Heresies IX: ‘Scriberis Vario’

Extract

Generations of English editors, brought up to a rigid observance of the rules in the Public School Latin Grammar, have boggled at Horace's disregard of convention. It seemed indecent for the ablative of the agent to appear without its chaperon, the preposition ab. Some years ago a writer in the Classical Review faced the whole question afresh. He condemned Horace for omitting the preposition, though at the same time asserting that he could not have used it, because it was his rule never to represent the agent by ab with the ablative in lyric verse.