him in his palace on the Esquiline. From this time until his death, which occurred on the 27th of November 8 B.c., a few weeks after that of Maecenas, the poet and his patron lived on terms of extreme intimacy and Horace takes a marked place as one of the notable figures in Roman society. Of his life, however, there is little to relate. He was a man who infinitely preferred repose and comfort to rank and distinction. Maecenas presented him with a small farm among the Sabine hills a little north-east of Tibur (Tivoli), and this Sabine farm was dear to him as the apple of his eye.1 He is never weary of referring to its charms; he loved to retire to it from Rome, and he constantly contrasts the delights of his peaceful life there with the worry and turmoil and endless engagements of the capital. In Rome itself he contented himself with an extremely modest household, 2 partly because his independent spirit made him unwilling to accept too much from his patron, partly because he had a genuine dislike of ostentation and the inconveniences which it entails. His ideal in life was a modest competence and the ability to do as you like. To lie in bed until ten, then to write or read, to play a game at ball, to bathe, to dine at ease, to stroll round the Circus or the Forum in the evening listening to fortune-tellers and cheap-jacks 3 - these were delights in his judgment to which kings and courts could afford nothing equal. Even when pressed by Augustus to accept the distinguished position of his private secretary, he refused to sacrifice his freedom; and the refusal was accepted without irritation by the emperor, while Suetonius quotes a letter in which the master of the world good-humouredly contrasts the poet's haughty reserve with his own humble entreaties and offers of friendship.4 Throughout life he took a keen interest in philosophy and especially in ethics, questions connected with morals being continually discussed by him. His own tastes and habits were naturally Epicurean and 'a sleek-skinned porker from the pen of Epicurus'5 is his jesting description of himself, while such maxims as carpe diem and dona praesentis cape laetus horae abound in his writings and are illustrated in his life. On the other hand he is never tired of jibing at the crabbed and paradoxical teaching of the Stoics, whose typical 'wise man' he delights to portray as a typical fool. But in spite of this he 1 Od. 2. 18. 14. 2 S. 1. 6. 114. 3 S. 1. 6. 114 seq. 4 neque enim, si tu superbus amicitiam nostram sprevisti, ideo nos quoque ἀνθυπερφρονοῦμεν, Suet. Vit. 5 Ep. 1. 4. 16. everywhere exhibits a hearty admiration for that strong, sober, self-sacrificing 'manliness' (virtus) which had made a 'race of rustic soldiers'1 the conquerors of the world, but which is certainly Stoical rather than Epicurean. The fact is that he sets little store by logical consistency and writes according to the changing phases of his own mood. He denies the interference of the gods in human affairs, or calls such teaching the 'wisdom of fools' and piety the first of virtues with amiable facility. He writes an Ode to Pyrrha or a wine-jar and then descants on the advantages of hard fare and hard exercise with apparently equal enthusiasm. Such inconsistency is common and almost a part of human nature, and it is one of the charms of Horace that he does not endeavour to conceal it. At the same time, because he does not play the Puritan or assume the solemn countenance 4 of a professed moralist, we have no right, as some do, to describe him as a voluptuary. Those who choose may discuss with seriousness the exact contents of his cellar, or find in the Odes which he addresses to Lydia, Pyrrha, and their kind a history of his own amours; but more careful critics will detect under the various disguises in which the poet masquerades a certain serious and sober earnestness as of a man not without noble conceptions of life and duty. This much at any rate is certain: the man who wrote of his father as Horace did of his was not a bad man; the man who amid all the temptations of Rome could make a simple country life his ideal, as Horace did, was not a vicious man; the man who kept his head in a position such as Horace occupied was not a vain man; the man whom Augustus asked to be his private secretary was not a foolish man; and there must have been something very loveable and very remarkable in one whom Maecenas, after an unbroken intimacy of thirty years, could commend to his master on his death-bed with the words 'Horati Flacci ut mei memor esto.' He describes himself when in his forty-fourth year as being 'of small stature, prematurely gray, fond of sunshine, quick of temper and quickly appeased.' 5 Suetonius says that he was 'short and stout' and quotes a letter of Augustus in which the emperor, acknowledging the receipt of one of his books, says that the poet seems afraid that his book will be bigger than himself, but reminds him that though not tall still he has a 'corporation' 1 Od. 3. 6. 37. 2 S. 1. 5. 101. 3 Od. 1. 34. 2. 4 S. 1. 1. 24 ridentem dicere verum | quid vetat ? 6 brevis et obesus. (corpusculum) and that if the 'roll' (volumen) were rounder it would be more like its author. His writings fall into two divisions: (1) Lyric poems-the Epodes, the Odes, and the Carmen Saeculare. (2) The Satires, the Epistles, and the Ars Poetica. The Epodes and the Satires both belong to the first half of his career, his other poems to the second. Up to the battle of Actium (31 в.с.) he perhaps still clung to the republican dreams of his youth; at any rate up to that period his writings are without political colour,1 but after it he not only ceases to be neutral, but becomes definitely a supporter of the new monarchy and, especially in the Odes, deliberately places his poetical powers at its disposal. The Satires consist of a number of poems in hexameter verse in two Books, the first of which was published about 35 в.с., the second about 30 B.C. Whatever the origin of the word satura or satira, 2 at any rate 'Satire,' as a form of poetry in our modern sense of the word, has the distinction of being the only branch of Roman literature which was not formed on a Greek model. Its inventor was Lucilius (148—103 в.с.), and it reached its perfection in Juvenal (flor. A.D. 100). The Satires of Lucilius attack individuals with the unsparing freedom of the old Greek comedy; those of Juvenal glow with the fire of a fierce indignation. The Satires of Horace on the other hand are free from vehemence; they keep entirely clear of politics and deal chiefly with social topics, the writer finding in the faults and follies of mankind the occasion not for anger but for laughter. At the same time this laughter must not be misinterpreted; it is in no sense cynical or contemptuous but is used deliberately. Horace knew that he was not adapted for a preacher or a prophet, but he was admirably qualified to make vice appear ridiculous and to show the fool his own foolishness. The Epistles consist of two books, the first of which was published about 20 в.с., while the second consists of only two Epistles, of which the first is assigned to 13 B.C. and the second 1 'During the time covered by the Satires (about 40-30 в.с.) Horace does not appear at all on terms of intimacy with Augustus.' Wilkins, Intr. to Epistles, p. xvii. 2 Its most probable derivation is from lanx satura, a plate full of all sorts of fruits offered to the gods, so that it means 'a medley'; cf. Juv. 1. 86, where he describes his book as a 'hotch-potch,' farrago. 3 Quint. 10. 1. 93 satira quidem tota nostra est. to 19 в.с.1 They are similar in character to the Satires but altogether superior to them, not only in style but in matter. They contain the 'ripe results of the poet's observation of men and manners' 2 set before us with that apparently negligent grace which is really the result of perfect skill, and which adds so much to the charm of good 'conversation's and good 'letters.' 4 The Ars Poetica is, as its name implies, a didactic poem giving rules for poetical composition. The Epodes are Horace's first attempt at writing lyric poetry. They are an imitation of the satirical iambics of Archilochus,5 and are thus to some extent connected with the Satires, which were written at the same period. The bitterness of Archilochus was, however, entirely alien from the easy temper of Horace, and the 'libellous iambics'6 in which he vents imaginary spleen on imaginary persons are dull and uninteresting, but other Epodes, in which he breaks loose from Archilochus in order to deal with happier themes, already show signs of his future greatness as a lyric poet. It is on the four Books of Odes that the fame of Horace really rests. To what extent the Odes were published and circulated separately we cannot tell, but the division into books almost certainly dates from Horace's time, and the arrangement of the Odes in them is probably his own. The marks of careful arrangement are very clear. Thus in the first Book the first three Odes are addressed to Maecenas, Augustus, and Virgil, while the first nine Odes are each in a different metre, as though the poet wished to give the reader an early proof of his varied skill. That at the end of the Book the passion of the Cleopatra-Ode (1.37) should be followed by an extremely slight and cheerful drinking 1 Wilkins, Intr. p. xvi. 2 Ibid. p. xxi. 3 Horace does not seem himself to have called his Satires by that name, but rather to have used the term Sermones 'conversations.' When however he says of these poems that they 'only differ from ordinary conversation in the fact of their scanning' (S. 1. 4. 47 nisi quod pede certo | differt sermoni, sermo merus), he must not be taken too literally, for it is his object to disguise the pains which have been taken with them. * Of course in ancient times and in modern times up to the introduction of cheap postage-letter-writing was often practised as an art, and consequently many writers, when desiring to treat a subject somewhat informally, have put their views forward in the shape of 'Letters.' 5 He is said to have invented the metre especially for his lampoons ; A. P. 79 Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo. 6 criminosis iambis Od. 1. 16. 2. 7 He expressly states that these poems are wholly unreal, Ep. 1. 19. 24 numeros animosque secutus | Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben. song is in strict accordance with Horace's characteristic dislike to end on a high-pitched note. The first ten Odes of the second Book are alternately Alcaics and Sapphics, while the stately Roman-Odes which commence the third Book are, with their noble exordium, manifestly where they were designed to be. Lastly the concluding Ode of the third Book Exegi monimentum aere perennius clearly presupposes a complete and final collection of the Odes to which it is appended. The date of the production of these three Books is generally considered to lie between 30 B.C., the date of the Cleopatra-Ode, 1 and 23 B.c., the date of the death of Marcellus, who in 1. 12. 46 is spoken of as alive: but though the latter date may be considered fairly certain, it is impossible to say whether some Odes may not have been written or partly written-considerably before 30 в.с. The fourth Book was published about 13 в.с., being separated from the other three by a considerable interval, as is shown by internal evidence 2 and definitely stated by Suetonius-Scripta eius usque adeo probavit (Augustus) mansuraque perpetuo opinatus est ut non modo saeculare carmen componendum iniunxerit, sed et Vindelicam victoriam Tiberii Drusique privignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus carminum libris ex longo intervallo quartum addere. The Carmen Saeculare is a Sapphic Ode written to be sung publicly by a chorus of youths and maidens in the great 'Secular Games' exhibited by Augustus 17 в.с.3 All Latin poetry (except Satire) is copied from Greek models. Terence copies Menander, Propertius Callimachus, Lucretius Empedocles, Virgil Hesiod and Homer: so Horace in the Odes copies the Greek lyric writers. The sportive lays of Anacreon, occasionally the dirges of Simonides, but above all the passionate love-songs of Sappho and the patriotic odes of Alcaeus are the models which he follows. Sometimes he copies his model very closely, especially at the beginning of an Ode (e.g. in Odes 9, 14 37 of Book I), but as a whole it may be said that the form and outline of his Odes are copied rather than the details. 1 The latest reference in the Epodes is to the battle of Actium. 2 See Intr. to Book IV. 3 The full description of these games is given in an inscription, discovered in 1890, printed in Lanciani's Pagan and Christian Rome. 4 Pindar he makes no attempt to copy, for he knew that the 'Theban eagle' soared on pinions stronger than his own. |