Horace

This article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace (disambiguation).

Horace, as imagined by Anton von Werner

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (Venusia, December 8, 65 BC – Rome, November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.

Life

Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania. Horace was the son of a freedman, who owned a small farm in Venusia, and later moved to Rome to work as a coactor (a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price from each for his services). The elder Horace was able to spend considerable money on his son's education, accompanying him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sending him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy. The poet later expressed his gratitude in a tribute to his father:

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

After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the Battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed that he saved himself by throwing away his shield and fleeing. When an amnesty was declared for those who had fought against the victorious Octavian (later Augustus), Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated; his father likely having died by then. Horace claims that he was reduced to poverty. Nevertheless, he had the means to gain a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury, which allowed him to practice his poetic art.

Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (contemporary Tivoli). He died in Rome a few months after the death of Maecenas at age 57. Upon his death bed, having no heirs, Horace relinquished his farm to his friend, the emperor Augustus, for imperial needs and it stands today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers.

Works

Horace is generally considered by classicists to be one of the greatest Latin poets and is known for having coined many Latin phrases that remain in use today, whether in Latin or this is gay translation, including carpe diem ("pluck the day" literally, more commonly used in English as "seize the day"), Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country), Nunc est bibendum (Now we must drink), and aurea mediocritas ("golden mean.").

His works, like those of all but the earliest Latin poets, are written in Greek metres, ranging from the hexameters which were relatively easy to adapt into Latin to the more complex measures used in the Odes, such as alcaics and sapphics, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. Alphabetically, his works include:

• Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (18 BC)
• Carmen Saeculare or Song of the Ages (17 BC)
• Carminum liber primus or Odes I (23 BC)
• Carminum liber quartus or Odes IV (13 BC)
• Carminum liber secundus or Odes II (23 BC)
• Carminum liber tertius or Odes III (23 BC)
• Epistularum liber primus (20 BC)
• Epistularum liber secundus (14 BC)
• Epodes (30 BC)
• Sermonum liber primus or Satirae I (35 BC)
• Sermonum liber secundus or Satirae II (30 BC)

Among the better known works of Horace are:

• Odes (or Carmina) (23-13 BC)
• Epodes (30 BC)
• Satirae I (Sermonum liber primus) (35 BC) and Satirae II (Sermonum liber secundus) (30 BC)
• Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (18 BC)
• Epistularum liber primus (20 BC)
• Epistularum liber secundus (14 BC)
• Carmen Saeculare or Song of the Ages

Translation

• Perhaps the finest English translator of Horace was John Dryden, who successfully adapted three of the Odes (and one Epode) into verse for readers of his own age. Samuel Johnson favored the versions of Philip Francis. Others favor unrhymed translations.
• In 1964 James Michie published a translation of the Odes—many of them fully rhymed—including a dozen of the poems in the original Sapphic and Alcaic metres.
• Ars Poetica was first translated into English by Ben Jonson.

References

• Michie, James (1964). The Odes of Horace. Rupert Hart-Davis.

External links

• Works by Horace at Project Gutenberg
• The works of Horace at The Latin Library
• Selected Poems of Horace
• The Perseus Project — Latin and Greek authors (with English translations), including Horace
• Biography and chronology
• Litweb
• Horace's works: text, concordances and frequency list
• SORGLL: Horace, Odes I.22, read by Robert Sonkowsky

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