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Quintus Horatius Flaccus, better known as Horace in the English-speaking world, was a leading Roman lyrical poet during the reign of Augustus Caesar. He was born in 65 B.C. in the small town of Venusia in southeastern Italy. He came from fairly humble origins—his father was a mere freedman—but nevertheless was still able, on account of his father’s lucrative job as a collector of payments at auctions, to pursue the best education available at the time.

When the civil war broke out following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace fought on the side of Brutus against the Second Triumvirate of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian (who would later, as Emperor, be renamed Augustus). When Brutus was defeated at the Battle of Philippi, Horace returned to Rome where he discovered that his father’s estate had been confiscated. Still, Horace was lucky enough to be granted a pardon, and using the fortune that he still possessed, he purchased a profitable post as a scriba quaestorius, a record-keeper for the Quaestors. It was at this time that he first began to write poetry seriously.

In time Horace’ talent was recognized by Rome’s literary elite, including the poets Virgil and Varius Rufus who introduced him to Maecenas, an advisor to Emperor Augustus and Rome’s foremost literary patron. It was through the considerable financial and political support of Maecenas that Horace’ reputation grew over the next two decades, so that by 17 B.C. he had become so respected and admired that he was generally considered the national poet of Rome.

Horace died at the age of 57, having never married and leaving no heirs. On his death bed, he bequeathed his estate in the Sabine hills, which had originally a present from Maecenas, to the Emperor Augustus.

Horace was short and fat and prematurely grey, and while he was known for his general tolerance and kindness toward others, at the same time he could also be quite mocking and biting in his speech. He was very loyal and his close friendships were extremely important to him, a sentiment evident in many of his poems.

He never married but it is well known that he had an active sexual life anyway. And while this hedonistic tendency shows up frequently in his poetry, there is simultaneously in his work a genuine hatred of excess and the immoderate life.

Horace’ poems, while they certainly do tell us much about the man himself, cannot always be taken at face value. In fact, he frequently went to great lengths in his writing to disguise his own feelings and opinions, whether from fear of offending certain powerful parties or merely to protect his own privacy. The reader of Horace can easily jump to the conclusion that, through his verse, he is coming to know the poet, apparently a very likeable and outgoing man. But in fact this Horace, narrator of the poems, is largely a poetic persona, a device for creating an intimate atmosphere, and this poetic character is frequently quite different from the man himself.

He, along with Virgil, was the most prominent poet of the Augustan regime, and in some ways an apparent literary puppet of the Emperor. But while Augustus’ friendship and patronage came with the understanding that Horace would to a certain extent use his poetry to glorify the Emperor and his government, Horace still managed to assert, if tactfully, his basic independence. In fact, during his life he is known to have avoided a number of official commissions offered to him by the Emperor for fear that his poetic freedom would be compromised too much if he became too close and too indebted to Augustus. Yet while he was fully aware of Augustus the tyrant, at the same time much of the admiration for the Emperor found in his poetry is genuine. Horace felt a real respect for his benefactor as the man who put an end to the Civil Wars and brought a long age of peace to Rome.

Horace, while popular in his time, was mostly ignored throughout the Middle Ages. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that interest in his poetry truly revived. But then and up through the 17th and 18th centuries he remained highly admired by the lettered classes, including many of England’s leading literary lights. Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, William Collins, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope were all known to revere him highly.

Horace completed four major works in his lifetime. The first, the Satires, is a collection of poems written in hexameter dealing with a variety of themes, including moderation, the wisdom that can be attained through serenity, the harmfulness of ambition, the necessity of mutual tolerance among humans, and Horace’ own rejection of public life. On the surface the Satires appear to be highly autobiographical, but in fact much of it is quite obviously made up. And while these poems are certainly satirical in tone, the satire here has a very soft edge, with Horace generally choosing to substitute the personal attacks typical of the genre with more general criticisms of universal human failings or social abuses.

The second work, the Epodes, written mostly in iambic, is satirical as well. And while these poems are generally more biting than the Satires, they are still relatively tame compared to most poems of this type by other authors.

Next is the Odes, or Carmina. These are lyric poems dealing with the subjects of friendship, love, and the practice of poetry.

The last work is the Epistles. These pieces are hexametrical poems written in the form of letters addressed to a variety of different recipients. They include what is perhaps the most famous of Horace’ poems, the Ars Poetica, a treatise on poetry and its composition.

Below are two of Horace’ most famous passages, Odes, Book 3, Poem 30, and Odes, Book 1, Poem 11, first in the original Latin and then in an English translation by John Conington.

Q. HORATI FLACCI CARMINVM LIBER TERTIVS

THE THIRD BOOK OF SONGS (ODES) BY QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS

Q. HORATI FLACCI CARMINVM LIBER PRIMUS

THE FIRST BOOK OF SONGS (ODES) BY QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS