Horace

Horace (65-8 BCE) - his full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus (see also Pronunciation of Latin proper names) is the greatest of the Latin lyric poets. The adjective from Horace (pronounced IPA: /'hɒ rɪs/) is Horatian (pronounced IPA: /hə 'reɪ ʃən/).

Horace was born in Venusia (modern Venosa) in Apulia (modern Puglia) in south east Italy but, despite his father's relatively humble social status - he was a freedman who owned a small farm - he was sent to Rome for his education. During the Civil War which followed the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE Horace served briefly as an officer (tribunus militum) in Brutus' Republican army, but after the latter's defeat at the battle of Philippi in 42 BCE he returned to Italy, where, finding himself without means of financial support, he worked as a civil servant (scriba quaestorius) in Rome. It was around this time that he began to write poetry and made the acquaintance of Virgil, who introduced him to Maecenas, the great literary patron of the age and friend of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus). Maecenas persuaded Horace to abandon his sympathies for the Republican cause in favour of Octavian, and became his patron, enabling him to buy a farm in the foothills of the Apennines north east of Rome. Horace devoted the last twenty five years of his life to poetry, spending much of the time on his farm, which is the subject of several of his poems.

Horace's fame rests primarily on his four books of Odes - their Latin title is Carmina (Songs) - of which the first three books were published in 20 BCE, and the fourth in 13 BCE. Each book is a collection of short lyric poems whose subjects range from the traditional subjects of lyric poetry, such as love, life in the country, and the pleasures of wine, to celebrations of contemporary public events, such as the military successes of members of the Imperial family. In many of the poems Horace follows Greek models - in particular, the lyric poets Alcaeus (7th cent. BCE) and Sappho (6th cent. BCE) - both in his treatment of his subject and in the metre in which the poem is written. (The metres most frequently used are Alcaics, Sapphics, and Asclepiads.) Horace himself seems well aware of his achivement as a lyric poet. In the final Ode of Book III (III 30) he writes:

Exegi monumentum aere perennius

......

non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei

vitabit Libitinam.

......

dicar ...

... ex humili potens

princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos

deduxisse modos.

(Translation: I have raised a monument more enduring than bronze.... I shall not entirely die: a great part of me will escape the grave ... I shall be spoken of ... as the person who rose high from humble beginnings and was the first to adapt Aeolian poetry (i.e., the poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho) to Italian measures.)

However, not all Horace's poetry is lyric poetry. As well as the Odes he wrote:

• Two books of Satires (Book I published in 35 BCE and Book II in 30 BCE). Each book is a collection of poems written in a conversational style and dealing with a variety of everyday subjects. A satire in this context is not a satire as we understand the term today - a satura in Latin is a miscellany.

• Two books of Epistles (Book I published in 20 BCE and Book II in 13 BCE). Each book is a collection poems written as letters, similar in subject matter and style to the poems in the Satires.

• Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry) - a discussion of poetry written as a letter to the two sons of an eminent Roman.

The Satires, the Epistles, and the Ars Poetica are all written in dactylic hexameters.