Chapter 7 - Una cum scriptore meo: Poetry, Principate, and the Traditions of Literary History in the Epistle to Augustus

Summary

Horace’s Epistle to Augustus analyses the contemporary literary scene and gives a kind of literary history of Rome. Horace is defending himself against devotees of older Roman literature, of supposedy classic status; he shows that Rome’s classic age of literature is now, with the works of Virgil and himself establishing a modern literature that has classic status. He establishes an identification between himself and Augustus, since both of them are the last figures of their generation remaining, and they have now become the status quo after revolutionary beginnings.