young age. He studied with Servatus Lupus and Haymo of Auxerre. His own students included Remigius ...
[Heiric, like Prudentius, gave Horatian motifs a Christian context. Thus the character Lydia in ''Odes'' 3.19.15, who would willingly die for her lover twice, becomes in Heiric's ''Life'' of St Germaine of Auxerre a saint ready to die twice for the Lord's commandments (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient receptions of Horace'', 287–88)] and in some manuscripts marked with
neumes
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not ne ...
, mysterious notations that may have been an aid to the memorization and discussion of his lyric meters. ''Ode''
4.11 is neumed with the melody of a hymn to John the Baptist, ''
Ut queant laxis'', composed in
Sapphic stanzas. This hymn later became the basis of the
solfege system (''Do, re, mi...'')an association with western music quite appropriate for a lyric poet like Horace, though the language of the hymn is mainly Prudentian. Lyons argues that the melody in question was linked with Horace's Ode well before Guido d'Arezzo fitted
Ut queant laxis to it. However, the melody is unlikely to be a survivor from classical times, although Ovid testifies to Horace's use of the lyre while performing his Odes.
The German scholar,
Ludwig Traube Ludwig Traube may refer to:
*Ludwig Traube (physician) (1818–1876), German physician and co-founder of experimental pathology in Germany
*Ludwig Traube (palaeographer) (1861–1907), his son, German paleographer
{{hndis, Traube, Ludwig ...
, once dubbed the tenth and eleventh centuries ''The age of Horace'' (''aetas Horatiana''), and placed it between the ''aetas Vergiliana'' of the eighth and ninth centuries, and the ''aetas Ovidiana'' of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a distinction supposed to reflect the dominant classical Latin influences of those times. Such a distinction is over-schematized since Horace was a substantial influence in the ninth century as well. Traube had focused too much on Horace's ''Satires''. Almost all of Horace's work found favour in the Medieval period. In fact medieval scholars were also guilty of over-schematism, associating Horace's different genres with the different ages of man. A twelfth-century scholar encapsulated the theory: "...Horace wrote four different kinds of poems on account of the four ages, the ''Odes'' for boys, the ''Ars Poetica'' for young men, the ''Satires'' for mature men, the ''Epistles'' for old and complete men." It was even thought that Horace had composed his works in the order in which they had been placed by ancient scholars.
[According to a medieval French commentary on the ''Satires'': "...first he composed his lyrics, and in them, speaking to the young, as it were, he took as subject-matter love affairs and quarrels, banquets and drinking parties. Next he wrote his ''Epodes'', and in them composed invectives against men of a more advanced and more dishonourable age...He next wrote his book about the ''Ars Poetica'', and in that instructed men of his own profession to write well...Later he added his book of ''Satires'', in which he reproved those who had fallen a prey to various kinds of vices. Finally, he finished his oeuvre with the ''Epistles'', and in them, following the method of a good farmer, he sowed the virtues where he had rooted out the vices." (cited by K. Friis-Jensen, ''Horace in the Middle Ages'', 294–302)] Despite its naivety, the schematism involved an appreciation of Horace's works as a collection, the ''Ars Poetica'', ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' appearing to find favour as well as the ''Odes''. The later Middle Ages however gave special significance to ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'', being considered Horace's mature works.
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
referred to Horace as ''Orazio satiro'', and he awarded him a privileged position in the first circle of Hell, with
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
, Ovid and
Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...
.
Horace's popularity is revealed in the large number of quotes from all his works found in almost every genre of medieval literature, and also in the number of poets imitating him in
quantitative Latin meter. The most prolific imitator of his ''Odes'' was the Bavarian monk,
Metellus of Tegernsee
The gens Caecilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are mentioned in history as early as the fifth century BC, but the first of the Caecilii who obtained the consulship was Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter, in 284 BC.'' ...
, who dedicated his work to the patron saint of
Tegernsee Abbey,
St Quirinus, around the year 1170. He imitated all Horace's lyrical meters then followed these up with imitations of other meters used by Prudentius and Boethius, indicating that variety, as first modelled by Horace, was considered a fundamental aspect of the lyric genre. The content of his poems however was restricted to simple piety. Among the most successful imitators of ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' was another Germanic author, calling himself
Sextus Amarcius
Sextus is an ancient Roman '' praenomen'' or "first name". Its standard abbreviation is Sex., and the feminine form would be Sexta. It is one of the numeral ''praenomina'', like Quintus ("fifth") and Decimus ("tenth"), and means "sixth". Althoug ...
, around 1100, who composed four books, the first two exemplifying vices, the second pair mainly virtues.
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited w ...
is a key figure in the imitation of Horace in accentual meters. His verse letters in Latin were modelled on the ''Epistles'' and he wrote a letter to Horace in the form of an ode. However he also borrowed from Horace when composing his Italian sonnets. One modern scholar has speculated that authors who imitated Horace in accentual rhythms (including stressed Latin and vernacular languages) may have considered their work a natural sequel to Horace's metrical variety. In France, Horace and
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...
were the poetic models for a group of vernacular authors called the
Pléiade, including for example
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a "prince of poets".
Early life
Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of C ...
and
Joachim du Bellay.
Montaigne
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...
made constant and inventive use of Horatian quotes. The vernacular languages were dominant in Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century, where Horace's influence is notable in the works of such authors as
Garcilaso de la Vega,
Juan Boscán,
Sá de Miranda
Sá is a Portuguese, Spanish and Sephardic Jewish surname. It has a high incidence in Portuguese-speaking countries, such as Portugal, Brazil and Angola. It is still very common in countries like India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nigeria, South Korea, Saud ...
,
Antonio Ferreira and
Fray Luis de León, the last writing odes on the Horatian theme ''beatus ille'' (''happy the man''). The sixteenth century in western Europe was also an age of translations (except in Germany, where Horace wasn't translated into the vernacular until well into the seventeenth century). The first English translator was
Thomas Drant
Thomas Drant (c.1540–1578) was an English clergyman and poet. Work of his on prosody was known to Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. He was in the intellectual court circle known as the 'Areopagus', and including, as well as Sidney, Edward ...
, who placed translations of
Jeremiah
Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...
and Horace side by side in ''Medicinable Morall'', 1566. That was also the year that the Scot
George Buchanan paraphrased the
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
in a Horatian setting.
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
put Horace on the stage in 1601 in ''
Poetaster
Poetaster , like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, ''poetaster'' has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521. It was fir ...
'', along with other classical Latin authors, giving them all their own verses to speak in translation. Horace's part evinces the independent spirit, moral earnestness and critical insight that many readers look for in his poems.
Age of Enlightenment
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, neoclassical culture was pervasive. English literature in the middle of that period has been dubbed
Augustan. It is not always easy to distinguish Horace's influence during those centuries (the mixing of influences is shown for example in one poet's pseudonym, ''Horace Juvenal'').
['Horace Juvenal' was author of ''Modern manners: a poem'', 1793] However a measure of his influence can be found in the diversity of the people interested in his works, both among readers and authors.
New editions of his works were published almost yearly. There were three new editions in 1612 (two in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
, one in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
) and again in 1699 (
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
, Barcelona,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
). Cheap editions were plentiful and fine editions were also produced, including one whose entire text was engraved by
John Pine
John Pine (1690–1756) was an English designer, engraver, and cartographer notable for his artistic contribution to the Augustan style and Newtonian scientific paradigm that flourished during the British Enlightenment.
Early life and apprenti ...
in
copperplate. The poet
James Thomson owned five editions of Horace's work and the physician
James Douglas had five hundred books with Horace-related titles. Horace was often commended in periodicals such as
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
, as a hallmark of good judgement, moderation and manliness, a focus for moralising.
[see for example ''Spectator'' 312, 27 February 1712; 548, 28 November 1712; 618, 10 November 1714] His verses offered a fund of mottoes, such as ''
simplex munditiis
In geometry, a simplex (plural: simplexes or simplices) is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimensions. The simplex is so-named because it represents the simplest possible polytope in any given dimension. ...
'' (elegance in simplicity), ''
splendide mendax'' (nobly untruthful), ''
sapere aude'' (dare to know), ''
nunc est bibendum
Nunc A/S of Denmark was founded in 1953. Nunc specialized in laboratory plastic ware including products for cell culture, cell biology assays, sample prep, and sample storage. The company merged with the Nalge Company, which was founded in 1949 ...
'' (now is the time to drink), ''
carpe diem
is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work ''Odes'' (23 BC).
Translation
is the second-person singular present active imperative of '' carpō'' "pick or pluck" used by Horace t ...
'' (seize the day, perhaps the only one still in common use today).
These were quoted even in works as prosaic as
Edmund Quincy's ''A treatise of hemp-husbandry'' (1765). The fictional hero
Tom Jones recited his verses with feeling. His works were also used to justify commonplace themes, such as patriotic obedience, as in James Parry's English lines from an Oxford University collection in 1736:
Horatian-style lyrics were increasingly typical of Oxford and Cambridge verse collections for this period, most of them in Latin but some like the previous ode in English.
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
's
Lycidas
"Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who drown ...
first appeared in such a collection. It has few Horatian echoes
[One echo of Horace may be found in line 69: "''Were it not better done as others use,/ To sport with Amaryllis in the shade/Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?''", which points to the Neara in ''Odes'' 3.14.21 (Douglas Bush, ''Milton: Poetical Works'', 144, note 69)] yet Milton's associations with Horace were lifelong. He composed a controversial version of ''Odes'' 1.5, and
Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...
includes references to Horace's 'Roman' ''Odes'' 3.1–6 (Book 7 for example begins with echoes of ''Odes'' 3.4). Yet Horace's lyrics could offer inspiration to libertines as well as moralists, and neo-Latin sometimes served as a kind of discrete veil for the risqué. Thus for example
Benjamin Loveling
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
authored a catalogue of Drury Lane and Covent Garden prostitutes, in Sapphic stanzas, and an encomium for a dying lady "of salacious memory". Some Latin imitations of Horace were politically subversive, such as a marriage ode by
Anthony Alsop
Anthony Alsop was born about 1670 and died in Winchester on 10 June 1726. He was a clergyman and Neo-Latin poet who sided with the Tory Party at the end of the Stuart era. His poetry was admired at the time but was eventually forgotten until a re ...
that included a rallying cry for the
Jacobite cause. On the other hand,
Andrew Marvell took inspiration from Horace's ''Odes'' 1.37 to compose his English masterpiece
Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland
Andrew Marvell (; 31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend ...
, in which subtly nuanced reflections on the execution of
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
echo Horace's ambiguous response to the death of
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...
(Marvell's ode was suppressed in spite of its subtlety and only began to be widely published in 1776).
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
took particular pleasure in reading ''The Odes''.
[Cfr. ]James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...
, "The Life of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
" ''Aetat.'' 20, 1729 where Boswell remarked of Johnson that Horace's ''Odes'' "were the compositions in which he took most delight." Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
wrote direct ''Imitations'' of Horace (published with the original Latin alongside) and also echoed him in ''Essays'' and
The Rape of the Lock
''The Rape of the Lock'' is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque, it was first published anonymously in Lintot's ''Miscellaneous Poems and Translations'' (May 1712) ...
. He even emerged as "a quite Horatian Homer" in his translation of the ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...
''. Horace appealed also to female poets, such as
Anna Seward (''Original sonnets on various subjects, and odes paraphrased from Horace'', 1799) and
Elizabeth Tollet
Elizabeth Tollet (March 11, 1694 – February 1, 1754) was a British poet. Her surviving works are varied; she produced translations of classical themes, religious and philosophical poetry and poems arguing for women's involvement in education and ...
, who composed a Latin ode in Sapphic meter to celebrate her brother's return from overseas, with tea and coffee substituted for the wine of Horace's
sympotic settings:
Horace's ''Ars Poetica'' is second only to Aristotle's ''Poetics'' in its influence on literary theory and criticism. Milton recommended both works in his treatise ''of Education''. Horace's ''Satires'' and ''Epistles'' however also had a huge impact, influencing theorists and critics such as
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
. There was considerable debate over the value of different lyrical forms for contemporary poets, as represented on one hand by the kind of four-line stanzas made familiar by Horace's Sapphic and Alcaic ''Odes'' and, on the other, the loosely structured
Pindarics associated with the odes of
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...
. Translations occasionally involved scholars in the dilemmas of censorship. Thus
Christopher Smart
Christopher Smart (11 April 1722 – 20 May 1771) was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines, ''The Midwife'' and ''The Student'', and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fie ...
entirely omitted ''Odes''
4.10 and re-numbered the remaining odes. He also removed the ending of ''Odes''
4.1.
Thomas Creech
Thomas Creech (1659 – found dead 19 July 1700) was an English translator of classical works, and headmaster of Sherborne School. Creech translated Lucretius into verse in 1682, for which he received a Fellowship at Oxford. He also produced En ...
printed ''Epodes''
8 and
12 in the original Latin but left out their English translations.
Philip Francis left out both the English and Latin for those same two epodes, a gap in the numbering the only indication that something was amiss. French editions of Horace were influential in England and these too were regularly
bowdlerized.
Most European nations had their own 'Horaces': thus for example
Friedrich von Hagedorn
Friedrich von Hagedorn (23 April 1708 – 28 October 1754), Germany, German poet, was born at Hamburg, where his father, a man of scientific and literary taste, was Danish ambassador. His younger brother, Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, Christian L ...
was called ''The German Horace'' and
Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski
Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (in Latin, ''Matthias Casimirus Sarbievius''; Lithuanian: ''Motiejus Kazimieras Sarbievijus''; Sarbiewo, Poland, 24 February 1595 Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski's biography by Mirosław Korolko in: – 2 April 1640, Warsa ...
''The Polish Horace'' (the latter was much imitated by English poets such as
Henry Vaughan and
Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley (; 161828 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721.
Early ...
). Pope
Urban VIII wrote voluminously in Horatian meters, including an ode on gout.
19th century on
Horace maintained a central role in the education of English-speaking elites right up until the 1960s. A pedantic emphasis on the formal aspects of language-learning at the expense of literary appreciation may have made him unpopular in some quarters yet it also confirmed his influencea tension in his reception that underlies
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's famous lines from ''
Childe Harold
''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to " Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is disi ...
'' (Canto iv, 77):
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
's mature poetry, including the
preface
__NOTOC__
A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a '' foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes ...
to ''
Lyrical Ballads'', reveals Horace's influence in its rejection of false ornament and he once expressed "a wish / to meet the shade of Horace...".
[The quote, from ''Memorials of a Tour of Italy'' (1837), contains allusions to ''Odes'' 3.4 and 3.13 (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 334–35)] John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
echoed the opening of Horace's ''Epodes'' 14 in the opening lines of ''
Ode to a Nightingale''.
["''My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / my sense...''" echoes Epodes 14.1–4 (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 335)]
The Roman poet was presented in the nineteenth century as an honorary English gentleman.
William Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel '' Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and t ...
produced a version of ''Odes''
1.38 in which Horace's 'boy' became 'Lucy', and
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovato ...
translated the boy innocently as 'child'. Horace was translated by
Sir Theodore Martin
Sir Theodore Martin (16 September 1816 – 18 August 1909) was a Scottish poet, biographer, and translator.
Biography
Martin was the son of James Martin, a solicitor in Edinburgh, where Theodore was born and educated at the Royal High Scho ...
(biographer of
Prince Albert
Prince Albert most commonly refers to:
*Albert, Prince Consort (1819–1861), consort of Queen Victoria
*Albert II, Prince of Monaco (born 1958), present head of state of Monaco
Prince Albert may also refer to:
Royalty
* Albert I of Belgium ...
) but minus some ungentlemanly verses, such as the erotic ''Odes''
1.25 and ''Epodes'' 8 and 12.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secret ...
produced a popular translation and
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
also wrote translations during his last days as Prime Minister.
Edward FitzGerald's ''
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'', though formally derived from the Persian ''
ruba'i'', nevertheless shows a strong Horatian influence, since, as one modern scholar has observed, "''...the quatrains inevitably recall the stanzas of the 'Odes', as does the narrating first person of the world-weary, ageing
Epicurean Omar himself, mixing
sympotic exhortation and 'carpe diem' with splendid moralising and 'memento mori'
nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
.''"
[Comment by S. Harrison, editor and contributor to ''The Cambridge Companion to Horace'' (S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 337] Matthew Arnold advised a friend in verse not to worry about politics, an echo of ''Odes''
2.11, yet later became a critic of Horace's inadequacies relative to Greek poets, as role models of
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
virtues, observing: "''If human life were complete without faith, without enthusiasm, without energy, Horace...would be the perfect interpreter of human life.''"
Christina Rossetti composed a sonnet depicting a woman willing her own death steadily, drawing on Horace's depiction of 'Glycera' in ''Odes''
1.19.5–6 and Cleopatra in ''Odes''
1.37.
[Rossetti's sonnet, ''A Study (a soul)'', dated 1854, was not published in her own lifetime. Some lines: ''She stands as pale as Parian marble stands / Like Cleopatra when she turns at bay...'' (C. Rossetti, ''Complete Poems'', 758] A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...
considered ''Odes''
4.7, in
Archilochian
Archilochian or archilochean is a term used in the metrical analysis of Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The name is derived from Archilochus, whose poetry first uses the rhythms.
In Greek verse
In the analysis of Archaic and Classical Greek poe ...
couplets, the most beautiful poem of antiquity and yet he generally shared Horace's penchant for quatrains, being readily adapted to his own elegiac and melancholy strain. The most famous poem of
Ernest Dowson
Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 186723 February 1900) was an English poet, novelist, and short-story writer who is often associated with the Decadent movement.
Biography
Ernest Dowson was born in Lee, then in Kent, in 1867. His great-uncle ...
took its title and its heroine's name from a line of ''Odes''
4.1, ''Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae'', as well as its motif of nostalgia for a former flame.
Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much o ...
wrote a famous parody of the ''Odes'', satirising their stylistic idiosyncrasies and especially the extraordinary syntax, but he also used Horace's Roman patriotism as a focus for British imperialism, as in the story ''Regulus'' in the school collection ''
Stalky & Co.'', which he based on ''Odes''
3.5. Wilfred Owen's famous poem, quoted above, incorporated Horatian text to question patriotism while ignoring the rules of Latin scansion. However, there were few other echoes of Horace in the war period, possibly because war is not actually a major theme of Horace's work.
![Michelin Poster 1898](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Michelin_Poster_1898.jpg)
Both
W.H.Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
and
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...
began their careers as teachers of classics and both responded as poets to Horace's influence. Auden for example evoked the fragile world of the 1930s in terms echoing ''Odes''
2.11.1–4, where Horace advises a friend not to let worries about frontier wars interfere with current pleasures.
The American poet
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...
echoed Horace's ''Satires'' in the conversational and sententious idiom of some of his longer poems, such as ''The Lesson for Today'' (1941), and also in his gentle advocacy of life on the farm, as in ''Hyla Brook'' (1916), evoking Horace's ''fons Bandusiae'' in ''Ode''
3.13. Now at the start of the third millennium, poets are still absorbing and re-configuring the Horatian influence, sometimes in translation (such as a 2002 English/American edition of the ''Odes'' by thirty-six poets)
[Edited by McClatchy, reviewed by S. Harrison, ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' 2003.03.05] and sometimes as inspiration for their own work (such as a 2003 collection of odes by a New Zealand poet).
[I. Wedde, ''The Commonplace Odes'', Auckland 2003, (cited by S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 345)]
Horace's ''Epodes'' have largely been ignored in the modern era, excepting those with political associations of historical significance. The obscene qualities of some of the poems have repulsed even scholars
['Political' Epodes are 1, 7, 9, 16; notably obscene Epodes are 8 and 12. E. Fraenkel is among the admirers repulsed by these two poems, for another view of which see for example Dee Lesser Clayman, 'Horace's Epodes VIII and XII: More than Clever Obscenity?', ''The Classical World'' Vol. 6, No. 1 (September 1975), pp 55–61 ] yet more recently a better understanding of the nature of
Iambic poetry
Iambus or iambic poetry was a genre of ancient Greek poetry that included but was not restricted to the iambic meter and whose origins modern scholars have traced to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus. The genre featured insulting and obscene lan ...
has led to a re-evaluation of the ''whole'' collection. A re-appraisal of the ''Epodes'' also appears in creative adaptations by recent poets (such as a 2004 collection of poems that relocates the ancient context to a 1950s industrial town).
[M. Almond, ''The Works'' 2004, Washington, cited by S. Harrison, ''The nineteenth and twentieth centuries'', 346]
Translations
*The ''
Ars Poetica'' was first translated into English by
Thomas Drant
Thomas Drant (c.1540–1578) was an English clergyman and poet. Work of his on prosody was known to Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. He was in the intellectual court circle known as the 'Areopagus', and including, as well as Sidney, Edward ...
in 1556, and later by
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
and
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
.
*
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
''Sylvæ; or, The second Part of Poetical Miscellanies''(London: Jacob Tonson, 1685) Included adaptations of three of the ''Odes'', and one Epode.
*
Philip Francis, ''The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare'' ''of Horace'' (Dublin, 1742; London, 1743)
*——— ''The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry'' ''of Horace'' (1746)
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
favoured these translations.
*
C. S. Calverley''Verses and Translations''(1860; rev. 1862) Included versions of ten of the ''Odes.''
*
John Conington
John Conington (10 August 1825 – 23 October 1869) was an English classical scholar. In 1866 he published his best-known work, the translation of the ''Aeneid'' of Virgil into the octosyllabic metre of Walter Scott. He was Corpus Professor ...
,
''The Odes and Carmen Sæculare of Horace'' (1863; rev. 1872)
*——— ''The Satires'', ''Epistles'' ''and'' ''Ars Poëtica of Horace'' (1869)
*
Theodore Martin
Sir Theodore Martin (16 September 1816 – 18 August 1909) was a Scottish poet, biographer, and translator.
Biography
Martin was the son of James Martin, a solicitor in Edinburgh, where Theodore was born and educated at the Royal High Scho ...
''The Odes of Horace, Translated Into English Verse, with a Life and Notes''(Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866)
*
James Michie
James Michie (24 June 1927 – 30 October 2007) was an English poet, translator and editor.
Michie was born in Weybridge, Surrey, the son of a banker and the younger brother of Donald Michie, a researcher in artificial intelligence.
The texts ...
, ''The Odes of Horace'' (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1964) Included a dozen ''Odes'' in the original
Sapphic and
Alcaic The Alcaic stanza is a Greek lyrical meter, an Aeolic verse form traditionally believed to have been invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC. The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alcaeus' ...
metres.
*More recent verse translations of the Odes include those by David West (free verse), and Colin Sydenham (rhymed).
*In 1983, Charles E. Passage translated all the works of Horace in the original metres.
*''Horace's Odes and the Mystery of Do-Re-Mi'' Stuart Lyons (rhymed) Aris & Phillips
In popular culture
The Oxford Latin Course textbooks use the life of Horace to illustrate an average Roman's life in the
late Republic to
Early Empire.
See also
*
Carpe diem
is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work ''Odes'' (23 BC).
Translation
is the second-person singular present active imperative of '' carpō'' "pick or pluck" used by Horace t ...
*
Horatia gens
The gens Horatia was a patrician family at ancient Rome. In legend, the gens dates back to the time of Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome. One of its members, Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, was consul ''suffectus'' in 509 BC, the first year o ...
*
List of ancient Romans
This an alphabetical List of ancient Romans, including citizens of ancient Rome remembered in history.
:''Note that some people may be listed multiple times, once for each part of the name.''
A
* Titus Accius -
* Gaius Acilius -
*Claudia Ac ...
*
Otium
*
Prosody (Latin)
Latin prosody (from Middle French ''prosodie'', from Latin ''prosōdia'', from Ancient Greek προσῳδία ''prosōidía'', "song sung to music, pronunciation of syllable") is the study of Latin poetry and its laws of meter. The following artic ...
*
Translation
Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
*
Horace's Villa
Notes
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References
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External links
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* Q. Horati Flacci
opera', recensuerunt O. Keller et A. Holder, 2 voll., Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1864–9.
Q. Horati Flacci opera(critical edition of all Horace's poems), edited by O. Keller & A. Holder, published by B. G. Teubner, 1878.
Common sayings from Horaceat
The Latin Library
The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. It is run by William L. Carey, adjunct professor of Latin and Roman Law at George Mason University. The texts have been drawn from different sources, are not intended for rese ...
Carmina HoratianaAll ''Carmina'' of Horace in Latin recited by Thomas Bervoets.
Selected Poems of HoraceWorks by Horace at Perseus Digital LibraryBiography and chronologyHorace's works text, concordances and frequency list
Translations of several odes in the original meters (with accompaniment).A discussion and comparison of three different contemporary translations of Horace's ''Odes''* academia.edu: Tossing Augustus out of Horace's Ars Poetica
Horati opera, Acronis et Porphyrionis commentarii, varia lectio etc. (latine)
{{Authority control
65 BC births
8 BC deaths
1st-century BC Romans
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Ancient Roman soldiers
Golden Age Latin writers
People from Venosa
Roman-era poets
Roman-era satirists
Iambic poets
Ancient literary critics
Roman-era Epicurean philosophers
Flaccus, Quintus
Roman philhellenes
Simple living advocates