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Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC),Suetonius, Life of Horace. commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman Lyric poetry during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as 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 (R. Tarrant, Ancient Receptions of Horace, 280)
Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses ( Satires and Epistles) and caustic iambic poetry ( Epodes). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius 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 in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, 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's phrase, "a well-mannered court slave".N. Rudd, The Satires of Horace and Persius, 10Quoted by Niall 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
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. 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 Satires 1.6.86 was explained by scholia as a reference to 'coactor argentarius' 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 4–5
The father spent a small fortune on his son's education, eventually accompanying him to Rome to oversee his schooling and moral development. The poet later paid tribute to him in a poem Satires 1.6 that the German classical scholar Eduard Fraenkel considered 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.
Rome's troubles following the assassination of Julius Caesar were soon to catch up with him. Marcus Junius Brutus came to Athens seeking support for the Roman Republic 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 9–10 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. Satires 1.6.48R. 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.V. Kiernan, Horace, 25 It was there in 42 BC that Octavian (later Augustus) and his associate Mark Antony crushed the republican forces at the Battle of Philippi. Horace later recorded it as a day of embarrassment for himself, when he fled without his shield, Odes 2.7.10 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. 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, 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 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. Epistles 2.2.51–52 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.V. Kiernan, Horace: Poetics and politics 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 14–15 It was about this time that he began writing his Satires and Epodes.
He described Epistles 1.16.5-16 in glowing terms the country villa which his patron, Maecenas, had given him in a letter to his friend Quinctius:
The remains of Horace's Villa are situated on a wooded hillside above the river at Licenza, which joins the Aniene as it flows on to Tivoli.
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.F. Muecke, The Satires, 109–10 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. 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.R. Lyne, Augustan Poetry and Society, 599 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."J. Griffin, Horace in the Thirties, 6 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.D. Mankin, Horace: Epodes, 5
In 37 BC, Horace accompanied Maecenas on a journey to Brundisium, described in one of his poems Satires 1.5 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 negotiate the Treaty of Tarentum 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 in 36 BC, briefly alluded to by Horace in terms of near-drowning. Odes 3.4.28 Odes 3.4.28: "nec (me extinxit) Sicula Palinurus unda"; "nor did Palinurus extinguish me with Sicilian waters". Maecenas' involvement is recorded by Appian 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. Epodes 1 and 9The 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 traitorous 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 15 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 Equites (Roman 'cavalryman', 'knight'), Satires 2.7.53 perhaps as a result of his work at the Treasury.R. Nisbet, Horace: life and chronology, 11
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. Epistles 1.19.35–44 Perhaps it was this 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 Epistles 1.1.10 but, though the collection demonstrates a leaning towards stoic theory, it reveals no sustained thinking about ethics.V. Kiernan, Horace: Poetics and Politics, 149, 153 Maecenas was still the dominant confidante but Horace had now begun to assert his own independence, suavely declining constant invitations to attend his patron. Epistles 1.7 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". Epistles 1.20.24–25R. Nisbet, Horace: life and chronology, 14–15
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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 17–18 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 Epistles 2.2 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).R. Ferri, The Epistles, 121 He was also commissioned to write odes commemorating the victories of Drusus and Tiberius Odes 4.4 and 4.14 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 23
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 Gaius Lucilius, his predecessor.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 106–07 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 74 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 such as 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, 95–96
Horace generally followed the examples of poets established as classics in different genres, such as Archilochus 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.J. Griffin, Gods and Religion, 182 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 . 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).S. Harrison, Lyric and Iambic, 192 He also claimed to be the first poet to introduce into Latin the lyrical methods of Alcaeus ( Epistles 1.19.32–33), and he was actually the first Latin poet to make consistent use of Alcaic meters and themes: love, politics, and the symposium. 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.S. Harrison, Lyric and Iambic, 194–96
The satirical poet Lucilius was a senator's son who could castigate his peers with impunity. Horace was merely a freedman's son who needed 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 through his blunt frankness and explicit politics. His work expressed genuine freedom or libertas. 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.L. Morgan, Satire, 177–78 His Satires are relatively easy-going in their use of meter (relative to the tight lyric meters of the Odes),S. Harrison, Style and poetic texture, 271 but formal and highly controlled relative to the poems of Lucilius, whom Horace mocked for his sloppy standards ( Satires 1.10.56–61)"Lucilius...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 borne some resemblance to letters, including an elegiac poem from Solon to Mimnermus, and some lyrical poems from Pindar to Hieron of Syracuse. Lucilius had composed a satire in the form of a letter, and some epistolary poems were composed by Catullus and Propertius. But nobody before Horace had composed an entire collection of verse letters,R. Ferri, The Epistles, pp. 121–22 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.E. Fraenkel, Horace, p. 309 Such refinement of style was not unusual for Horace. His craftsmanship as a wordsmith is apparent even in his earliest attempts at various kinds 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.V. Kiernan, Horace: Poetics and Politics, 28
By the time he composed his Epistles, Horace was a critic of Cynicism 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 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. 177J. Moles, Philosophy and ethics, pp. 165–69, 177
The Satires also include a strong element of Epicureanism, with frequent allusions to the Epicurean poet Lucretius. 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 the inspiration behind Horace's repeated punning on his own name ( Horatius ~ hora) in Satires 2.6.K. J. Reckford, Some studies in Horace's odes on love The Satires also feature some Stoicism, Peripatetic 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.J. Moles, Philosophy and ethics, p. 168
The Odes display a wide range of topics. Over time, Horace becomes more confident about his political voice.Santirocco "Unity and Design", Lowrie "Horace's Narrative Odes" Although he is often thought of as an overly intellectual lover, he is ingenious in representing passion.Ancona, "Time and the Erotic" 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 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 he even proposes Aristotle's golden mean as a remedy for Rome's political troubles.J. Moles, Philosophy and ethics, pp. 171–73
Many of Horace's poems also contain substantial reflection on genre, the lyric tradition, and the function of poetry.Davis "Polyhymnia" and Lowrie "Horace's Narrative Odes" 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 the book, 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 and Epicureanism respectively, in a mood of bittersweet pathos.J. Moles, Philosophy and ethics, p. 179
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." Horace's 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 Epicureanism, 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.J. Moles, Philosophy and ethics, pp. 174–80
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.R. Lyme, Augustan Poetry and Society, 603 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 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.R. Tarrant, Ancient receptions of Horace, 282–83
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.
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, due to the fact that Horace had neglected that style of lyric (see Influence and Legacy of Pindar).R. Tarrant, Ancient receptions of Horace, 280 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, and there are some iambic elements in Martial but the main influence there was Catullus.R. Tarrant, Ancient receptions of Horace, 278 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, 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'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. By a process called derivatio, he varied established meters through the addition or omission of syllables, a technique borrowed by Seneca the Younger when adapting Horatian meters to the stage.R. Tarrant, Ancient receptions of Horace, 280–81
Horace's poems continued to be school texts into late antiquity. Works attributed to Helenius Acro 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. 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, 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, 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)
The German scholar Ludwig Traube 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. Horace was a substantial influence in the ninth century as well, and Traube concentrated too much on Horace's Satires.B. Bischoff, Living with the satirists, 83–95 Almost all of Horace's work found favour in the Medieval period, with scholars 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."K. Friis-Jensen, Horace in the Middle Ages, 291
It was then 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) This 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, considered Horace's mature works. Dante referred to Horace as Orazio satiro, and he awarded him a privileged position in the first circle of Hell, with Homer, Ovid and Lucan.K. Friis-Jensen, Horace in the Middle Ages, 293, 304
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, 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.K. Friis-Jensen, Horace in the Middle Ages, 296–98 Among the most successful imitators of Satires and Epistles was another Germanic author, calling himself Sextus Amarcius, around 1100, who composed four books, the first two exemplifying vices, the second pair mainly virtues.K. Friis-Jensen, Horace in the Middle Ages, 302
Petrarch 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.K. Friis-Jensen, Horace in the Middle Ages, 299 In France, Horace and Pindar were the poetic models for a group of vernacular authors called the Pléiade, including for example Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. Montaigne made constant and inventive use of Horatian quotes.Michael McGann, Horace in the Renaissance, 306 The vernacular languages were dominant in Castilia 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, Antonio Ferreira and Fray Luis de León, the last writing odes on the Horatian theme beatus ille ( happy the man).E. Rivers, Fray Luis de León: The Original Poems 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, who placed translations of Jeremiah and Horace side by side in Medicinable Morall, 1566. That was also the year that the Scot George Buchanan paraphrased the Psalms in a Horatian setting. Ben Jonson put Horace on the stage in 1601 in Poetaster, 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.M. McGann, Horace in the Renaissance, 306–07, 313–16
New editions of his works were published almost yearly. There were three new editions in 1612 (two in Leiden, one in Frankfurt) and again in 1699 (Utrecht, Barcelona, Cambridge). Cheap editions were plentiful and fine editions were also produced, including one whose entire text was engraved by John Pine 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, 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 (elegance in simplicity), splendide mendax (nobly untruthful), sapere aude (dare to know), nunc est bibendum (now is the time to drink), carpe diem (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.D. Money, The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 322 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:D. Money, The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 326–27
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's Lycidas first appeared in such a collection. It has few Horatian echoesOne 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 includes references to Horace's 'Roman' Odes 3.1–6 (Book 7 for example begins with echoes of Odes 3.4).J. Talbot, A Horatian Pun in Paradise Lost, 21–3 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 authored a catalogue of Drury Lane and Covent Garden prostitutes, in Sapphic stanzas, and an encomium for a dying lady "of salacious memory".B. Loveling, Latin and English Poems, 49–52, 79–83 Some Latin imitations of Horace were politically subversive, such as a marriage ode by Anthony Alsop that included a rallying cry for the Jacobitism 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, in which subtly nuanced reflections on the execution of Charles I echo Horace's ambiguous response to the death of Cleopatra (Marvell's ode was suppressed in spite of its subtlety and only began to be widely published in 1776). Samuel Johnson took particular pleasure in reading The Odes.Cfr. James Boswell, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" Aetat. 20, 1729 where Boswell remarked of Johnson that Horace's Odes "were the compositions in which he took most delight." Alexander Pope wrote direct Imitations of Horace (published with the original Latin alongside) and also echoed him in Essays and The Rape of the Lock. He even emerged as "a quite Horatian Homer" in his translation of the Iliad.D. Money, The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 329–31 Horace appealed also to female poets, such as Anna Seward ( Original sonnets on various subjects, and odes paraphrased from Horace, 1799) and Elizabeth Tollet, 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 symposium 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.A. Gilbert, Literary Criticism: Plato to Dryden, 124, 669 Horace's Satires and Epistles however also had a huge impact, influencing theorists and critics such as John Dryden.W. Kupersmith, Roman Satirists in Seventeenth Century England, 97–101 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. Translations occasionally involved scholars in the dilemmas of censorship. Thus Christopher Smart entirely omitted Odes 4.10 and re-numbered the remaining odes. He also removed the ending of Odes 4.1. Thomas Creech 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 .
Most European nations had their own 'Horaces': thus for example Friedrich von Hagedorn was called The German Horace and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski The Polish Horace (the latter was much imitated by English poets such as Henry Vaughan and Abraham Cowley). Pope Urban VIII wrote voluminously in Horatian meters, including an ode on gout.D. Money, The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 319–25
William Wordsworth's mature poetry, including the preface to Lyrical Ballads, reveals Horace's influence in its rejection of false ornamentD. Money, The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 323 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 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 produced a version of Odes 1.38 in which Horace's 'boy' became 'Lucy', and Gerard Manley Hopkins translated the boy innocently as 'child'. Horace was translated by Sir Theodore Martin (biographer of Prince Albert) but minus some ungentlemanly verses, such as the erotic Odes 1.25 and Epodes 8 and 12. Edward Bulwer-Lytton produced a popular translation and William Gladstone also wrote translations during his last days as Prime Minister.S. Harrison, The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 335–37
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 Epicurus Omar himself, mixing Symposium exhortation and 'carpe diem' with splendid moralising and 'memento mori' nihilism."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 Age virtues, observing: " If human life were complete without faith, without enthusiasm, without energy, Horace...would be the perfect interpreter of human life."M. Arnold, Selected Prose, 74 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 considered Odes 4.7, in Archilochian couplets, the most beautiful poem of antiquityW. Flesch, Companion to British Poetry, 19th Century, 98 and yet he generally shared Horace's penchant for quatrains, being readily adapted to his own elegiac and melancholy strain.S. Harrison, The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 339 The most famous poem of Ernest Dowson 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 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.S. Medcalfe, Kipling's Horace, 217–39 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.S. Harrison, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 340 The Spanish poet Miquel Costa i Llobera published his renowned collection of poems named Horacianes, thus being dedicated to the Latin poet Horace, and employing Sapphics, Alcaics and similar types of stanzas.
Both W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice 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 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 has led to a re-evaluation of the whole collection.D. Mankin, Horace: Epodes, 6–9R. McNeill, Horace, 12 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
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