Historical Figure
Horace
d. 8 BC
Roman lyric poet (65–8 BC)
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Biography
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
In Their Own Words (5)
The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.
Line 139. Horace is hereby poking fun at heroic labours producing meager results; his line is also an allusion to one of Æsop's fables, The Mountain in Labour. , 1237
I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.
Book I, epistle i, line 14
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
Book II, ode x, line 5
Nam curquae laedunt oculum festinas demere; si quidest animum, differs curandi tempus in annum?
For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt your eyes, but if anything gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it from year to year?
Let’s put a limit to the scramble for money. ... Having got what you wanted, you ought to begin to bring that struggle to an end.
Book I, satire i, lines 92-94, as translated by N. Rudd
Timeline
The story of Horace, told in moments.
Born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in Venusia, southern Italy. His father was a freedman, a former slave, who worked as a tax collector. He spent everything on his son's education in Rome and Athens.
Fought on the losing side at Philippi, commanding a legion for Brutus. He ran from the battlefield. He wrote about it later with self-deprecating honesty. "I left my shield behind."
Published his first book of Satires. Virgil introduced him to Maecenas, Augustus's cultural minister. Maecenas gave him a farm in the Sabine Hills. Horace never forgot that he owed everything to patronage.
Completed the first three books of Odes. Latin lyric poetry at its peak. "Carpe diem" comes from here. He meant it literally: pluck the day, like a grape from the vine.
Artifacts (1)
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