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HORACE [QuINTus HORATIUS FLACCUS] (65...
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See also:HORACE [See also:QuINTus HORATIUS See also:FLACCUS] (65-8 B.C.) , the famous See also:Roman poet, was See also:born on the 8th of See also:December 65 B.C. at See also:Venusia, on the See also:borders of Lucania and See also:Apulia (Sat. ii. 1. 34)• The See also:town, originally a See also:colony of veterans, appears to have See also:long maintained its military traditions, and Horace was See also:early imbued with a profound respect for the indomitable valour and See also:industry of the See also:Italian soldier. It would seem, however, that the poet was not brought up in the town itself, at least he did not attend the town school (Sat. i. 6. 72) and was much in the neighbouring See also:country, of which, though he was but a See also:child when he See also:left it, he retained always a vivid and affectionate memory. The mountains near'and far, the little villages on the hillsides, the See also:woods, the roaring Aufidus, the mossy See also:spring of Bandusia, after which he named another spring on his See also:Sabine See also:farm—these scenes were always dear to him and are frequently mentioned in his See also:poetry (e.g. Caren. iii. 4 and 30, iv. 9). We may thus trace some of the germs of his poetical See also:inspiration, as well as of his moral sympathies, to the early years which he spent near Venusia. But the most important moral See also:influence of his youth was the training and example of his See also:father, of whose See also:worth, affectionate solicitude and homely See also:wisdom Horace has given a most pleasing and See also:life-like picture (Sat. i. 6. 70, &c.). He was a freedman by position; and it is supposed that he had been originally a slave of the town of Venusia, and on his emancipation had received the See also:gentile name of Horatius from the Horatian tribe in which the inhabitants of Venusia were enrolled. After his emancipation he acquired by the occupation of " coactor (a See also:collector of the payments made at public See also:auctions, or, according to another See also:interpretation, a collector of taxes) sufficient means to enable him to buy a small farm, to make sufficient See also:provision for the future of his son (Sat. i. 4. 108), and to take him to See also:Rome to give him the See also:advantage of the best See also:education there. ,To his care Horace attributes, not only the intellectual training which enabled him in later life to take his See also:place among the best men of Rome,-but also his See also:immunity from the baser forms of moral evil (Sat. i. 6. 68. &c.). To his See also:practical teaching he attributes also his tendency to moralize and to observe See also:character (Sat. i. 4. 105, &c.)—the tendency which enabled him to become the most truthful painter of social life and See also:manners which the See also:ancient See also:world produced. In one of his latest writings (Epist. ii. 2. 42, &c.) Horace gives a further See also:account of his education; but we hear no more of his father, nor is there any allusion in his writings to the existence of any other member of his See also:family or any other relative. After the See also:ordinary grammatical and See also:literary training at Rome, he went (45 B.c.) to See also:Athens, the most famous school of See also:philosophy, as See also:Rhodes was of See also:oratory; and he describes himself while there as " searching after truth among the groves of Academus " as well as advancing in literary accomplishment. His pleasant See also:residence there was interrupted by the breaking out of the See also:civil See also:war. Following the example of his See also:young associates, he attached himself to the cause of See also:Brutus, whom he seems to have accompanied to See also:Asia, probably as a member of his See also:staff; and he served at the See also:battle of See also:Philippi in the See also:post of military See also:tribune. He shared in the rout which followed the battle, and henceforth, though he was not less See also:firm in his conviction that some causes were worth fighting for and dying for, he had but a poor See also:opinion of his own soldierly qualities. He returned to Rome shortly after the battle, stripped of his See also:property, which formed See also:part of the See also:land confiscated for the benefit of the soldiers of Octavianus and Antony. It may have been at this See also:time that he encountered the danger of shipwreck, which he mentions among the perils from which his life had been protected by supernatural aid (Carm. iii. 4. 28). He procured in some way the post of a clerkship in the See also:quaestor's See also:office, and about three years after the battle of Philippi, he was introduced by See also:Virgil and Varius to See also:Maecenas. This was the turning-point of his fortunes. He owed his friendship with the greatest of literary patrons to his See also:personal merits rather than to his poetic fame; for he was on intimate terms with Maecenas before the first See also:book of the Satires (his first published See also:work) appeared. He tells us in one of his Satires (i. ro. 31) that his earliest ambition was to write See also:Greek verses. In giving this direction to his ambition, he was probably influenced by his admiration of the old See also:iambic and lyrical poets whom he has made the See also:models of his own Epodes and Odes. His See also:common sense as well as his See also:national feeling fortunately saved him from becoming a second-See also:rate Greek versifier in an See also:age when poetic inspiration had passed from See also:Greece to See also:Italy, and the living See also:language of Rome was a more fitting vehicle for the new feelings and interests of men than the echoes of the old Ionian or Aeolian melodies. His earliest Latin compositions were, as he tells us, written under the instigation of poverty; and they alone betray any trace of the bitterness of spirit which the defeat of his hopes and the hardships which he had to encounter on his first return to Rome may have temporarily produced on him. Some of the Epodes, of the nature of personal and licentious lampoons, and the second See also:Satire of book i., in which there is some trace of an angry republican feeling, belong to these early compositions. But by the time the first book of Satires was completed and published (35 B.c.) his See also:temper had recovered its natural serenity, and, though he had not yet attained to the height of his fortunes, his personal position was one of comfort and See also:security, and his intimate relation with the leading men in literature and social See also:rank was firmly established. About a See also:year after the publication of this first book of Satires Maecenas presented him with a farm among the Sabine hills, near the See also:modern See also:Tivoli. This secured him pecuniary See also:independence; it satisfied the love of nature which had been implanted in him during the early years spent on the Venusian farm; and it afforded him a welcome See also:escape from the distractions of See also:city life and the dangers of a Roman autumn. Many passages in the Satires, Odes and Epistles See also:express the happiness and See also:pride with which the thought of his own valley filled him, and the See also:interest which he took in the See also:simple and homely ways of his country neighbours. The inspiration of the Satires came from the See also:heart of Rome; the feeling of many of the Odes comes See also:direct from the Sabine hills; and even the meditative spirit of the later Epistles tells of the leisure and See also:peace of quiet days spent among books, or in the open See also:air, at a distance from " the See also:smoke, See also:wealth and tumult " of the See also:great See also:metropolis. The second book of Satires was published in 29 B.C.; theEpodes (spoken of by himself as iambi) apparently about a year earlier, though many of them are, as regards the date of their See also:composition, to be ranked among the earliest extant writings of Horace. In one of his Epistles (i. 19. 25) he rests his first claim to originality on his having introduced into See also:Latium the metres and spirit of See also:Archilochus of See also:Paros. He may have naturalized some See also:special See also:form of See also:metre employed by that poet, and it may be (as Th. Plusz has suggested) that we should see in the Epodes a See also:tone of mockery and See also:parody. But his personal lampoons are the least successful of his See also:works; while those Epodes which treat of other subjects in a poetical spirit are inferior in metrical effect, and in truth and freshness of feeling, both to the lighter lyrics of See also:Catullus and to his own later and more carefully meditated Odes. The Epodes, if they are serious at all, are chiefly interesting as a See also:record of the personal feelings of Horace during the years which immediately followed his return to Rome, and as a prelude to the higher See also:art and inspiration of the first three books of the Odes, which were published together about the end of 24 or the beginning of 23 B.C.' The composition of these Odes extended over several years, but all the most important among them belong to the years between the battle of See also:Actium and 24 B.C. His lyrical poetry is thus, not, like that of Catullus, the ardent utterance of his youth, but the mature and finished workmanship of his manhood. The See also:state of public affairs was more favourable than it had been since the outbreak of the civil war between See also:Caesar and See also:Pompey for the See also:appearance of lyrical poetry. Peace, See also:order and national unity had been secured by the See also:triumph of See also:Augustus, and the See also:enthusiasm in favour of the new See also:government had not yet been chilled by experience of its repressing influence. The poet's circumstances were, at the same time, most favourable for the exercise of his lyrical See also:gift during these years. He lived partly at Rome, partly at his Sabine farm, varying his residence occasionally by visits to See also:Tibur, See also:Praeneste or Baiae. His intimacy with Maecenas was strengthened and he had become the See also:familiar friend of the great See also:minister. He was treated with distinction by Augustus, and by the foremost men in Roman society. He complains occasionally that the pleasures of his youth are passing from him, but he does so in the spirit of a temperate Epicurean, who found new enjoyments in life as the zest for the old enjoyments decayed, and who considered the wisdom and meditative spirit—" the philosophic mind that years had brought "—an ample See also:compensation for the See also:extinct fires of his youth. About four years after the publication of the three books of Odes, the first book of the Epistles appeared, introduced, as his Epodes, Satires and Odes had been, by a special address to Maecenas. From these Epistles, as compared with the Satires, we gather that he had gradually adopted a more retired and meditative life, and had become fonder of the country and of study, and that, while owing See also:allegiance to no school or See also:sect of philosophy, he was framing for himself a See also:scheme of life, was endeavouring to conform to it, and was See also:bent on inculcating it on others. He maintained his old friendships, and continued to form new intimacies, especially with younger men engaged in public affairs or animated by literary ambition. After the See also:death of Virgil he was recognized as pre-eminently the greatest living poet, and was accordingly called upon by Augustus to compose the sacred hymn for the celebration of the See also:secular See also:games in 17 B.C. About four years later he published the See also:fourth book of Odes (about 13 B.C.) having been called upon to do so by the See also:emperor, in order that the victories of his stepsons See also:Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici might he worthily celebrated. He lived about five years longer, and during these years published the second book of Epistles, and the See also:Epistle to the Pisos, more generally known as the " Ars poetica." These later Epistles are mainly devoted to literary See also:criticism, with the especial See also:object of vindicating the poetic claims of his own age over those of the age of See also:Ennius and the other early 1 The date is determined by the poem on the death of Quintilius Varus (who died 24 B.c.), and by the reference in See also:Ode i. 12 to the young See also:Marcellus (died in autumn 23 B.c.) as still alive. Cf. Wickham's Introduction to the Odes..
poets of Rome. He might have been expected, as a great critic and lawgiver on literature, to have exercised a beneficial influence on the future poetry of his country, and to have applied as much wisdom to the theory of his own art as to that of a right life. But his See also:critical Epistles are chiefly devoted to a controversial attack on the older writers and to the exposition of the See also:laws of dramatic poetry, on which his own See also:powers had never been exercised, and for which either the See also:genius or circumstances of the See also:Romans were unsuited. The same subordination of See also:imagination and enthusiasm to See also:good sense and sober See also:judgment characterizes his opinions on poetry as on morals.
He died somewhat suddenly on the 17th of See also:November of the year 8 B.C. He left Augustus to see after his affairs, and was buried on the Esquiline See also: He affords us some indications of his personal appearance, as where he speaks of the "nigros angusta fronte capillos " of his youth, and describes himself after he had completed his See also:forty-fourth December as of small stature, prematurely See also:grey and fond of basking in the See also:sun (Epist. i. 20. 24). In his later years his See also:health became weaker or more uncertain, and this caused a considerable See also:change in his habits, tastes and places of residence. It inclined him more to a life of retirement and simplicity, and also it stimulated his tendency to self-See also:introspection and self-culture. In his more vigorous years, when he lived much in Roman society, he claims to have acted in all his relations to others in accordance with the See also:standard recognized among men of See also:honour in every age, to have been charitably indulgent to the weakness of his See also:friends, and to have been exempt from See also:petty jealousies and the spirit of detraction. If ever he deviates from his ordinary vein of See also:irony and quiet sense into See also:earnest indignation, it is in denouncing conduct involving treachery or malice in the relations of friends (Sat. i. 4. 81, &c.). He claims to be and evidently aims at being See also:independent of See also:fortune. See also:superior to luxury, exempt both from the sordid cares of avarice and the coarser forms of profligacy. At the same time he makes a See also:frank See also:confession of indolence and of occasional failure in the pursuit of his ideal self-mastery. He admits his irascibility, his love of See also:pleasure, his sensitiveness to opinion, and some See also:touch of vanity or at least of gratified ambition arising out of the favour which through all his life he had enjoyed from those much above him in social station (Epist. i. 20. 23). Yet there appears no trace of any unworthy deference in Horace's feelings towards the great. Even towards Augustus he maintained his attitude of independence, by declining the office of private secretary which the emperor wished to force upon him; and he did so with such tact as neither to give offence nor to forfeit the regard of his superior. His feeling towards Maecenas is more like that of See also:Pope towards See also:Bolingbroke than that which a client in ancient or modern times entertains towards his See also:patron. He See also:felt pride in his See also:protection and in the intellectual sympathy which See also:united him with one whose personal qualities had enabled him to See also:play so prominentand beneficent a part in public affairs. Their friendship was slowly formed, but when once established continued unshaken through their lives. There is indeed nothing more remarkable in Horace than the independence, or rather the self-dependence, of his character. The enjoyment which he See also:drew from his Sabine farm consisted partly in the refreshment to his spirit from the familiar beauty of the place, partly in the " otia liberrima " from the. claims of business and society which it afforded him. His love poems, when compared with those of Catullus, See also:Tibullus and Properties, show that he never, in his mature years at least, allowed his peace of mind to be at the See also:mercy of any one. They are the expressions of a See also:fine and subtle and often a humorous observation rather than of ardent feeling. There is perhaps a touch of pathos in his reference in the Odes to the early death of Cinara, but the epithet he applies to her in the Epistles, "Quem scis immunem Cinarae placuisse rapaci," shows that the See also:pain of thinking of her could not have been very heartfelt. Even when the Odes addressed to real or imaginary beauties are most genuine in feeling, they are more the See also:artistic rekindling of extinct fires than the utterance of See also:recent See also:passion. In his friendships he had not the self-forgetful devotion which is the most attractive See also:side of the character of Catullus; but he studied how to gain and keep the regard of those whose society he valued, and he repaid this regard by a fine See also:courtesy and by a delicate appreciation of their higher gifts and qualities, whether proved in literature, or war, or affairs of state or the ordinary dealings of men. He enjoyed the great world, and it treated him well; but he resolutely maintained his personal independence and the equipoise of his feelings and judgment. If it is thought that in attributing a divine See also:function to Augustus he has gone beyond the See also:bounds of a sincere and temperate admiration, a comparison of the Odes in which this occurs with the first Epistle of the second book shows that he certainly recognized in the emperor a great and successful See also:administrator and that his language is to be regarded rather as the artistic expression of the prevailing national sentiment than as the See also:tribute of an insincere adulation. The aim of Horace's philosophy was to " be See also:master of oneself," to retain the " mens aequa " in all circumstances, to use the gifts of fortune while they remained, and to be prepared to part with them with equanimity; to make the most of life, and to contemplate its inevitable end without anxiety. Self-reliance and resignation are the lessons which he constantly inculcates. His philosophy is thus a mode of practical Epicureanism combined with other elements which have more See also:affinity with Stoicism. In his early life he professed his adherence to the former See also:system, and several expressions in his first published work show the influences of the study of See also:Lucretius. At the time when the first book of the Epistles was published he professes to assume the position of an eclectic rather than that of an adherent of either school (Epist. i. I. 13-19). We See also:note in the passage here referred to, as in other passages, that he mentions See also:Aristippus of See also:Cyrene, rather than See also:Epicurus himself, as the master under whose influence he from time to time insensibly lapsed. Yet the dominant tone of his teaching is that of a refined Epicureanism, not so elevated or purely contemplative as.that preached by Lucretius, but yet more within the reach of a society which, though luxurious and pleasure-loving, had not yet become thoroughly frivolous and enervated. His advice is to subdue all violent emotion of fear or See also:desire; to estimate all things calmly—"nil admirari'-'; to choose the mean between a high and See also:low See also:estate; and to find one's happiness in See also:plain living rather than in luxurious See also:indulgence. Still there was in Horace a robuster fibre, inherited from the old Italian See also:race, which moved him to value the dignity and nobleness of life more highly than its ease and enjoyment. In some of the stronger utterances of his Odes, where he expresses sympathy with the manlier qualities of character, we recognize the resistent attitude of Stoicism rather than the passive acquiescence of Epicureanism. The concluding stanzas of the address to See also:Lollius (Ode iv. 9) exhibit the Epicurean and Stoical view of life so combined as to be more worthy of human dignity than the genial worldly wisdom of the former school, more in See also:harmony with human experience than the formal precepts of the latter. It is interesting to trace the growth of Horace in See also:elevation of sentiment and serious conviction from his first ridicule of the paradoxes of Stoicism in the two books of the Satires to the See also:appeal which he makes in some of the Odes of the third book to the strongest Roman instincts of fortitude and self-See also:sacrifice. A similar modification of his religious and See also:political attitude may be noticed between his early See also:declaration of Epicurean unbelief and the sympathy which he shows with the religious reaction fostered by Augustus; and again between the Epicurean indifference to national affairs and the strong support which he gives to the national policy of the emperor in the first six Odes of the third book, and in the fifth and fifteenth of the fourth book. In his whole religious attitude he seems to stand midway between the consistent denial of Lucretius and Virgil's pious endeavour to reconcile ancient faith with the conclusions of philosophy. His introduction into some of his Odes of the gods of See also:mythology must be regarded as merely artistic or symbolical. Yet in some cases we recognize the expression of a natural piety, thankful for the blessing bestowed on purity and simplicity of life, and acknowledging a higher and more majestic See also:law governing nations through their voluntary obedience. On the other See also:hand, his allusions to a future life, as in the " domus exilis Plutonia," and the " furvae regna Proserpinae," are shadowy and artificial. The See also:image of death is constantly obtruded in his poems to enhance the sense of See also:present enjoyment. In the true spirit of paganism he associates all thoughts of love and See also:wine, of the See also:meeting of friends, or of the changes of the seasons with the recollection of the transitoriness of our pleasures " Nos, ubi decidimus Quo See also:Pius See also:Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et See also:umbra sumus." Horace is so much of a moralist in all his writings that, in order to enter into the spirit both of his familiar and of his lyrical poetry, it is essential to realize what were his views of life and the influences under which they were formed. He is, though in a different sense from Lucretius, eminently a philosophical and reflective poet. He is also, like all the other poets of the Augustan age, a poet in whose composition culture and criticism were as conspicuous elements as spontaneous inspiration. In the judgment he passes on the older poetry of Rome and on that of his contemporaries, he seems to attach more importance to the critical and artistic than to the creative and inventive functions of genius. It is on the labour and judgment with which he has cultivated his gift that he rests his hopes of fame. The whole poetry of the Augustan age was based on the works of older poets, Roman as well as Greek. Its aim was to perfect the more immature workmanship of the former, and to adapt the forms, manners and metres of the latter to subjects of immediate and national interest. As Virgil performed for subjects generation the same See also:kind of office which Ennius performed for an older generation, so Horace in his Satires, and to a more limited extent in his Epistles, brought to perfection for the amusement and instruction of his contemporaries the See also:rude but vigorous designs of See also:Lucilius. It was the example of Lucilius which induced Horace to commit all his private thoughts, feelings and experience " to his books as to trusty companions," and also to comment freely on the characters and lives of other men. Many of the subjects of particular satires of Horace were immediately suggested by those treated by Lucilius. Thus the " See also:Journey to Brundusium " (Sat. i. 5) reproduced the outlines of Lucilius's " Journey to the Sicilian Straits." The discourse of Ofella on luxury (Sat. ii. 2) was founded on a similar discourse of See also:Laelius on gluttony, and the " Banquet of Nasidienus " (Sat. ii. 8) may have been suggested by the description by the older poet of a rustic entertainment. There was more of moral censure and personal aggressiveness in the satire of the older poet. The ironical temper of Horace induced him to treat the follies of society in the spirit of a humorist and See also:man of the world, rather than to assail See also:vice with the severity of a See also:censor; and the greater urbanity of his age or of his disposition restrained in him the direct See also:personality of satire. The names introduced by him to See also:mark types of character such as Nomentanus, See also:Maenius, Pantolabus, &c., are reproduced from the writings of the older poet. Horace also followed Lucilius in the variety of forms which his satire assumes, and especially in the frequent See also:adoption of the form of See also:dialogue, derived from the " dramatic medley " which was the See also:original character of the Roman Satura. This form suited the spirit in which Horace regarded the world, and also the dramatic quality of his genius, just as the direct denunciation and elaborate See also:painting of character suited the " saeva indignatio " and the oratorical genius of See also:Juvenal. Horace's satire is accordingly to a great extent a See also:reproduction inform, manner, substance and tone of the satire of Lucilius; or rather it is a casting in the See also:mould of Lucilius of his own observation and experience. But a comparison of the fragments of Lucilius with the finished compositions of Horace brings out in the strongest See also:light the artistic originality and skill of the latter poet in his management of metre and style. Nothing can be rougher and harsher than the hexameters of Lucilius, or cruder than his expression. In his management of the more natural See also:trochaic metre, he has shown much greater ease and simplicity. It is one great triumph of Horace's genius that he was the first and indeed the only Latin writer who could See also:bend the stately See also:hexameter to the uses of natural and easy, and at the same time terse and happy, conversational style. Catullus, in his hendecasyllabics, had shown the vivacity with which that light and graceful metre could be employed in telling some See also:short story or describing some trivial situation dramatically. But no one before Horace had succeeded in applying the metre of heroic See also:verse to the uses of common life. But he had one great native See also:model in the mastery of a terse, refined, ironical and natural conversational style, See also:Terence; and the Satires show, not only in allusions to incidents and personages, but in many happy turns of expression very frequent traces of Horace's familiarity with the works of the Roman See also:Menander. The Epistles are more original in form, more philosophic in spirit, more finished and charming in style than the Satires. The form of composition may have been suggested by that of some of the satires of Lucilius, which were composed as letters to his personal friends. But See also:letter-See also:writing in See also:prose, and occasionally also in verse, had been common among the Romans from the time of the See also:siege of See also:Corinth; and a practice originating in the wants and covenience of friends temporarily separated from one another by the public service was ultimately cultivated as a literary accomplishment. It was a happy See also:idea of Horace to adopt this form for his didactic writings on life and literature. It suited him as an eclectic and not a systematic thinker, and as a friendly counsellor rather than a formal teacher of his age. It suited his circumstances in the latter years of his life, when his tastes inclined him more to retirement and study, while he yet wished to retain his hold on society and to extend his relations with younger men who were rising into See also:eminence. It suited the class who cared for literature—a limited circle of educated men, intimate with one another, and sharing the same tastes and pursuits. While giving expression to lessons applicable to all men, he in this way seems to address each reader individually, with the urbanity of a friend rather than the solemnity of a preacher. In spirit the Epistles are more ethical and meditative than the Satires. Like the Odes they exhibit the twofold aspects of his philosophy, that of temperate Epicurean-ism and that of more serious and elevated conviction. In the actual See also:maxims which he See also:lays down, in his apparent belief in the efficacy of addressing philosophical texts to the mind, he exemplifies the triteness and See also:limitation of all Roman thought. But the spirit and sentiment of his practical philosophy is quite genuine and original. The individuality of the great Roman moralists, such as Lucretius and Horace, appears not in any difference in the results at which they have arrived, but in the difference of spirit with which they regard the spectacle of human life. In See also:reading Lucretius we are impressed by his earnestness, his pathos, his elevation of feeling; in Horace we are charmed by the serenity of his temper and the flavour of a delicate and subtle wisdom. We note also in the Epistles the presence of a more philosophic spirit, not only in the expression of his personal convictions and aims, but also in his comments on society. In the Satires he paints the outward effects of the passions of the age. He shows us prominent types of character—the See also:miser, the See also:parasite, the See also:legacy-See also:hunter, the parvenu, &c., but he does not try to trace these different manifestations of life to their source. In the Epistles he finds the See also:secret spring of the social vices of the age in the desire, as marked in other times as in those of Horace, to become See also:rich too fast, and in the tendency to value men according to their wealth, and to sacrifice the ends of life to a superfluous care for the means of living. The cause of all this aimless restlessness and unreasonable desire is summed up in the words " Strenua nos exercet inertia." In his Satires and Epistles Horace shows himself a genuine moralist, a subtle observer and true painter of life, and an admirable writer. But for both of these works he himself disclaims the See also:title of poetry. He rests his claims as a poet on his Odes. They reveal an entirely different aspect of his genius, his spirit and his culture. He is one among the few great writers of the world who have attained high excellence in two widely separated provinces of literature. Through all his life he was probably conscious of the " ingeni benigna vena," which in his youth made him the sympathetic student and imitator of the older lyrical poetry of Greece, and directed his latest efforts to poetic criticism. But it was in the years that intervened between the publication of his Satires and Epistles that his lyrical genius asserted itself as his predominant See also:faculty. At that time he had outlived the coarser pleasures and risen bove the harassing cares of his earlier career; a fresh source of happiness and inspiration had been opened up to him in his beautiful Sabine See also:retreat; he had become not only reconciled to the See also:rule of Augustus, but a thoroughly convinced and, so far as his temperament admitted to enthusiasm, an enthusiastic believer in its beneficence. But it was only after much labour that his original vein of genius obtained a See also:free and abundant outlet. He lays no claim to the " profuse strains of unpremeditated art," with which other great lyrical poets of ancient and modern times have charmed the world. His first efforts were HORAE (See also:Lat. See also:Nora, See also:hour), the See also:Hours, in Greek mythology apparently imitative, and were direcied to the attainment of perfect T 2pc originally the personification of a See also:series of natural phenomastery over form, metre and See also:rhythm. The first nine Odes of the first book are experiments in different kinds of metre. They and all See also:mena. In the Iliad (v. 749) they are the custodians of the See also:gates the other metres employed by him are based on those employed by of See also:Olympus, which they open or shut by scattering or condensing the older poets of Greece—See also:Alcaeus, See also:Sappho, Archilochus, See also:Alcman, the clouds; that is, they are See also:weather goddesses, who send down &c. He has built the structure of his lighter Odes also on their model, or withhold the fertilizing dews and See also:rain, In the Odyssey, while in some of those in which the See also:matter is more weighty, as in here they as bringing See also:round the seasons in that in which he calls on See also:Calliope to dictate a long continuous w are represented See also:strain," he has endeavoured to reproduce something of the intricate See also:regular order, they are an See also:abstraction rather than a See also:concrete See also:movement. the abrupt transitions, the interpenetration of narrative personification. The brief See also:notice in See also:Hesiod (Theog. 901), and reflection, which characterize the art of See also:Pindar. He frequently where they are called the See also:children of See also:Zeus and See also:Themis, who reproduces the language and some of the thoughts of his masters, but superintend the operations of See also:agriculture, indicates b the he gives them new application, or stamps them with the impress of suP P by his own experience. He brought the metres which he has employed names assigned to them (Eunomia, See also:Dike, Eirene, i.e. Good to such perfection that the art perished with him. A great See also:proof of Order, See also:Justice, Peace) the See also:extension of their functions as goddesses his mastery over rhythm is the skill with which he has varied his of order from nature to the events of human life, and at the same metres according to the sentiment which he wishes to express. time invests them with moral attributes. Like the Moerae Thus his great metre, the Alcaic, has a character of stateliness and See also:majesty in addition to the See also:energy and impetus originally imparted (Fates), they regulate the destinies of man, See also:watch over the newly to it by Alcaeus. The Sapphic metre he employs with a See also:peculiar born, secure good laws and the See also:administration of justice. The lightness and vivacity which harmonize admirably with his gayer selection of three as their number has been supposed to refer moods Again in regard to his diction, if Horace has learned his subtlety to the most ancient See also:division of the year into spring, summer and and moderation from his Greek masters, he has tempered those See also:winter, but it is probably only another instance of the Greek qualities with the masculine characteristics of his race. No writer is liking for that particular number or its multiples in such more Roman in the stateliness and dignity, the terseness, occasionally connexions (three Moerae, Charites, Gorgons, nine See also:Muses). even in the sobriety and See also:bare literalness, of his diction. While it is mainly owing to the extreme care which Horace gave Order and regularity being 'indispensable conditions of beauty, to form, rhythm and diction that his own prophecy it was easy to conceive of the See also:Home as the goddesses of youthful Usque ego postera See also:bloom and See also:grace, inseparably associated with the idea of spring- Crescam laude recens " time. As such they are companions of the See also:Nymphs and See also:Graces, has been so amply fulfilled, yet no greater injustice could be done to with whom they are often confounded, and of other superior him than to rank him either as poet or critic with those who consider deities connected with the spring growth of vegetation (See also:Demeter, form everything in literature. With Horace the mastery over the vehicle of expression was merely an essential preliminary to making See also:Dionysus). At Athens they were two (or three) in number: a worthy and serious use of that vehicle. The poet, from Horace's Thallo and Carpo, the goddesses of the See also:flowers of spring and of point of view, was intended not merely to give refined pleasure to a the fruits of summer, to whom Auxo, the goddess of the growth few, but above all things, to be " utilis urbi." Yet he is saved, in his of See also:plants, may be added, although some authorities make her practice, from the abuse of this theory by his admirable sense, his only one of the Graces. In honour of the Horae a yearly festival ironical See also:humour, his intolerance of pretension and pedantry. Opinions will differ as to whether he or Catullus is to be regarded as (Horaea) was celebrated, at which protection was sought against t he greater lyrical poet. Those who assign the See also:palm to Horace will the scorching See also:heat and drought, and offerings were made of do so, certainly not because they recognize in him richer or equally boiled See also:meat as less insipid and more nutritious than roast. rich gifts of feeling, conception and expression, but because the In later mythology, under Alexandrian influence, the Horae subjects to which his art has been devoted have a See also:fuller, more varied, more mature and permanent interest for the world. become the four seasons, daughters of Helios and Selene, each . AUrxoarrms.—For the life of Horace the chief authorities are his represented with the conventional attributes. Subsequently, own works and a short ancient See also:biography which is attributed to when the day was divided into twelve equal parts, each of them Sueronius. The apparatus criticus is most fully described in O. took the name of Hora. See also:Ovid (Melam. ii. 26) describes them as See also:Keller's See also:preface to voi. i. of the and ed. (1899) of Keller and Holder's See also:ate equal intervals on the See also:throne of See also:Phoebus, with whom recension of Horace's works. This edition also gives by far the largest placed 9 collection of variants and emendations to the See also:text and of the testis are also associated the four seasons. See also:Nonnus (5th See also:century A.D.) inonia of ancient writers. in the Dionysiaca also unites the twelve Horae as representing What might have proved the most important See also:manuscript of the day and the four Horae as the seasons in the See also:palace of Helios. Horace, the so-called vetustissimus Blandinius, is now lost, and we know it only from the account of J. Cruquius who saw it in 1565. See C. See also:Lehrs, Populate A"ufsatze (1856) ; J. H. See also:Krause, See also:Die Musen, The relations of the extant See also:MSS. to each other and the presumed Grazien, Horen, and Nymphen (1871); and the articles in Daremberg archetype present an intricate problem; and Keller's See also:solution has and Saglio's Dictionnaire See also:des antiquites, J. A. Hild; and in See also:Roscher's not proved generally acceptable. See a resume of the controversy Lexikon der Mythologie,W. Rapp. Ilorackritik seit 188o by J. Bick (See also:Leipzig, 1906) and F. Vollmer in HORAPOLLON, of Phaenebythis in the See also:nome of Panopolis Philologus. Supp. x. 2, pp. 261-322. Many MSS. of Horace contain in See also:Egypt, Greek grammarian, flourished in the 4th century A.D. ancient scholia which are copied or taken with abridgment from the during reign See also:Theodosius I. According Suidas, he commentaries of See also:Porphyrio, who lived about A.D. 200, and Helenius g 8n of g See also:Acre, a still earlier grammarian. These scholia also have been wrote commentaries on See also:Sophocles, Alcaeus and See also:Homer, and a collected and edited—the Porphyrio scholia by A. Holder (1902) work (T44evuc6) on places consecrated to the gods. See also:Photius and the " Acronian " (or pseudo-Acronian) by O. Keller (1902-1904). (See also:cod. 279), who calls him a dramatist as well as a grammarian, R. See also:Bentley's See also:epoch-making edition (1711) has been reprinted with an ascribes to him a See also:history of the See also:foundation and antiquities of See also:index by Zangemeister (1869). Of the modern commentaries the most useful are those of J. C. See also:Orelli (4th ed., revised by O. See also:Hirsch- See also:Alexandria (unless this is by an See also:Egyptian of the same name, folder and J. Mewes, 1886-189o, with index verborurn), and of A. who lived in the reign of See also:Zeno, 474-491). Under the name of Kies-See also:ling (revised by R. Heinze, Odes, 1901, 1908, Satires, 1906, Horapollon two books on See also:Hieroglyphics are extant, which profess F,picthr, 1898). The best See also:complete See also:English commentary is that of to be a See also:translation from an Egyptian original into Greek by E. C. Wickham (2 vols., 1874-1896). Other See also:editions with English notes are those of T. E. See also:Page (Odes, 1883), A. See also:Palmer (Satires, 1883), a certain See also:Philippus, of whom nothing is known. The inferior A. S. See also:Wilkins (Epistles, 1885), J. See also:Gow (Odes and Epodes, 1896, Greek of the translation, and the character of the additions-ih, Satires, L. 1go1), P. Shorcy (Odes and Epodes, 1898, See also:Boston, U.S.A.). the second book point to its being of See also:late date; some have L. See also:Miller's elaborate edition of the Odes and Epodes was published even assigned it to the 15th century. Though a very large posthumously (1900). Of the critical editions Keller and holder's
still holds the See also: W. See also: Warr), (184o) with English translation and notes; see also G. Rathgeber in §§234-24o, and M. Schanz's excellent account in his Geseliichte der See also:Ersch and See also:Gruber's Allgemeine Eneyclopadie; H. Schafer, Zeitschrifi romischen Litteratur, vol. ii. §§ 251-266. (W. Y. S.; J. G*.) fiir agyptische Sprache (1905), p. 72. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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