PREFACE
The known facts on which to base any work on Horace are very meagre and while a great deal of writing is based on surmise and speculation, it is precisely that and no more. It is the habit of commentators to analyse his work and then synthesise his motives and from that basis to attempt to recreate his persona. However since his works have also been translated many times and their exact meaning has been the continual source of academic argument, the foundation on which such arguments are based are as insubstantial as shifting sands. Horace still retains his mystery.
Much of the problem lies in the perception of Horace himself that succeeding generations of his admirers have held. There have always been 'fashions' in Horace throughout the two thousand years since his death. These fashions have tended to mould Horace and his works into preconceived notions that may well have done a disservice to his memory. There has never been any argument that he was not a perfect poet of the Augustan age; the argument has always been on whether he was also a man of his age. Whether aestheticism in literature also implied aestheticism in living and perfection in poetical construction also meant perfection in moral standards.
When it is commented that Horace wrote poems about physical love, a standard reaction is that he did so at second hand and that he sublimated physical ecstasy into spiritual commentary. It is very hard to reconcile the earlier Epodes, particularly 8 and 12 or the Satire I,2., with this theory. Nor can it really be reconciled with some of his last works, particularly Odes IV,1 and IV,13. It surely was as a man, as well as a poet, that he wrote in his youth 'Tument tibi cum inguina, num, si ancilla aut verna est praesto puer, impetus in quem continuo fiat, malis tentigine rumpi? Non ego' (Satire 1, 2. 116/9) or, in his old age, 'Quo fugit Venus, heu, quove color? Decens quo motus? Quid habes illius, illius, quae spirabat amores, quae me surpuerat mihi' (Ode IV, 13. 17/20). Yet it has always seemed that Horace, having once been placed on a pedestal for his literary genius, could never be taken down again and admitted to have partaken wholeheartedly of the earthy appetites of his own time.
What may have diverted such a perception is the fact that the works of Horace always seem to have been made indivisible from the books in which they were published. For although Horace's output falls naturally into clear areas of subject matter such as Love, Friendship, Duty, Social Commentary and similar, it is seldom, if ever, presented in these groups so that we can judge by other standards than historical sequence. Yet if this is done there is an immediate awareness of a pattern emerging. His love poems become grouped by the same personalities occurring again and again, as though Horace was passing through a specific emotional encounter each time. It then becomes even more difficult to sustain an argument of sublimated love.
Yet no one would doubt Horace on the subjects of treachery, civil war, fighting a battle, defeat, fear of death or abject surrender. He experienced all of these under Brutus and at Philippi; why doubt him on matters of the heart? Suetonius, the historian of the first/second century AD, when he wrote 'The Life of Horatius Flaccus' had no doubts on Horace's attitude to women and love and he was writing of someone no further away than say, for us, the late Victorian poets. In his brief life of Horace, Suetonius states that Horace was born in Venusia on the 8th of December 65 BC, the son of a freedman, and died on the 27th of November 8 BC. In as much as such matters are of importance, it is now, at the time of writing, around two thousand years since his death. It is a sobering reflection on the constancy of mankind's ambitions and achievements, the range of mankind's perplexities and pursuits, that all of what Horace has to say to us in his poetry is as valid today as it was then, at the beginning of the age of Imperial Rome. What Horace has to say about love, despite his sometimes apparent flippancy and diffidence, is itself equally valid.
There is no record that Horace ever married and in the society in which he lived this is surprising since marriage was apparently a normal state amongst the Establishment, one that, if we are to believe commentators such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio, never seems to have been regarded as a brake upon discreet extra marital intrigue. There are indications in his poems that certain women, on occasion, did act as his hostess as, for instance, Neaera in Ode III 14, on the occasion of Augustus's return from overseas but these hostesses seem to have changed with passing time. Maybe the fact of his humble birth, the son of a freedman, prohibited him from marriage within the higher ranks of society, whereas marriage within his own class would have probably inhibited his social mobility within the level that his poetical skills had gained him access. Horace may equally well have been a confirmed bachelor, satisfied to live an aesthetic, if not an abstemious life.
As regards the impact of love in his life, revealed by his poetry, at least nineteen of the Odes and three of the Epodes are clearly concerned with specific instances with named individuals, women or young men. In addition two of the Epodes are of an erotic and invective nature and two more of the Odes are directed, in a more than emotive manner, to friends. It is from all of these poems together that the attitude of Horace towards the physical, moral and mental impact of love can be gauged, and with it, presumably, that of Imperial Rome, for whom, and about whom, he spoke. Suetonius has left us only the bare, factual bones of Horace; an understanding of the emotional values in his poetry is required to put flesh on them.
In his Satire I, 2, Horace pursues an argument against taking extreme positions in life, gives illustrations then neatly turns the argument into the pursuit of love. The sense of what he has to say is that while some men seek solace in a public brothel where they can pay for such services as they require, some men seek the socially unattainable in pursuing other men's wives, transgressing the social mores and thereby placing themselves in social, financial and even physical jeopardy. Why not seek mutual satisfaction with like minded members of the opposite sex, freedmen or freedwomen as the case may be, where no social barriers are broken and no harm is done. Of course, if desire strikes suddenly, there are always house slaves of either sex on hand to obtain instant relief. It is far better than being caught leaving a brothel by a high minded friend or fleeing from a marriage bed in panic when a husband returns unexpectedly. It is very much the view of a young and rather gauche Horace but nevertheless, the roots from which the poet ultimately sprang.
From there, the pattern of love affairs throughout the progression of the Odes and Epodes, after some earlier problems, soon settles down to some semblance of continuity. Epode 11 is an apparent renunciation of love poetry in favour of love itself. Epode 14 describes the disastrous effect his affair with Phrynea, a freedwoman is having on his work; Epode 15 laments the inconstancy of Neaera, while the famous Ode I, 5, in carefully controlled grief, explains to a rival what tribulation and deceit lies ahead for him with a certain Pyrrha. The first woman that Horace appears to have been more than casually involved with is Lydia, who appears in four Odes, I, 8, 13 and 25 and III, 9 . In the first Horace, an observer, describes the effect of Lydia on a friend, in the second Horace himself is involved, jealously resenting any approach by others to his lover, while in the third, Horace, no doubt repaying past hurts, apparently delivers a devastating broadside against a woman now well past her prime. The last poem on Lydia is about reconciliation and is difficult to fit into a time sequence since Horace admits to being, by this time, under the influence of Chloe and has already dismissed Lydia as being too old. Glycera appears in Odes I, 19, 30 and 33 and she might seem the logical successor to Lydia, in terms of the progression of the Odes. In the first Horace is bent on enticing her to look favourably upon him, in the second he invokes Venus to his aid, while in the third he commiserates with a friend that the lady is far too faithless for either of them.
Chloe is the next to be be mentioned in the sequence, appearing in Odes I, 23 and 26. In the first example she is still a maiden whom Horace seeks to seduce but she persists in clinging to her mother, while in the second, Horace, invokes the Gods to punish her. In Odes III, 10 and IV, 13 Horace addresses his passion to Lyce. The first is one of entreaty asking that she not be of the mould of Ulysses' Penelope but yield to her importunate suitor, Horace. In the second, like Lydia before, Horace addresses the older woman, with compassion rather than counterblast, as one past her prime and with memories of their earlier love. Ligurinus is a youth and in addressing his love to him, in Odes IV, 1 and 10, Horace seems openly to defy convention, addressing a specific Roman name and in homosexual terms.
Away from his own involvements, Horace was keen to offer his advice to others on matters of the heart. Odes II, 4, 5, and 8; and III, 15, are all concerned with this theme. Ode II, 4 is concerned with advising on Phyllis and the problems she presents to his friend, Odes II, 5 and 8 are likewise concerned with Lalage and Barine while in III, 15 Horace speaks directly to the lady herself concerned, Chloris, advising her that she is far too old to continue her youthful and dissolute lifestyle. Many of Horace's poems are to friends, all beautiful, sensible and to the point but at least two stand out as reaching far deeper into their relationship. Ode II, 12 is really addressed to Licymnia, a pseudonym for Terentia the wife of Maecenas, and while it is written ostensibly to Maecenas himself there is no doubt that Horace's own sensibilities are aroused. Ode IV, 7 is addressed to his friend Torquatus and is perhaps the most beautiful in the entire canon. The theme is approaching death, made more poignant by the concurrent fact of awakening spring and the changing seasons.
Epodes 8 and 12 are, at first sight, disturbing displays of invective coupled with irrational obscenity and it is difficult to assess their place in the canon. It is easy, on the one hand, to dismiss them as casual, youthful exercises but difficult, on the other hand, to reconcile this with a feeling that there is something far deeper than this locked within the overall content of their words. Both are, without question, addressed to older women in scathing terms for raddled appearance, intemperate lust and wholly unrealistic sexual expectations from the presumably young Horace. In Epode 8 Horace is apparently accused of impotency because of fastidiousness and retorts that the other party, in relation to the act of love, is decrepit beyonds the bounds of decency and that he will require help to continue despite the surroundings of silk cushions and Stoic literature. In Epode 12 the lady herself does the seducing but taunts Horace with impotence, which, although prompted by loathing on his part, she suggests is connected with his failings as a man. The retention of these two Epodes within Horace's output undoubtedly reflect an angry young man phase in the poet's development but the tangible disgust that runs through the poetry itself is so manifest that it is difficult to believe that they were creations of fancy alone.
Within the poetry of Horace there lies the soul of a man who has been in love many times; observing, encountering, experiencing and commenting upon every aspect of its effect. The range of emotion, from bawdy humour to almost incandescent beauty must serve to engage the sensibilities of all who read it even though it is, at the same time, the voice of a skilled craftsman moulding the written word.
Thus the Horace that arises out of such considerations of emotion is an inwardly passionate man exercising self restraint, even diffidence, as an external defence against over commitment and, perhaps, ridicule. He would not, of course, fit the image of the strong, silent lover of romantic fiction but one senses that inside the shell there existed a need for the companionship of a partner in love and the hedonistic pleasures that the gratification of healthy sexual appetites bring. That he was able to record these in such a detached and objective manner and in such magnificent poetry should neither diminish his standing as a poet nor as a man.