December 08, 2011 <Back to Index>
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Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Venusia, December 8, 65 BC – Rome, November 27, 8 BC), known in the English speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania (Basilicata), Horace was the son of a freed slave, who owned a small farm in Venusia, and later moved to Rome to work as a coactor (a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price from each for his services). The elder Horace was able to spend considerable money on his son's education, accompanying him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sending him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy. The poet later expressed his gratitude in a tribute to his father:
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the Battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed that he saved himself by throwing away his shield and fleeing. When an amnesty was declared for those who had fought against the victorious Octavian (later Augustus), Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated; his father likely having died by then. Horace claims that he was reduced to poverty. Nevertheless, he had the means to gain a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury, which allowed him to practice his poetic art. Horace
was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius
Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas,
friend and confidant of Augustus.
Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills
(contemporary Tivoli).
Horace died in Rome a few months after the death of Maecenas at age 57.
Upon his death bed, having no heirs, Horace relinquished his farm to
his friend, the emperor Augustus, for imperial needs and it stands
today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers. Horace is
generally considered to stand alongside Virgil and Ovid as one of the greatest
poets of the Augustan Age. Several of his poetry's main themes, such as
the beatus ille (an appraisal of simple
life) and carpe diem (literally
"pluck the day", more commonly rendered into English as "seize the
day", but perhaps closer to "enjoy the day") were recovered during the
late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, influencing poets such as Petrarch and Dante.
However, those themes were not truly retaken till the 16th century,
when the Renaissance culture and its admiration of Roman and Greek
antiquity was solidly established. In that sense, the influence of
Horace can be traced in the works of poets such as Garcilaso de la
Vega, Juan
Boscán, Torquato Tasso, Pierre de
Ronsard and
especially in Fray Luis de
León. The latter wrote some of the most remarkable "Odes" dealing with the beatus ille precepts. Besides, several
latter poets such as Shakespeare and Quevedo were heavily influenced by
Horace's poetry. Moreover, his work Ars Poetica remained as a canonical guide
for composing poetry till the end of romanticism,
and
it was known and studied by most writers; even though its precepts
were not always thoroughly followed, it held an unimpaired prestige
when it came to deal with the form, wording and setting of any poem,
play or prose work, and its influence can be traced well into the works
of playwrights and writers such as Lope de Vega, Michel de
Montaigne, Henry Fielding, Calderón
de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Voltaire or Diderot.
Apart from carpe diem, Horace
is also known for having coined many other Latin phrases that remain in use today,
whether in Latin or translation, including Dulce et
decorum est pro patria mori (It
is sweet and fitting to die for one's country), Nunc est
bibendum (Now we
must drink), and aurea
mediocritas ("golden mean"). Horace
also forms the basis for the character Quintus Horatius Flaccus in the Oxford Latin Course,
a Latin textbook for secondary students; the books loosely follow his
life. His
works, like those of all but the earliest Latin poets, are written in
Greek metres,
ranging from the hexameters which were relatively easy
to adapt into Latin to the more complex measures used in the Odes, such as alcaics and sapphics,
which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. |