Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (Venosa, 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 Venosa or Venusia, as it was called in his day, a small town in the border region between Apulia and Lucania, Horace was the son of a freedman, but he himself was born free. His father owned a small farm at Venusia, and later moved to Rome and worked as a coactor, a kind of middleman at auctions who would pay the purchase price to the seller and collect it later from the buyer and receive 1% of the purchase price from each of them 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; in his own words:

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 had probably died by then. Horace claims that he was reduced to poverty. Nevertheless, he had the means to purchase a profitable life-time appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury, which allowed him to get by comfortably and 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, in 8 BC at age 57. Upon his death bed, having no heirs, Horace relinquished his farm to his friend, and Emperor Augustus, to be used for imperial needs. His farm is there today and is a spot of pilgrimage for the literary elite.

Works

Horace is generally considered by classicists to be one of the greatest Latin poets.

He coined many Latin phrases that remain in use (in Latin or in 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, from the hexameter, which was relatively easy to adapt to Latin, to the more complex measures used in the Odes, like alcaics and sapphics, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. Alphabetically, they are:

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)

Some highlights from his surviving work include:

Odes (or Carmina)

4 books

Carminum liber primus or Odes I (23 BC)
Carminum liber secundus or Odes II (23 BC)
Carminum liber tertius or Odes III (23 BC)
Carminum liber quartus or Odes IV (13 BC)

Epodes

1 book

Epodes (30 BC)

Satires

2 books

With the Epistles, these are his most personal works and perhaps the most accessible to contemporary readers since much of his social satire is just as applicable today.

Sermonum liber primus or Satirae I (35 BC)
Sermonum liber secundus or Satirae II (30 BC)

Letters or Epistles

2 books

With the Satires, these are his most personal works, and perhaps the most accessible to contemporary readers.

Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (18 BC)
Epistularum liber primus (20 BC)
Epistularum liber secundus (14 BC)

One of the Epistles is often referred to as a separate work in itself, the Ars Poetica. In this work, Horace forwards a theory of poetry. His most important tenets are that poetry must be carefully and skillfully worked out on the semantic and formal levels, and that poetry should be wholesome as well as pleasant. This latter issue is often referred to as the dulce et utile, which is Latin for the sweet and useful. (This work was first translated into English by Queen Elizabeth I).

Carmen Saeculare

Carmen Saeculare or Song of the Ages

In later culture

Dante, in Inferno ranks him side by side with Lucan, Homer, Ovid and Virgil (Inferno, IV,88).
Is the main character of the Oxford Latin Course portrayed by Brian Vassallo.
In the film Red Dragon, Hannibal Lecter quotes him.
In the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode entitled "Gone Efficien...t", Harvey's frenetic attempt at efficiency is stymied by having to wait for the closing arguments of a drawling defence attorney who, in summation of his arguments, insists on quoting Horace at length.
Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" quotes and takes its title from one of Horace's odes (iii 2.13).

English translators

Perhaps the finest English translator of Horace was John Dryden, who successfully adapted most of the Odes into verse for readers of his own age. These translations are favored by many scholars despite some textual variations. 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 Queen Elizabeth I.