Myth and History in the

Roman Period III

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Satires by Horace

Introduction

Horace’s Satires are a collection of two books of hexameter poems which offer a humorous-critical commentary,
of an indirect kind, unique to Horace, on various social phenomena in 1st century BCE Rome. The Satires are
Horace’s earliest published work: Book 1, with ten poems, was published around 35 BCE, and Book 2, with eight
poems, was published around 30 BCE. Also known as the Sermones (“Conversations,” which seems to be the
title that Horace gave them), the Satires stand out for their markedly unelevated themes and attitudes; their
seemingly colloquial (but carefully composed) style; their often frank tone; and their rapid shifts of speakers,
audiences, and perspectives. Horace’s primary mode of operation is to take a complex philosophical issue and
tackle it in a quasi-moralizing, self-effacing, and purposefully inconsistent way. The diatribe in Satire 1.1 against
people’s avarice and discontent with their own lot, for example, is obviously at odds with the fact that the poem,
emphatically addressed to Maecenas in its opening line, marks the beginning of Horace’s first published
collection, his move into the public eye which (despite the poet’s own protestations in Satire 1.6) is inevitably a
bid to move up to the higher echelons of Roman society. Yet Horace employs other registers as well. He offers
a dialogue between Odysseus and Tiresias (Satire 2.5), an exposé on witchcraft through the eyes of a statue of
Priapus (Satire 1.8), and jeremiads directed against the poet himself in the voice of a failed businessman turned
Stoic zealot (Satire 2.3) and of his own slave (2.7). He frequently explores themes usually avoided in high
classical poetry, such as sex (Satire 1.2) and food (Satires 2.2, 2.4 and 2.8). The self-awareness of these poems
becomes apparent in recurrent reflections on the art of writing satire (Satires 1.4, 1.10, and 2.1), in which Horace
repeatedly compares himself to Lucilius, the originator of Roman satire, and laments his inability to speak as
freely as his forebears given who he is, and the troubled times that he lives in. In short, Horace’s Satires embody
the core idea of Roman satura, which literally means a “mish-mash of foodstuffs.” The outstanding “Horatian”
quality of his poems is their imperviousness to being pinned down. In later times they were just as popular with
pious monks as they were with dirty-minded epigrammatists. Today they are equally likely to be cited in studies
of Roman sexuality, ancient literary criticism, and Epicurean philosophy. It is Horace’s protean slipperiness that
has kept interest in the Sermones alive to this day.

General Overviews

Given that Horace’s Satires defy easy definition by their very nature, it is difficult to recommend a single
introduction to these difficult poems. The most convenient recent overview of the contents and contexts of the
Sermones can be found in the introduction to Gowers 2012 (cited under Commentaries and Translations). The
chapters on the Satires in two broader introductions to Horace, Harrison 2014 and Holzberg 2009, contextualize
these poems within the framework of Horace’s life and works. Hooley 2007 is a general introduction to Roman
satire with an excellent chapter on Horace, which goes into quite some detail on the individual poems and
provides helpful generic and political context. To get a good idea of some of the most important themes and
discussions surrounding Horace’s Sermones, McGann 1973, Courtney 2013, and Rudd 1966 are a good start.
McGann 1973 traces three recurring discourses (“The self within society,” “madness,” and “art”) throughout the
poems. Courtney 2013 performs a thorough sequential reading, almost a paraphrase of the two books, explicitly
disagreeing at many points with recent readings of the Satires, and thereby indicating some glaring points of
contention. Rudd 1966, a classic of Horatian scholarship, offers suggestive and detailed literary and historical
backgrounds, without being overwhelming for the beginning scholar. As an introduction to the scholarship on the
Sermones, it is best to begin from Freudenburg 2009 (which anthologizes some classics of Horatian scholarship)
and Davis 2010 (which collects some recent advances with bibliographical notes). While not specifically
dedicated to Horace, Rudd 1986 and the collection of essays in Freudenburg 2005 highlight some important
themes in Roman satire more generally, providing useful context for some of Horace’s major interests in these
poems.
Summary

The Roman philosopher and dramatic critic Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-3 B.C.), known in English as Horace,
was also the most famous lyric poet of his age. Written in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of
Augustus's regime, his Satires provide trenchant social commentary on men's perennial enslavement to money,
power, fame, and sex. Not as frequently translated as his Odes, in recent decades the Satires have been
rendered into prose or bland verse.

Horace continues to influence modern lyric poetry, and our greatest poets continue to translate and marvel at
his command of formal style, his economy of expression, his variety, and his mature humanism. Horace's comic
genius has also had a profound influence on the Western literary tradition through such authors as Swift, Pope,
and Boileau, but interest in the Satires has dwindled due to the difficulty of capturing Horace's wit and formality
with the techniques of contemporary free verse.

A.M. Juster's striking new translation relies on the tools and spirit of the English light verse tradition while taking
care to render the original text as accurately as possible.
Epodes by Horace

This is the third and most important commentary on the Epodes in little over a decade, following on from
Cavarzere (Venice, 1992) and Mankin (Cambridge, 1995). The commentary follows the format of Nisbet and
Hubbard in its lack of a text. W(atson) is very attentive to possible sources and parallels and is strong on the
historical and social context of the poems.

The commentary on each individual poem commences with an interpretative essay, smoothly synthesizing
existing scholarship. No doubt W. will be criticized in some quarters for his avowedly intentionalist rhetoric, but
one of the many joys of this work is that in those places where one feels reservations about W.'s literary
judgement, he supplies, via meticulous referencing and generously full summaries of rival interpretations, an
excellent starting point for dissenting readings. W.'s introduction covers: 1 historical background; 2 literary
background; 3 the Epode book; 4 style; 5 poetic quality; 6 numeros ... secutus; 7 conspectus of metres; 8 text.

Surprisingly, the introduction lacks a discussion of the word epode and does not attempt to catalogue the
standard paraphernalia of iambic poetry. Moreover, although the individual commentaries on 5 and 17 are
packed with valuable references to the Magical Papyri, a more systematic discussion of the importance of magic
in the collection would have been welcome at the outset.

1 is brief and standard. In the commentary proper Watson is excellent on issues of dating.

2 is thorough, if uncontroversial, steering a judicious middle course, observing that to set the influence of archaic
iambus in opposition to Callimachus' Iambi is to create a false dichotomy. In particular, W. stresses (p. 11) that
the thematic variety of the Epodes is not simply a Hellenistic feature; variety is also to be found in the work of
archaic iambographers.

3 is especially good on the recurrent motifs of the collection (pp. 26ff.) but less than convincing on "associative
bridging" (p. 23f.) in the Epodes, an approach favoured in the 1980s by Matthew Santirocco and others in their
work on the Odes, which stresses the importance of connections between contiguously positioned poems.
Frequently, these putative "connections" are simply the result of generic commonplaces; just as Santirocco
makes great play of references to drinking and bad weather in adjacent odes (no great surprise in sympotic lyric!)
so, according to W., Epodes 4, 5 and 6 are connected by their "shared canine motif" (references to canines,
teeth etc. are rather to be expected in iambic poetry). Of course, the arrangement of poems was important from
the Hellenistic era onwards (and W. is good on the connections between the Epodes and Callimachus' lyric
"iambi" 14-17, p. 16), and we need to pay attention to beginnings, middles and ends, in particular, but the
assumption that every individual poem is likely to have important associations with those poems that immediately
precede and follow is specious and tends unhelpfully to privilege the thematic totality of a collection over the
understanding of the argument of each discretely produced poem.

4 is brief, and by W.'s own admission, a mere summary of the more notable stylistic features of the Epodes. In
particular, more on how different registers are employed would have been welcome here.

5 claims that the Epodes have not received their critical due and attempts "to rescue them from the critical
doldrums in which they have languished" (p. 36). This is something of an overstatement, and even the two "less
fashionable" pieces (Epodes 3 and 8) on which he concentrates in this section have received detailed critical
attention, notwithstanding the commentaries mentioned above. Nevertheless, in the eyes of W., who has clearly
imbibed something of the iambist's art himself, the existing criticism on these poems is of little value: Gowers'
treatment of 3 is "lengthy but fanciful" (p. 36 n. 222) and Henderson's quirky take on 8 is memorably dismissed
as "characteristically impenetrable [pun, I think, intended!] ... featuring a gratuitous technopaegnic vagina".
Although W.'s brief analysis of Epodes 3 well demonstrates the shifts in tone and register and the garlicky puns
of the piece, this reader was still left cold. His analysis of 8, however, both here and in the commentary proper,
is one of the many highlights of the work.

6 shows how Horace' claim (at Epistles 1.19.24f.) to have adopted the metres of Archilochus is essentially valid,
notwithstanding the fact that elegiacs and trochaic tetrameters are absent from the Epodes.
8 gives a conspectus of readings in W., Garrod, Klingner and Shackleton Bailey. W. is conservative, but his
commentary puts the case for competing readings very fully throughout.

Epode 1

Publishing deadlines are presumably to blame for the lack of reference to DuQuesnay's important discussion of
the political aspects of this Epode.1

p. 57 W. follows Kraggerud in assuming that Maecenas probably was present at Actium (DuQ. also follows this
line). This seems fair - why would Horace prominently advertize Maecenas' involvement with Actium if he were
absent from the battle?

W. is sceptical of an allusion to Callimachus' Ibis in line 1, but accepts Holzberg's metapoetic interpretation of
the fleet setting sail at the outset of the collection.

On superstite (5), W. reasonably criticizes Mankin for his inference that Horace is expressing indifference to the
fate of Octavian and his troops so long as Maecenas survives.

p. 70 on lines 25-30 W.'s note on the disavowal of the usual sordid motive for war again cries out for a reference
to DuQuesnay, who develops this point more fully.

Epode 2

p. 76-77 W. argues for dating the poem after the Georgics.

p. 79 discusses the appeal of Cipriani's monograph2 which tries to show how the dissonance between lines 1-
66 and the concluding couplets is related to a tension in upper-class Roman attitudes to land-holding and farming
and relates the epode to Caesar's lex Iulia de modo credendi possidendique intra Italiam, which attempted to
force moneylenders to purchase a certain amount of land in proportion to their overall assets. The problem with
this approach, as W. points out, is that iam iam futurus rusticus strongly implies that Alfius will never actually
embrace a rustic way of life.

p. 85 W. follows Fowler and Oliensis in seeing a self-directed irony as the poet and Alfius are assimilated in their
hypocritical urban fantasizing. pp. 93-4 W. criticizes Mankin for his assertion that faults in Alfius' agricultural
knowledge indicate that he is not a true rustic, since the "errors" identified by Mankin are not in fact so clear-cut.
p. 114 W. criticizes Mankin (again!). Mankin observes that the speaker is suspiciously well informed about the
luxuries which he rejects in ll. 49-60, whereas W. claims that the faenerator is a skinflint, opportunistically using
the cover of rusticism to save money. On balance, Mankin's interpretation here still seems more plausible, to this
reader anyway. pp. 122f. W. provides a typically excellent note on faenerator, which offers a good starting point
on the subject of moneylending in the Roman world.

p. 123 W. plausibly connects Alfius' name with the Greek ἀλφαίνω. Throughout the commentary, W. is alert to
the etymological possibilities of names and to etymological play in general.

Epode 3

p. 129 n. 26 W. has the interesting idea that by harping on his symptoms Horace is ironically playing the
hypochondriac and gently sending up Maecenas. A reference to West's article on Odes 2.17 would have been
useful here.3

p. 144 W. well observes the irony that cubet can also refer to sexual congress.

Epode 4

pp. 146-50 are an excellent essay on the type of the parvenu.

pp. 152 W. (reasonably) claims that Horace is deliberately courting the charge of hypocrisy, self-deflation being
typical of archaic and Roman iambus.
pp. 165-7 contain a very thorough exploration of why the parvenu's sitting in the first fourteen rows of the theatre
is so offensive, even if technically permissible.

p.168 suggests that the concluding lines might be a muted criticism of Octavian for making such low-lifes into
military officers. I would rather see these lines as a concluding gesture of frustration at the topsy-turvydom of
Rome's social structures in the turmoil of the 30s. Moreover, on p. 171, W. himself accepts that the one-sided
portrait of Sextus and his forces in line 19 is pretty much straight pro-Octavian propaganda.

Epode 5

pp. 176-9 are superb on the historical background and the legislation against witchcraft in first-century Rome.
W. makes extensive use of the Magical Papyri to provide real-life analogues to the procedures outlined in
Horace's poem, concluding that "underlying Epode 5 is a notable substratum of fact" (p. 178).

p. 179 highlights the propaganda value to the Caesarian cause of smearing opponents with charges of witchcraft.

p. 198 W. is surprisingly open-minded about the possible symbolic value of Canidia signifying the moral
senescence of the collapsing Republic. Other than the dubious Canidia - canities association, on what is this
based?

p. 201 in lines 19-20 W. is right to take ova with strigis rather than ranae, as it provides a more balanced
expression.

p. 205 in line 22 ferax with the genitive is a Graecism, but W. omits to mention this (or the other Horatian parallels
at CS 19f., Odes 4.4.58).

p. 227 W. shrewdly observes that senem ... nardo perunctum (57ff.) may be "a sly allusion to the anointing of
corpses with perfume".

p. 237 in line 71 could not solutus juxtaposed with ambulat humorously suggest that Varus is drunk and on the
prowl in the Subura? (Of course this interpretation itself dissolves once we read on a line to carmine). W.'s note
on the binding effects of magic here and his observations on the magical carmine (72) might more helpfully have
been expanded and placed in the introduction.

Epode 7

pp. 269-70 effectively demolish Kraggerud's dating of the poem to 32 B.C.

p. 285 on the secondary literature on Romulus and Remus W. has overlooked Cynthia Bannon's recent work.4

Epode 8

pp. 289ff. W. objects to the view that the poem has to do with impotence, since Horace is not saying that he is
unable to become sexually aroused at all but simply that his revulsion at the aged hag precludes arousal. Further,
W. points out the fact that Horace is embroiled with such an aged female as richer potential for embarrassment
than the impotence theme. It is difficult, however, to see why one should not find both of these aspects ridiculous:
whatever the reason, the iambist's flag is at half mast in this poem, and this adds to the humour of the situation.

pp. 296f. on aridas natis (line 5) there is an excellent note on the cult of the full buttock in antiquity (one thinks
of Jennifer Lopez and her imitators!)

Epode 9

The introduction is good on the way the poem reflects contemporary Caesarian propaganda before and after
Actium.

pp. 317f. some comment is needed on the ritual connotations of dapes (line 1).

Epode 10
pp. 355-7 W. identifies the frater of Domitius Marsus fr. 1 with the Maevius of Eclogue 3 and Epode 10, which
adds to the case that Maevius is being attacked in Epode 10 for scandalous sexual activities.

Epode 11

p. 365 Axelson's explanation that expetit = cupit with urere as prolative infinitive is easily paralleled and more
convincing than W.'s assertion that urere is an infinitive used finally.

pp. 365f. W. could spell out more clearly that mollis (line 4) denotes sexual passivity in males.

p. 376 W. fails to record or discuss Heyworth's observation that incerto pede (line 20) may have a metrical
connotation here.5

Epode 12

pp. 384-5 W. sticks to the revulsion not impotence line set out in his introduction to Epode 8.

pp. 391ff. W. has a lengthy note on nigris dignissima barris (line 1), including the information that the penis of an
elephant weighs over 60 lb.! Although W. does not note the possibility, given the rarity of barrus (this is its first
appearance in extant Latin), I wonder whether it is possible to take it adjectivally here, giving the sense "most
suitable for black men hung like elephants (!)" For the Roman stereotyping in the Augustan era of the putatively
priapic qualities and hypersexuality of black males see Clarke.6 This would also make more sense of naris
obesae, as it would partly be a racial reference to the noses of African males.7

p. 408 W. intelligently connects Inachia to Io, giving ironic point to the sexual metaphor contained in taurum.

pp. 415f. W. omits a reference to Odes 1.33.7-9, an obvious parallel to line 26 (and noted by Mankin!)

Epode 13

pp. 417-9 W. sensibly concludes that there is insufficient information to anchor the poem to a specific occasion.

pp. 425-6 W., following Delz, rightly reads amici (line 3) as vocative plural.

pp. 433f. W. reads pravi (line 13), which is a small step from parvi of the MSS and gives better sense.

Epode 14

p. 441 on inertia (line 1) W. misses the point that here inertia = lack of ars = lack of virtus (ars is often punned
with ἀρετή).8

pp. 455-7 are an excellent appendix on the "Neoteric" aspects of the poem.

Epode 15

pp. 464-6 W. plausibly draws out the epithalamic topoi. In his note on lines 1-2, he cites Ode 1.12.46-8 but fails
to highlight the fact that these lines also have an epithalamial context, referring to Marcellus and Iulia's marriage.

pp. 470f. following Housman, W. takes lines 7-8 as a zeugma.

p. 472 W. ever keen to clear Horace of charges of impotence, claims that Flaccus does not mean "Mr Floppy" in
a sexual sense in spite of Mart. 11.27.1-2, which seems decisively to support a sexual connotation here also.

Epode 16

pp. 486-7 rightly stress the difficulty of determining the priority between Epode 16 and Eclogue 6. W. dates
Epode 16 with Epode 7 to 39-38 B.C.

pp. 506f. W. claims that monstra (line 30) is internal accusative rather than predicative, as it is usually taken.
Contra W., however, monstra iungere is not analogous to iungere conubia, nuptias etc.
p. 530 on vates (line 66) the references ought to have included more recent items.9

pp. 530-33 have a very full appendix on the vexed interpretation of lines 15-16.

Epode 17

pp. 537-9 W. lists a series of defixiones with parallels to Horace's symptoms in Epode 17 to support his argument
that Horace's symptoms are not those of a lover. For once, W.'s overall reading of the poem causes him to skew
and suppress counter-arguments in the commentary itself e.g. on p. 558 on ardeo (line 30) he writes "not with
love" and fails to offer parallels which show ardeo in an erotic sense, while on p. 571 on lines 54-5 he quotes
Odes 3.7.21-2 as a parallel but fails to point out the erotic context.

In the preface, W. refers, jokingly, to his "obsession" with the Epodes and, more seriously, to his struggles in
completing the commentary. That he has seen the project through is to his eternal credit: as a display of classical
scholarship the work is formidable and it will remain the point of departure for all serious work on the Epodes for
decades to come.
Odes of Horace

Book 1

Summary
The first book of Horace's Odes, dedicated to his patron and lifelong friend, Gaius Maecenas (70–8 BCE), has
38 poems. Like the other odes, they are addressed to a variety of characters, both real and fictional. Topics
range from politics to seasons and the gods to advice to a young woman. It includes a piece of advice for
which Horace is well known, Ode 1.11's Carpe diem, or "seize the day."

Analysis
Books 1–3 of Odes were published in 23 BCE, when "publishing" consisting of hand copying manuscripts—
work done by slaves—on large, glued-together sheets of papyrus. These three books have in
common Horace's stated dedication to Emperor Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), who reigned 27 BCE–14 CE, and
to Roman virtues of bravery and loyalty.
Each of the first nine odes in Book 1 is written in a different meter. Readers of the original Latin would have
seen the poet's versatility and his familiarity with a range of styles.

Book 2

Summary
Book 2 of Odes, like Book 1, is dedicated to Maecenas and consists of 20 poems. Their topics include wisdom
(the wise use of money; the wisdom of moderation), love and friendship, musings on the ways of the gods, and
how to approach the certainty of death.

Analysis
Horace's values as a Roman, a Stoic, and an Epicurean are on display in these odes. From Stoicism he takes
the concept of valuing virtue over pleasure. From Epicureanism comes the idea that one is happiest when
tranquil and free from suffering. He tells his friends to avoid extremes, to remember the coming of death, and
to live in the present day.

Book 3

Summary
Book 3 of Odes, like the other two published in 23 BCE and dedicated to Maecenas, has 30 poems. The first
six are considered to be a cycle called the Roman odes. They belong together in their address to Roman
citizens and their use of meter. Ode 3.2 in this cycle is one of Horace's most famous. It contains the patriotic
phrase, Dulce et decorum est pro patri mori, "To die for native land is sweet and fitting." Other topics include
states of mind and virtues, such as happiness and integrity, and more poems about women, friendship, and the
gods.

Analysis
An emblem of the horrors of World War I, British poet Wilfred Owen's (1893–1918) "Dulce et Decorum Est"
mocks Horace's patriotism as "the old Lie," trite and belonging to a long gone age of warfare conducted with
more civility. The war would claim Owen's own life. Horace's readers, however, would have viewed war as a
way in which to test one's virtue and loyalty. Horace himself viewed death's inevitability as something to be
accepted with dignity, and death in war would be an honorable and noble end.

Book 4

Summary
Book 4 consists of 15 poems, bringing the total of poems in the four volumes to 103. Horace begins the first
poem by addressing the 10-year gap in time between publication of Books 1–3 (23 BCE) and Book 4 (13
BCE). The poems address the Muses, the emperor, poetry itself, and other topics, including his love for a boy
named Ligurinus.

Analysis
History suggests Horace wrote the fourth volume of Odes under pressure. He had written about putting aside
his poetry, but he was probably asked by Emperor Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), who reigned 27 BCE–14 CE
and to whom the book is dedicated, to write a final volume. There are stylistic changes, and the optimism seen
in some of the poems in the first three books is harder to find. Horace is older and perhaps discouraged by the
lack of attention gained by the first three volumes.