... mainly on commentators. But Horace can comment well on himself: so, for instance, when as a lover he describes his rival’s neck as rosea and his arms as cerea in Odes i. 13 the reader should know that he also describes himself as solibus aptus, and, when Damasippus or Davus or Lydia refers to ill temper, that he confesses himself to be irasci celerem (but happily—tarnen ut placabilis essem). He describes his successor in Pyrrha’s affections as gracilis (Odes i. 5. 1); the Life describes the poet as obesus. Horace often talks of himself—or appears to. Yet a many-sided personality finds expression in his poetry, and his self-revelation can be deceptive. In early years his life was adventurous and up-and-down (to be remembered when he talks of Fortuna); later it was quiet and contented, but all the time he was living among great events, and his poetry—particularly Epodes and Odes —is apt to reflect, and even arise from, the contemporary scene. Horace (unlike Virgil) is simply not to be understood apart from the history of the period.

Horace was writing his Epodes1 at the same time as he was writingSatires. The name Epodes is derived from the metrical term ό ἐπῳδός (і.е. στίχος) which signifies the second and shorter line of a couplet, but Horace himself referred to them as iambi (so Epod. 14. 7, Epist. i. 19. 23). The collection is titled Liber Epodon in the MSS. and the title was used by grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries. But iambi gives a better idea of their basic inspiration. Horace says of them (Epist. i. 19. 21-5):

The title is uncertain. Horace uses satura generically in ii. 1. 1 and saturae in ii. 6. 17, but elsewhere he uses the word sermones, which Porphyrio asserts was the title of the work. This name best reflects the conversational style and structure.

The Greek background to the Satires Horace expressed when he described them as Bionei sermones (Epist. ii. 2. 60); Bion of Borysthenes was one of a number of third-century ‘philosophers’ whose ideas were disseminated in moralizing sermons. But no Greek lay behind the Satires as Archilochus lay behind the Epodes: their model was Lucilius, and Horace treated the relationship in three of the Satires. In each he uses the concept of an attack on himself as a framework in which to express his ideas. In i. 4 he defends the aggressiveness of satire by reference to Lucilius (whose style he criticizes) and asserts a general social and moral function for satire; the latter he illustrates by the analogy of his own father’s moral instruction (this gives a deeply personal touch to the satire). In i. 10 he uses supposed criticism of his own stylistic criticism of Lucilius as a framework for discussing his

Horace probably published the first three books of his Odes as a unit and in the form in which we have them in 23 B.c. Single books may have been published earlier, and certainly single poems will have been known to a limited public earlier, but i. 1 and iii. 30 seem to have been composed specially for the three-book collection. Although late odes are to be found in Book i and early odes in Book iii, the collection seems to be generally chronological; this suggests that, though Horace may in some sense have ‘published’ three books of Odes separately as each was finished, there was minimal rearrangement and redistribution for the unitary three-book edition. Dates for individual poems are not usually ascertainable, except for political odes—and, since it is only for them that date is significant, the general uncertainty does not matter.

Horace never uses epistulae of these poems; but seems to include them in the term sermones. However, evidence of MSS. and scholiasts is unanimous that the title given by the author was Epistulae. The title taken together with the poet’s inclusion of them among the sermones points to their being a continuation of the Satires in a new form. The essence of the Satires was that they were sermo, but it was difficult for the poet to make plausible the setting in which the conversation took place; so most of the Satires have no addressee. The invention of the letter as a literary form was a perfect solution to that difficulty, and it gave the poet opportunity for the swiftly changing tones and the associative connections of ideas which are the great virtues of the style of the Satires.

In 17 B.C., with the help of mathematical sophistries by the quindecimviri, Augustus held the ludi saeculares. The date was no coincidence: the Parthian standards had been regained in 20 B.C., the Spanish war seemed to be concluded, prosperity was increasing with peace established, and—most important—the moral legislation had been passed in the previous year. Horace was appointed to compose the Carmen Saeculare, which was to be sung by a choir of 27 boys and 27 girls, at first before the temple of Apollo on the Palatine and then at the temple of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol. The ceremonies were designed for the occasion: the ancient ceremonies had been at night, so on three successive nights offerings were made to the Moerae, the Ilithyiae, and Terra Mater. Daytime ceremonies, however, were added: on three successive days sacrifice was made on the Capitol to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, on the Capitol to Juno, and on the Palatine to Apollo and Diana.