INTRODUCTION

Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS was born on Dec. 8, B.c. 65, in the consulship of L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus,1 five years after Virgil and two years before C. Octavius, who subsequently became the emperor Augustus. The place of his birth was Venusia, a town in Apulia on the borders of Lucania 2 close to Mount Vultur and the 'far-echoing Aufidus.' His father was a 'freedman' (libertinus), and had been a 'collector,'5 probably of taxes, though others credit him with having been a 'dealer in salt-fish.'6 Anyhow, when the young Horace was old enough to go to school, he had apparently saved a fair amount of money, though his son describes him as only the poor owner of a lean farm,' and he was certainly a man who deserves not to be forgotten. Freedman, taxcollector, and perhaps fish-hawker, he none the less

1 Od. iii. 21. 1 O nata mecum consule Manlio; Epod. xiii. 6. 2 Hence he speaks of himself as Lucanus an Apulus anceps, Sat. ii. 1. 34.

3 Od. iv. 9. 2 longe sonantem natus ad Aufidum.

4 Sat. i. 6. 45.

5 coactor Sat. i. 6. 86; coactor exactionum (or auctionum), Suet. Vit.

6

ut creditum est, salsamentario, Suet. Vit.

7 Sat. i. 6. 71 macro pauper agello.

saw the talent of his son and resolved to give him a chance in the world. Instead of sending him to the local school, where the big sons of big centurions, satchel and slate slung over their left arms,' 1 went carrying their monthly pence, he took him to Rome and procured for him the best teachers, notably a certain Orbilius Pupillus of Beneventum-the Keate 2 of his day-whose birch and whose lessons in Livius Andronicus left an impression on the pupil which has immortalised the master. Not only did his father spend money freely on him but he devoted himself personally to watching over the growth of his morals and character, and to inculcating on him such shrewd and homely maxims as his own experience dictated. Of the debt thus incurred the son was always deeply sensible, and the passage (Sat. i. 6. 68 seq.) in which he answers the sneers of society on his origin by a full acknowledgment of how much he owed to the best of fathers' is possibly not among the most rhetorical, but is certainly among the most touching passages in classical literature.

When his school-days were over he went, after the fashion of the time, to complete his studies at what was practically the University of Athens, 'searching for truth amid the groves of the Academy' or, in other words, reading philosophy. Here he made the acquaintance of M. Junius Brutus, who after the murder

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3 He really used the 'taw' and the 'ferule'; si quos Orbilius ferula scuticaque cecidit, Suet. Vit.

4 Ep. ii. 2. 45 inter silvas Academi quaerere verum.

of Caesar (B.c. 44) had been driven from Italy and visited Athens before taking up as propraetor the government of Macedonia. Horace seems to have gone with him to Asia Minor1 and, when Brutus and Cassius raised a republican force with which to resist Octavian and Antony, he was appointed a military tribune and found himself, as he puts it with intentional exaggeration, in command of a Roman legion.' 2 He took part in the battle of Philippi (B.C. 42), which finally extinguished the hopes of the republican party, and, though his own description of himself as spirited away by Mercury the protector of poets and leaving his poor shield ingloriously behind him'3 must not be taken too literally, still we may well imagine that his exploits on that fatal field were not very distinguished. At any rate his military and republican ardour soon cooled and, instead of following his friends farther amid the stormy seas '4 of war, he took advantage of an amnesty offered by the conquerors and returned to Italy, where he found himself with his wings clipped and destitute of house and farm,'5 his property near Venusia having probably been confiscated and assigned to some veteran of the victorious army.

By some means, however, he managed to procure a sort of clerkship in the treasury 6 on which to live. 1 Sat. i. 7; Ep. i. 11.

2 Sat. i. 6. 48 quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno; the legion had six tribunes.

3 Od. ii. 7. 10 relicta non bene parmula.

4 Od. ii. 7. 16.

5 Ep. ii. 2. 50 decisis humilem pennis inopemque paterni | et Laris et fundi.

6 scriptum quaestorium comparavit, Suet. Vit.; Sat. ii. 6. 36.

Meantime some of his writings, possibly some of the earlier Satires (e.g. i. 7), attracted the notice of Varius and Virgil, who in 39 B.c. procured for the timid and stammering clerk an introduction to C. Cilnius Maecenas, the peace minister of Augustus and the great literary patron of the age. After a delay of nine months, during which Maecenas seems to have satisfied himself as to the talent and character of Horace, he welcomed him as an intimate member of that famous literary group which the great statesman loved to collect around him in his palace on the Esquiline. From this time until his death, which occurred on the 27th of November B.C. 8, a few weeks after that of Maecenas, the poet and his patron lived on terms of extreme intimacy and Horace takes a marked place as one of the notable figures in Roman society.

Of his life, however, there is little to relate. He was a man who infinitely preferred repose and comfort to rank and distinction. Maecenas presented him with a small farm among the Sabine hills a little north-east of Tibur (Tivoli), and this Sabine farm was dear to him as the apple of his eye. He is never weary of referring to its charms; he loved to retire to it from Rome, and he constantly contrasts the delights of his peaceful life there with the worry and turmoil and endless engagements of the capital. In Rome itself he contented himself with an extremely modest household,2 partly because his independent spirit made him unwilling to accept too much from his patron, partly because he had a genuine dislike of ostentation and

1 Od. ii. 18. 14 satis beatus unicis Sabinis.

2 Sat. i. 6. 114.