Horace Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - 8 BC) known in the English world as Horace was the leading lyric poet in Latin.Horace was the son of a freedman, but himself born free. His father spent considerable money on Horace's education, sending him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Cęsar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He was in the battle of Philippi, and saved himself by fleeing. When an amnesty was declared for those who had fought against the victorious Augustus, he returned to Italy, only to find his father dead, and his estate confiscated. Horace was reduced to poverty. He was, however, able to purchase a clerkship in the quęstor's office, which allowed him to get by and practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Varius; they introduced him to Męcenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Męcenas became his patron and close friend, and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur, contemporary Tivoli.
Horace's surviving work includes:
- Four books of Odes, longer poems, usually on mythological subjects;
- A book of Epodes, containing shorter poems;
- Two books of Satires, and
- Two books of Letters or Epistles, and
- The Carmen Sęculare.
Horace is generally considered by classicists to be, along with Virgil, the greatest of the Latin poets. He wrote many Latin phrases that remain in use, in Latin or in translation, including carpe diem, "seize the day," and aurea mediocritas, the "golden mean." His works are highly derivative of Greek models, and written exclusively in Greek metres, from the hexameter, which was relatively easy to adapt to Latin, to the more complex measures used in the Odes, like Alchaics and Sapphics, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. No Latin writer handles these metres with such grace, precision and lightness of touch, although Catullus comes close. The Satires and Epistles are his most personal works, and perhaps the most accessible to contemporary readers unable to appreciate the verbal magic of the Odes.
Graļs ingenium, Graļs dedit ore rotundo
Musa loqui, pręter laudem nullius avaris. . .
--- "It was the genius of a Greek that first taught the Muse to sing, a Greek seeking nothing but praise."
See also: Horace (disambiguation) for other people named Horace.
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