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An officer in the republican army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became a spokesman for the new regime.
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Horace (born December 65 bc, Venusia, Italy—died Nov. 27, 8 bc, Rome) outstanding Latin lyric poet and satirist under the emperor Augustus. The most frequent themes of his Odes and verse Epistles are love, friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry.
Horace was probably of the Sabellian hillman stock of Italy’s central highlands. His father had once been a slave but gained freedom before Horace’s birth and became an auctioneer’s assistant. He also owned a small property and could afford to take his son to Rome and ensure personally his getting the best available education in the school of a famous fellow Sabellian named Orbilius (a believer, according to Horace, in corporal punishment). In about 46 bc Horace went to Athens, attending lectures at the Academy. After Julius Caesar’s murder in March 44 bc, the eastern empire, including Athens, came temporarily into the possession of his assassins Brutus and Cassius, who could scarcely avoid clashing with Caesar’s partisans, Mark Antony and Octavian (later Augustus), the young great-nephew whom Caesar, in his will, had appointed as his personal heir. Horace joined Brutus’ army and was made tribunus militum, an exceptional honour for a freedman’s son.
In November 42, at the two battles of Philippi against Antony and Octavian, Horace and his fellow tribunes (in the unusual absence of a more senior officer) commanded one of Brutus’ and Cassius’ legions. After their total defeat and death, he fled back to Italy—controlled by Octavian—but his father’s farm at Venusia had been confiscated to provide land for veterans. Horace, however, proceeded to Rome, obtaining, either before or after a general amnesty of 39 bc, the minor but quite important post of one of the 36 clerks of the treasury (scribae quaestorii). Early in 38 bc he was introduced to Gaius Maecenas, a man of letters from Etruria in central Italy who was one of Octavian’s principal political advisers. He now enrolled Horace in the circle of writers with whom he was friendly. Before long, through Maecenas, Horace also came to Octavian’s notice.
During these years, Horace was working on Book I of the Satires, 10 poems written in hexameter verse and published in 35 bc. The Satires reflect Horace’s adhesion to Octavian’s attempts to deal with the contemporary challenges of restoring traditional morality, defending small landowners from large estates (latifundia), combating debt and usury, and encouraging novi homines (“new men”) to take their place next to the traditional republican aristocracy. The Satires often exalt the new man, who is the creator of his own fortune and does not owe it to noble lineage. Horace develops his vision with principles taken from Hellenistic philosophy: metriotes (the just mean) and autarkeia (the wise man’s self-sufficiency). The ideal of the just mean allows Horace, who is philosophically an Epicurean, to reconcile traditional morality with hedonism. Self-sufficiency is the basis for his aspiration for a quiet life, far from political passions and unrestrained ambition.
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Poetry: First Lines
In the 30s bc his 17 Epodes were also under way. Mockery here is almost fierce, the metre being that traditionally used for personal attacks and ridicule, though Horace attacks social abuses, not individuals. The tone reflects his anxious mood after Philippi. Horace used his commitment to the ideals of Alexandrian poetry to draw near to the experiences of Catullus and other poetae novi (New Poets) of the late republic. Their political verse, however, remained in the fields of invective and scandal, while Horace, in Epodes 7, 9, and 16, shows himself sensitive to the tone of political life at the time, the uncertainty of the future before the final encounter between Octavian and Mark Antony, and the weariness of the people of Italy in the face of continuing violence. In doing so, he drew near to the ideals of the Archaic Greek lyric, in which the poet was also the bard of the community, and the poet’s verse could be expected to have a political effect. In his erotic Epodes, Horace began assimilating themes of the Archaic lyric into the Hellenistic atmosphere, a process that would find more mature realization in the Odes.
May 18, 2017 · On November 27, 8 BCE Horace died, two months after his life-long friend Maecenas, and was buried near his tomb. Despite legislation enacted by the emperor against bachelorhood, Horace never married, and so, according to Suetonius, Augustus was named as heir of his estate.
- Donald L. Wasson
Nov 27, 2015 · The most significant events in the history of books on the 27th of November 8 BC: Horace dies. The Roman poet whose full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus once observed, 'It is not enough that poetry is agreeable, it should also be interesting.'
Apr 10, 2022 · Died: 8 BC. Aged: 56. Place of death: Rome, Italy. Notable works: Epistles (c. 21 BC-c. 11 BC), Epodes (c. 30 BC), Odes (c. 23 BC-c. 11 BC), Satires (c. 35 BC-c. 30 BC) Most famous maxim: carpe diem. Era: Augustan Era. Themes: love, lust, heartbreak, longing and even ethics. Poets who influenced Horace: Archilochus, Titus Lucretius Carus ...
Horace, orig. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (born December 65 bce, Venusia—died Nov. 27, 8 bce, Rome), Latin lyric poet and satirist. The son of a former slave, he was educated in Rome.
Apr 25, 2024 · Horace is believed to have died around 8 BCE. He would have been in his late fifties, and he is said to have died from natural causes. He was laid to rest near Maecenas, and both men left their property to Emperor Augustus, as was customary of the times.
