no parallel in Roman poetry for the beauty of their imagery or allusions.

Horace composed 103 Odes in all, arranged in four books published at various periods of his life. Their meters were borrowed from Greek lyric poetry and are amazingly diverse. Indeed, each of the first nine poems in Horace’s first book of Odes is composed in a different meter. Each of the odes usually has an addressee (such as Augustus, Maecenas, Pyrrha, or some other person, real or imaginary) and an occasion that, at least as a literary device, prompts the composition of the ode. Within this general framework, Horace mixes traditional Greek themes such as the pleasures of love and drink with more familiar Roman concerns such as the greatness of the state, the nature of the ideal citizen, and the need to preserve one’s integrity in a chaotic society. Satirical themes, such as the notion that one’s heirs will only waste tomorrow the wealth that one hoards today, familiar from the Satires and Epistles, also sometimes appear.

One of the innovative features of the Odes is Horace’s ability to combine these traditional themes in new and unexpected ways. A drinking song, for example, may unexpectedly include patriotic themes, or a poem on the passing of the seasons may suddenly draw a parallel to the ages of a person’s life. The freshness of the Odes is attributable, in large part, to the novel way in which these poems recombine traditional literary themes.

Certain phrases introduced by Horace in the Odes have become so famous that they are commonplaces in the Western literary tradition. These phrases include nil desperandum (“never despair”), carpe diem (usually translated as “seize the day,” but a more accurate rendering would be “pluck the day like a flower”), integer vitae (“the man whose life is pure”), auream mediocritatem (“golden moderation”) and “Eheu fugaces” (“Alas the fleeing” years slip away).

Satire 1.9

First published: 35 b.c.e. (collected in Satires, 35 b.c.e.; English translation, 1567)

Type of work: Poem

While strolling along the Sacred Way, Horace encounters a bore, who persists in accompanying him despite his hints that he would prefer to be alone.

Horace’s description in Satire 1.9 of his encounter with a bore is an excellent example of his satirical style. The bore is never named, and though several critics have attempted to identify him with the poet Sextus Propertius, Horace provides no clues as to his identity. The reason is that Horace does not wish to create a poem filled with invective against a particular individual. Rather, Horace’s intention is to satirize dullness in general. Humor in the poem is derived from the reader’s identification with Horace’s predicament. Everyone can recall an incident in which an annoying individual would not leave despite numerous hints. In this way, Horace criticizes the behavior of the bore and of others like him rather than attacking the person by name.

During their (rather one-sided) conversation, the bore reveals that he is a poet and is hoping that Horace will introduce him to Gaius Maecenas (Horace’s wealthy patron). In so doing, the bore alienates Horace still further by completely misunderstanding the relationship that poets such as Horace have with their patron, by stressing his ability to write quickly (elsewhere in the Satires, Horace makes it clear that he prefers polished writing to swift writing), and by assuming that Horace wants to compete with the other poets in Maecenas’s circle. The bore, therefore, appears shallow and insensitive, as well as annoying.

It is unlikely that Horace, in this satire as elsewhere, really sought to correct the fault that he is ridiculing. Few readers will leave this work with a renewed desire to be more interesting and less annoying to others. Rather, by gently mocking this common human flaw, Horace leaves his readers smiling at a situation that they will recognize and a type of folly with which they are well familiar.

Odes 1.9, the Soracte ode

First published: 23 b.c.e. (collected in Odes, 23 b.c.e.; English translation, 1621)

Type of work: Poem

On a winter day, Horace looks out from the warmth of a friend’s house and sees the snows covering Mount Soracte.

The charm of Odes 1.9, the Soracte ode, is derived from Horace’s ability to combine the traditional themes of lyric poetry in new ways. The poem begins with an image of winter: Mount Soracte, twelve miles north of Rome, is covered with snow, and the trees are laden with ice and frost. This image, then, is set into strong contrast with the poet’s description of the warmth inside the house of Thaliarchus (Greek for “master of the festivities”), where wine flows abundantly and logs are heaped upon the fire. This contrast reminds Horace, rather abruptly, of how all things, such as the winter cold, are determined by the gods and must be entrusted to them. As a result, humankind, the poet says, should enjoy its youth while it can, taking delight in such simple pleasures as the warmth of the fire and the distractions of love.

In this way, Horace moves from a description of a natural scene to a commentary on the human condition. The Soracte ode may be read on a number of levels. It captures, as does much of Greek lyric poetry, the particular feeling that its author had at a given moment. Yet it is also a symbolic commentary on the contrast between youth (the fire inside) and old age (the white snow outside).

Odes 1.37, the Cleopatra ode

First published: 23 b.c.e. (collected in Odes, 23 b.c.e.; English translation, 1621)

Type of work: Poem

The Romans may rejoice again, now that Cleopatra has been defeated.

A combination of drinking song, victory ode, and political manifesto, Odes 1.37, the Cleopatra ode, is a celebration of Cleopatra VII’s defeat by the forces of Octavian and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 31 b.c.e. It is also another example of Horace’s ability to combine diverse themes and poetic genres in an interesting way. While the poem begins with a simple invitation to drink in celebration of the Roman victory, the tone of the work gradually becomes more serious as the work progresses. Cleopatra is first presented as a queen plotting mad destruction for the Capitoline Hill (line 37), then as an accursed monster (fatale monstrum, line 21), then as “no submissive woman” (non humilis mulier, line 32) but a queen who preferred death to humiliation. There is, in the end, a grudging admiration by Horace for Cleopatra’s heroism, even though she had been an enemy to the Roman people.

Marc Antony, who had been defeated along with Cleopatra, is not mentioned. (He had been similarly ignored in Octavian’s declaration of war against Cleopatra.) Horace does not think it suitable to revel in the defeat of Antony, a fellow Roman citizen. Nevertheless, Antony’s presence is felt throughout the poem in the frequent references to wine and drunkenness. Before the battle, Octavian, Cicero, and others had attempted to depict Antony as a drunk. The poem’s structure as a drinking song, its references to Caecuban and Maeotic wine, and its (historically inaccurate) image of Cleopatra as inebriated at the battle are all attempts to remind the reader indirectly of Antony.

The meter of the work is borrowed from the Greek lyric poet Alcaeus, who also wrote drinking songs and victory odes. The repetition of the word “now” (nunc) three times in the opening line established an immediacy as though a great threat, long impending, has only now been removed. In addition to the imagery of drunkenness and wine, symbolism of the hunter (Octavian) and hunted (Cleopatra) appears throughout the work. Cleopatra fled, Horace suggests, from the pursuit of Octavian; but when death proved inescapable, she met it nobly as befits a queen.

The Secular Hymn

First published: Carmen saeculare, 17 b.c.e. (English translation, 1726)

Type of work: Poem

At a festival proclaiming the dawn of a new age, the chorus invokes the gods’ blessings upon the Roman people.

Originally sung by a double choir of twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls on June 3, 17 b.c.e., The Secular Hymn is an important statement about the Romans’ view of their empire in the time of Augustus. Stemming from an Etruscan belief that a new age of humanity was inaugurated each eleven (or, in some cases, ten) decades, the Centennial Festival reflected Augustus’s view that, with his reign, a new period had begun. For this reason, the poem is filled with images of the rising and setting sun, the passing of the seasons, and, most of all, symbols of birth.

The goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia (or Ilithyia), is mentioned both because a new age is being born and because of Augustus’s belief that Rome needed to return to its traditional values. The emperor rewarded Romans who produced large families and imposed a higher level of taxation upon those who remained single. In this way, Horace is able to use the figure of Eileithyia to shift from the birth imagery at the beginning of the poem to advocacy of Augustus’s social policies in the second group of verses.

Moreover, Eileithyia is only one of the deities invoked in this hymn. Horace also addresses Apollo and Diana, the Sun, the Fates, Ceres, and a host of other gods and goddesses. The resulting image is that Rome’s destiny is guided by all the deities in the Roman pantheon. It was the will of the gods that Rome should become great, and it was through their efforts that Augustus rose to rule the state.

The fertility of the Italian countryside and the founding of the Roman people by the Trojan warrior Aeneas, alluded to in this poem, appear also as major themes in the works of Vergil and on the Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis), erected in Rome between 13 and 9 b.c.e. These images represent, therefore, a consistent view of how Augustus wished his rule to be portrayed. As the one who brought about the end of the Roman Civil Wars, Augustus is depicted as making it possible for battlefields to become wheat fields once again. As the new Aeneas, Augustus is depicted as fulfilling the gods’ plan begun at the very beginning of human history.

The poem ends with an invocation of Apollo and Diana, as it had similarly begun. This “ring composition” allows Horace to tie the poem directly to the human cycles that the Centennial Festival honors. Even as the hymn itself begins, rises, and ends, so (Horace suggests) do the ages of human life. The poet expresses Augustus’s belief, however, that the current age would be one of unparalleled peace and prosperity.

The Art of Poetry

First published: Ars poetica, c. 17 b.c.e. (English translation, 1567)

Type of work: Poem

In a letter addressed to Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Horace offers a wide-ranging critique of literature and practical advice on how to write various types of poetry.

Horace’s Epistles (c. 20-15 b.c.e.) are written in the same meter, and with much the same style, as his Satires. In form, they are poetic letters intended for a recipient who is named in the first few lines; in actuality, they are general commentaries about human weaknesses or other issues of concern to the author himself.

The Art of Poetry is a reiteration of many of the same arguments found in Epistles 2.1, written at the request of Augustus. In that work, Horace discussed his views about the proper role of literature and the place of Roman poetry within the ancient literary tradition. In The Art of Poetry itself, Horace expands upon these and couples them with specific suggestions for the authors of his day.

Horace begins by praising consistency as the highest virtue of poetry. A work that attempts to be now one thing, now another, is eventually, according to Horace, being nothing at all. For this reason, authors must maintain the same tone throughout a work, not attempt to improve an inferior effort with a “purple patch” (purpureus . . . pannus, lines 15-16) of fine words every now and then. Moreover, authors should not attempt subjects that are beyond their powers. If they do, the result will make them look ridiculous.

Each incident and word in a poem should be chosen with care. Precise selection of what is needed, rather than a torrent of words, creates the most polished result. The meter, too, should be chosen with care: Dactylic hexameter, the meter of Homer (and, coincidentally, of The Art of Poetry), is appropriate for epic; elegiac couplets are appropriate for sad subjects and songs of thanksgiving; iambic verse lends itself to satire; lyric meters are suitable for victory odes and drinking songs. These meters had all become traditional by Horace’s day, and the poet warns his readers that audiences expect them: A serious thought may unintentionally be made to seem comic if presented in an improper poetic form.

In dramatic poetry, language assigned to a character must both suit the traditional depiction of that character and be consistent within the work itself. In epic poetry, it is best not to prolong the story by starting at the very beginning but to thrust the reader right “into the middle of things” (in medias res, line 148). Brevity, as well as an ability to convey both wisdom and pleasure, are essential to the skilled poet.

The reader should not, however, find fault with a poet who occasionally fails to fulfill these high standards since, in the phrase of Horace, “even great Homer sometimes nods” (line 359). Still, the public will not long endure a second-rate poet, and it is the author’s goal to see that such passages are rare. This lapse tends to occur, Horace suggests, when poets distribute their work without sufficient editing. Thus, instead of publishing a work immediately, the poet should set it aside for a time—at line 388, Horace recommends, with satirical exaggeration, that it be set aside for nine years—to see if it still seems as inspired later.

The advice that Horace provides in The Art of Poetry is thus a combination of common sense, practical observations drawn from a lifetime of writing, and views inherited from earlier literary critics such as Aristotle, Neoptolemus of Parion, and Philodemus. Probably the last work that Horace wrote, The Art of Poetry has played an important role in defining both the classical style and the canons of good writing developed in later periods.