794 



IIORATIUS FLACCUS. 



(5 reek literature. At the age of twenty years, he 

 went to Athens to continue his studies. At this 

 time, the most important changes were taking place 

 in Rome. Julius Cassar was assassinated; Brutus 

 ami Cassius, the last props of the sinking republic, 

 leaving Italy, came to Athens, prepared themselves 

 there tor Hie war, and received into their army the 

 Roman youth who studied there. Among these was 

 Horace, who followed Brutus to Macedonia. While 

 at Rome, M. Lepidus, M. Antony and Octavius 

 Caesar declared themselves triumvirs of the republic 

 lor five years, and divided the provinces among 

 themselves. Horace was legionary tribune in the 

 army of Brutus, and fought in the last battle for the 

 freedom of Rome, at Philippi in Macedonia (B.C. 42). 

 Brutus and Cassius fell; Horace saved his life by 

 flight. Some persons, understanding neither his fine 

 irony nor his delicate turn of expression, liave con- 

 cluded, from one of his odes (Book II. Ode 7), that 

 the poet fled in a disgraceful manner; but Lessing 

 lias victoriously defended him from this, as from 

 other cliarges. (See the Defence of Horace, Les- 

 sing's complete works, vol. 3, page 191.) Liberty 

 of return was granted to the vanquished, and Horace 

 availed himself of the opportunity. His father was 

 now dead; his paternal estate was confiscated ; po- 

 verty, as he himself says (Epistles, Book II. Epistle 

 11, 49 et seq.), compelled him to make verses. 

 Whether this expression was meant literally, as many 

 believe, is uncertain, as he had a moderate support 

 from the station of clerk to the questor. But he 

 could not have employed his leisure hours in a nobler 

 manner than in the exercise of the talent which nature 

 had so richly bestowed upon him; nor could he have 

 chosen a better way to soothe those feelings which, 

 in contemplating the occurrences of his time, must 

 often have powerfully disturbed his inmost soul. 

 But he also had recourse to philosophy. He chose 

 therefore a species of poetry particularly adapted to 

 a poetical and philosophical spirit the didactic. 

 The seventh satire of the first book is the first poem 

 of this kind which he preserved. The talent which 

 he displayed procured him the friendship of two emi- 

 nent poets, Virgil and Varius, and to them he was 

 indebted for his first acquaintance with Mascenas, a 

 refined man of the world, who, without leaving his 

 private station, was the friend and confidant of 

 Augustus Caesar, and who expended his wealth 

 willingly for the embellishment of social life, by the 

 encouragement of literature and the arts. Nine 

 months after, Maecenas received Horace into the 

 circle of his intimate friends, and, after some years, 

 presented him with the Sabine estate, which Horace 

 so often mentions in his poems. If the poet did not 

 acquire a still more splendid fortune, the fault lay in 

 himself. The recollection of the republic and the 

 party which he served continued too vivid in his 

 heart, to permit him to court the favour of the 

 powerful usurper. The three notes of Augustus to 

 him, which Suetonius has preserved in the life of the 

 poet, prove that he rather avoided it. He even de- 

 clined the proposal which Augustus made to him 

 through Maecenas, to enter his service and under- 

 take the management of his private correspondence, 

 under the pretence of ill health. Having witnessed 

 such striking examples of the instability of fortune, 

 he withdrew from the tumult at Rome, and preferred 

 the retirement of his Sabine farm to a more brilliant 

 life. Almost all his poems addressed to Maecenas 

 celebrate love and freedom, and express indifference 

 to that happiness which depends on the will of an- 

 other, and contentedness in a situation in which he 

 found himself rich above his wishes. He did not, 

 however, make a parade of rusticity, or deem a 

 strict, morose manner of life necessary to virtue : he 



rather displayed a genuine urbanity, which finds a 

 tone adapted to every circumstance. He has left us 

 four books of odes ; a book of epodes, so called, 

 which differ from the odes not only in metre, the 

 second verse being always shorter than the first, but 

 also in the sentiment, which would rather rank them 

 among the satires, in which he took Archilochus as a 

 pattern ; two books of satires, and two books of 

 epistles, one of which (that addressed to the Pisos) is 

 often cited as a separate work, under the title of 

 Ars Poetica. 



In appreciating Horace as a lyric poet, it must not 

 be forgotten that he was the first among the Romans 

 who formed the Roman language for lyric poetry, 

 and applied it, with no small labour, to the difficult 

 Greek metres. Uninterrupted study and persever- 

 ance only could have effected so masterly a structure 

 of the verse. It is said, indeed, and it cannot be 

 denied, that the greater part of the odes of Horace 

 are only imitations of Greek masters Archilochus, 

 Alcaeus, Stesichorus, Sappho, and others and there- 

 fore so full of Greek forms, terminations, and con- 

 structions, in particular parts, indeed, mere transla- 

 tions from the Greek. Many have made use of this 

 objection to detract from the poetical fame of 

 Horace. But, granting that originality cannot be 

 attributed to Horace as a lyric poet, no one can 

 deny it to him as a satirist. As didactic satire 

 in general was a Roman invention, so it was 

 Horace who, following Ennius, Pacuvius, and Lu- 

 cilius, by whom its form and object had been 

 defined, gave it a peculiar tone. The satires of 

 Horace, among which may be included his epistles, 

 since they differ little from the others, except in their 

 title, and in being addressed to an individual, have 

 more or less a comic character, and are to be judged 

 only in this point of view. Horace does not expose 

 vices so much as follies, which he places in a ridicu- 

 lous light : he sees more folly than vice in the world, 

 and even declares himself not exempt from a portion 

 of it. Nevertheless, he seeks to amend follies as far 

 as possible, because he considers them pernicious. 

 To prejudices and errors he opposes his philosophy, 

 which, so far from imbittering or even forbidding the 

 enjoyments of life, only exhorts to a prudent vigilance, 

 and teaches all the virtues, without which happiness 

 is impossible. The easy, agreeable manner in which 

 he philosophises without appearing to do it, the salt 

 with which he seasons his thoughts, the delicacy and 

 ease with which he expresses himself, afford the most 

 agreeable entertainment. We know not which most 

 to admire, his accurate knowledge of the human heart 

 and of the different classes of men, his love of truth, 

 candour, and ingenuousness, the agreeable tone, the 

 urbanity which, in seriousness, or derision, never 

 forsakes him, the delicacy with which he presents 

 the ridiculous without bringing it out in bold relief, 

 or his skill in delineating characters. He seems not 

 to hunt after follies, or, where he does this, his ridi- 

 cule is not bitter, and is accompanied with so, much 

 good humour, that the person ridiculed might laugh 

 at the picture. His expression is easy and unaffected 

 and he manages the hexameter with such skill, that 

 lie seems to tread the natural path of social conver- 

 sation. His descriptions are still applicable and 

 interesting, and the poet will therefore ever remain 

 the favourite of those whose morality does not exclude 

 the refinements of life. He composed, at the express 

 command of Augustus, the secular ode for the fest i- 

 val of the centennial games. 



Horace died suddenly, in the year of Rome 740, 

 and the 9th B. C., in the 57th year of his age, not 

 long after the death of his patron and friend, Maece- 

 nas, near whose tomb, on the Esquiline, he was 

 interred. Among his earlier commentators are 



